next find him, on the 17th July 1687, receiving a Dutch commission, in which he is styled Nicholas de la Cherois, late captain in the service of the King of France. He received a similar commission in the English service in 1689. He, with his brothers, served in Ireland under King William, whom he followed to Flanders, continuing in active service until the peace of Ryswick. He was promoted to the rank of Major, 1st August 1694, and took the sacrament and the oaths on the 3d of February following. The commission from William and Mary to Nicholas de la Cherois, Esq., appoints him “to be Major of our regiment of foot commanded by our trusty and well-beloved, the Comte de Marton, and likewise to be captain of a company in the same.” The Ulster Journal thus narrates the remainder of his career. “After King William’s death, he served under Marlborough, and distinguished himself on several occasions. Tradition records that one of his promotions was received in consequence of his having made 150c men lay down their arms, with only a subaltern’s guard; and that he also received a reward of 1500 crowns. His commission as Lieut.-Colonel was drawn out, but not gazetted, when he unfortunately lost his life about the year 1706, through the carelessness of an apothecary who sent him poison instead of medicine.” He had married a sister of the great Crommelin, called Marie in the pedigree,[1] although registered as Madelaine on February 25th, 1694 (n.s.), on the occasion of the baptism of her daughter, Marie Madelaine, born 21st January of that year. Besides this daughter, he left a son, Samuel. The daughter was married to Daniel, son of Samuel Louis Crommelin. The son founded the senior line of the De la Cherois family in Ireland.
Bourjonval De la Cherois, the youngest military refugee, held a French commission dated 1677, and an English one dated 1689. He rose to the rank of lieutenant. He fought gallantly at the battle of the Boyne. In the same year (1690) he was at the head of a small party of men near Dungannon, when he was overpowered by superior numbers who attacked him unexpectedly; he made a brave resistance, but was killed in the skirmish. He was a favourite brother and unmarried.
The two maiden sisters took refuge first at Bois-le-Duc, and then at Leyden, where they were disposed to settle for life; but at last they yielded to the pressing invitation of their family, and came to Ireland. According to Presbyterian custom, they brought a tesmoinage or certificate from the consistory, to the following effect:—
“We, the undersigned, being pastors and elders of the Walloon Church of Leyden, certify that Mesdemoiselles Judith and Louise de la Cherois, natives of the town of Ham in Picardy, after having given up their all in France for the sake of the Church, and having spent some years at Bois-le-Duc, from whence they brought a favourable certificate, retired to Leyden where they have resided these four years, during which period they have conducted themselves in a most Christian and edifying manner, giving proof of their piety and zeal by assiduously frequenting our sacred assemblies, participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper on all the occasions of its celebration, and exhibiting on all occasions such wisdom, humility and modesty as have won for them the esteem of every one.”
This certificate is signed by two pasteurs and three anciens; dated 5th July 1693. Louise did not long survive this change of residence. But Judith lived to the age of 113, and two or three days before her death, she proved the remarkable possession of her faculties by teaching a child to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. She never acquired the English language, having been discouraged in some early attempts to speak English by the unrestrained ridicule of Irish listeners. [See the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol. i. pp. 216, 217, 219, 220; vol. ii., pp. 180, 181.]
De Laval.
A French Protestant nobleman, Henri d’Albret D’Ully, chevalier, Seigneur Vicomte de Laval, claimed descent from Henri IV. He had large estates in Picardy; his residence was the Chateau of Gourlencour. A picture of that mansion is still preserved, and many spacious white-washed residences in Portarlington are formed upon the model of that and of similar French chateaux. His wife was Magdeleine de Schelandre. The emissaries of persecution broke up this honoured and happy family in August 1688. He was imprisoned in Verneuill, and the Vicomtesse in Sedan. Several years were spent in vicissitudes between liberty and durance. Two of the children of this noble pair were born in French prisons. Sir Erasmus Borrowes possesses a manuscript address from the Vicomte to his children, dated from a prison, “De Guize, le 2 Avril 1689;” it is partly a narrative, and partly an affectionate religious exhortation. His eldest son (afterwards an officer in the British
- ↑ She was the widow of Isaac Testard of Blois, and at the date of her second marriage she was childless.
