Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 12 - Section VI
VI. Clergy of the Bouverie Family.
(1.) Prebendary J. Bouverie. — Rev. John Bouverie was the second son of Edward, of Delapre Abbey; he was rector of Woolbeding in Sussex, and a prebendary of Lincoln. Born 13th January 1779, died 9th June 1855, aged seventy-six.
(2.) Prebendary E. Bouverie. — Rev. Edward Bouverie, second son of Bartholomew Bouverie, M.P., was born 15th August 1783. He was vicar of Coleshill, also a chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, and a prebendary of Salisbury. He married, 20th November 1811, Frances Charlotte, daughter of Henry Reginald Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter; in 1835 this lady’s brother succeeded to the peerage as eleventh Earl of Devon, and she became Lady Frances Bouverie; she died 29th March 1854. The prebendary survived till 22d July 1874, having almost completed his ninety-first year.
(3.) Archdeacon Bouverie. — Rev. William Arundell Bouverie, the third son of Bartholomew Bouverie, M.P., was born 6th February 1797. He was rector of Denton Harleston, and Archdeacon of Norfolk. He died 23d August 1877, aged eighty.
(4.) Canon Pleydell Bouverie. — Hon. and Rev. Frederick Pleydell Bouverie was the third son of Jacob, second Earl of Radnor. He was born 16th November 1785. He became B.A. of All Souls’ College, Oxford, in 1805, M.A. in 1810. In 1816 he was rector of Pewsey in Wiltshire, and in 1826 rector of Whippingham in the Isle of Wight, and Canon of Salisbury. He married 1814, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Joseph Sullivan, Bart, of Thames Ditton, and by her had six sons and seven daughters. The eldest son, Frederick William, is a Rear-Admiral; the second, Laurence, is a Lieutenant-Colonel, and the fourth is Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Arthur Pleydell Bouverie Campbell, of Dunoon. Canon Pleydell Bouverie died on 6th June 1857, in his seventy-second year.
(5.) Rev. Edward Bouverie Pusey, D.D. — As already detailed, this celebrated divine was a grandson of Jacob Bouverie, first Viscount Folkestone. He was born on 22d August 1800. He was educated at Eton, whence he went to the University of Oxford, which was his residence during the remainder of his life. He graduated in 1822 with honours as a first-class in classics, and became a Fellow of Oriel College. In 1828 he was made Regius Professor of Hebrew and a Canon of Christ Church. In that year he married Maria Catherine, youngest daughter of Raymond Barker, Esq. of Fairford Park, Gloucestershire. (She died in 1839, leaving a son, Philip Edward, who died before his father, and two daughters.)
His first appearance as an author was also in 1828, and was occasioned by Rev. Hugh James Rose’s Lectures on German Rationalism. Pusey’s book was rather a rival performance than a reply. Rose approved of rational theology within certain limits, and found the germs of rationalism (in the offensive sense) among the successors of the Protestant Reformers. Pusey found the rationalistic germs in the nature and circumstances of the Protestant Reformation itself. This book, which he withdrew from circulation in 1834, I might have passed over without notice, if it had not been that it was the author’s first note in his denunciations of Protestantism, and in his declaration of war between the Catholic system and the Genevan. The French Protestants, like all Christendom, have heard of the Anglican party of anti-Protestants, named Puseyites, after this descendant of the refugees. They have been startled by hearing that a scion of such stock, although not himself joining the Romish priesthood, should advocate a theory of the Lord’s Supper but slightly different from the Romish mass, also the confessional, priestly absolution, convents, &c, &c, &c. Dr. Pusey became known as a leader in the Romanizing direction in 1833, the date of the publication of No. 1 of those Oxford “Tracts for the Times” (which occasioned the nickname of Tractarians), which were continued until the series had reached No. 90. He was a partner in their production from the first, although he was the actual writer of none until No. 18. In 1843 he preached before Oxford University on the “Holy Eucharist,” and was suspended from preaching before the University for three years. This is not the place for enlarging on such a subject. Dr. Merle D’Aubigné has expressed the astonishment of the descendants of the Huguenot refugees in their own language,[1] thus:—
Notwithstanding all his lofty disdain of non-Catholics, it is satisfactory that the progress of events led Dr. Pusey to claim a brotherhood with all believers in “the supernatural,” and in the inspiration and integrity of the Scriptures. In 1860 he entered into the field of Old Testament prophecy in vindication of the holy prophets — their superhuman predictions and large Messianic references. In 1864 he published a most valuable work, entitled “Daniel the Prophet.” His determined Protestant opponent, Dr. Jeune (Bishop of Peterborough), wrote:— “While I venture to oppose the teaching of eminent men, I am not insensible to the claims which they may have on our reverence and gratitude. What member of the Church of Christ can be unthankful to Dr. Pusey for his wonderful work on the Prophet Daniel?”[2] In this, and in his commentary on the Minor Prophets, Dr. Pusey served his generation well as a Hebrew scholar and professor. The publication of his accurate and interesting commentary on the Hebrew text of the Twelve Minor Prophets was begun in 1860 and completed in 1877. It is full of devotional matter, in which, amidst some Puseyism, there is much in common with Evangelical Protestants, even as to the foundations of the Christian hope and of the Christian life. Thus, while we grieve that he should say that Zechariah’s prophecy of a fountain open for sin and for uncleanness is fulfilled in baptism, and that Malachi’s prophecy of a pure offering is fulfilled in the “unbloody sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist,” we cordially accept two of his comments on the prophecies of Micah:—
vii. 19. He will subdue our iniquities, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. “It is a Gospel before the Gospel. God would pardon, and He, not we, would subdue sin in us. He would bestow
of sin the double cure,
Save us from its guilt and power.”
vi. 8. Walk humbly with thy God. “It is not a crouching before God displeased, but the humble love of the forgiven. Walk humbly, as the creature with the Creator, but in love, with thine own God. Humble thyself with God, Who humbled Himself in the flesh. Walk on with Him, who is thy Way. Neither humility nor obedience alone would be true graces; but to cleave fast to God, because He is thine All, and to bow thyself down, because thou art nothing, and thine All is He and of Him. It is altogether a Gospel precept.”
Dr. Pusey died at Ascot Priory, where he happened to be on a visit, on 16th September 1882, in his eighty-third year. He was buried at Christ Church, Oxford.
*⁎* There are still, as of old, two French churches in London, one in the city, and one in the West-end — the former maintaining the platform of public worship of Charenton and Friedrichsdorf; the latter using Durell’s Anglican liturgy translated into French. As to the former, I have spoken of its modern condition in my memoir of Rev. David Primerose. The latter I mention here, because the Rev. Frederick William Bryon Bouverie, LL.B., is the present incumbent, having been elected by the vestry in 1870. His place of worship in the first part of the Clergy List is styled " the French Anglican Church of St. John (la Savoy) it ought to have been “La Savoie;” in the second part it is called the French Episcopal Chapel, Bloomsbury. The annual salary is £260.