M. Sanxay resolved to go to England, and spent his days of grace in disposing of some of his effects, and removing his furniture from St. Jean d’Angely to La Rochelle. At that port, the last day of grace having arrived, he found no ship sailing for England, and had to embark in a ship for Holland. However a providential storm drove them into Plymouth harbour, and he and his wife and three children took a house in that town. In a coffee-house he met Mr. Jonkin, a Cornish squire. The conversation turned upon the Protestant refugees from France, who had come in such numbers as to attract universal notice and commiseration. M. Sanxay gave Mr. Jonkin a faithful narrative of the persecution, and of his own sufferings; and that gentleman said to him that he could give him a house and a good salary, though he could not undertake for his wife and children. The result was that M. Sanxay went to Cornwall as the tutor of Mr. Jonkin’s young family, five sons and a daughter.
Huguenot refugees arrived at Exeter in great numbers. The Bishop of Exeter (Lamplugh) sent for their principal man and asked if a clergyman had come with them. He replied in the negative; but having heard of M. Sanxay, and being informed as to his place of residence in Cornwall, he mentioned him to the Bishop. The refugee pasteur accordingly received a letter from the Episcopal palace, exhorting him to come to Exeter and feed a Huguenot flock that was without a shepherd; the Bishop also offered him the use of one of his churches, and promised to obtain him a pension from the English Government. Such an offer meeting with a suitable response in the pasteur’s heart, Mr. Jonkin not only released him from his engagement, but also sent all his children to board with him in Exeter. The Bishop gave him the church of St. Olave as his place of worship. There M. Sanxay ministered for six or seven years till the day of his death, which was sudden, and suspected to have been occasioned by poison introduced into a cup of coffee by a French spy. He left a daughter, Claudia, whom the Bishop Trelawny adopted, also two sons, Rev. Daniel Sanxay, Rector of Sutton, and James Sanxay, who left on record the information furnished to me. These surviving children are said to have been all born in England, the refugee children having died at very early ages. James Sanxay, on mentioning the refugee pasteur’s death, said, “I was then between three and four years old, so that I cannot remember him.” The Rector of Sutton had a son, and James had a daughter, Claudia. This is all I can glean as to direct descendants; the surname is preserved in the person of a collateral descendant, the Rev. Arthur Henry Sanxay Barwell, M.A., Rector of Clapham, near Worthing.
Chapter XI.
CROMMELIN, PORTAL, COURTAULD, AND THE INDUSTRIAL REFUGEES.
I. Crommelin.
“History and chronology,” says an eloquent Irish writer, “more frequently record those events that tend to the glory rather than to the prosperity of nations. Thus in the various tables of remarkable occurrences, the establishment of our great staple, the Linen Manufacture, is omitted The individual who, in establishing the Linen Manufacture in Ireland, contributed so much to its prosperity, deserves to be memorized amongst our most illustrious countrymen, whether statesmen, legislators, or warriors. The name of this person, now so little known, was Louis Crommelin.”
The Crommelins were a Protestant family in the Province of Picardy.[1] Their residence, and the seat of their manufactures, which brought them great wealth, was Armandcourt, near St. Quentin. They became refugees in Holland. Their founder was Armand Crommelin of Courtray, the father of five sons, Peter of Cambray (died 1609), Joshua of Haarlem (whose six sons left no male descendants), Adrien of Rouen (whose last male representative was a grandson Francis, son of James), Martin (who died in England, unmarried), and John, the ancestor of the British
- ↑ My pedigree may be called the French Refugee Crommelin pedigree. Traced to its remote origin, the family is Dutch, and may be instructively studied in the Genealogie van het geslacht Crommelin, published at Rotterdam in 1879; it contains all the French branches, and has been helpful to me.
