Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 13 - Section I

by David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

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Chapter XIII.

DESCENDANTS OF THE EARLIER REFUGEES KNOWN IN CONNECTION WITH LITERATURE AND THE ARTS, PHYSIC AND LAW.

As we have to range over nearly three centuries, we cannot classify the individuals memorialized, but must adopt a chronological arrangement.

I. Gideon Delaune, and others.

In my Fifth Chapter I have memorialized the Pasteur Guillaume De Laune, who was also a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. His eldest son was Gedeon de Laune, anglice Gideon Delaune, who was brought over to England by his refugee parents. Although he did not aspire to be a medical practitioner, yet he is the only son who still has some fame, being remembered as apothecary to King James I. He is entered as such in 1618 in the Government List of Strangers. His bust now stands in the Apothecaries’ Hall, London. He acquired the property of Sharsted, in Kent, which (as it is not referred to in his will) he must have made over in his own lifetime to his eldest son Abraham. In Richard Smyth’s Obituary there is this entry:— “March 3, 1658-9. Mr. Gideon de Lawne, apothecary in Black Fryers, aged ninety-two, buried.”

He had married, first, Judith Chamberlan, and secondly, Jane, who survived him. Although he had nine children, yet his line became extinct in the third generation. I have information only as to the eldest son Abraham, of Sharsted; he married Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Sondes, of Throwley, Kent. The eldest son of this couple became Sir William Delaune; he was a merchant of London, knighted at Whitehall on 10th January 1664 (n.s.), who had married, first, Anne, daughter and heir of Captain Thomas Heywood, of Gillingham, and secondly (in 1662), Dorcas, daughter of Sir Robert Barkham, of Weynflete, Lincolnshire.^[1] Sir William had by his second wife a son William (who perhaps was William Delaune, Esq., of Doddington, M.P. for Kent from 1714 to 1722, and married to Miss Swift on 8th December 1721). The second and third sons of Abraham Delaune, named George and Michael, both came to untimely deaths. George had married in December 1660 Dorothea, daughter of Sir Thomas Allen. His death is mentioned by Richard Smyth: “27th Dec. 1662. Mr. De Laun, merchant in Lothbury, with his wife and whole family and some lodgers, was burnt with his house — not one person saved.” Samuel Pepys’ Diary suggests the remarks that the people of London made on this dismal calamity: “1662, Dec. 29. To Westminster Hall, where I staid reading at Mrs. Mitchell’s shop. She told me what I heard not of before, the strange burning of Mr. De Laun, a merchant’s house in Lothbury, and his lady (Sir Thomas Allen’s daughter) and her whole family; not one thing, dog nor cat, escaping; nor any of the neighbours almost hearing of it till the house was quite down and burnt. How this should come to passe, God knows, but a most strange thing it is.” The news spread into Wales, and the Rev. Philip Henry noted the event in his diary thus: — “1663, January 7. I heard of y^e burning of Mr. Delawn’s house near lothbury in london, in y^e flames whereof perisht himsf wife children and servants to the number of 10 or 12. twas a brick house, the fire began in y^e lowest roomes, twas on Dec. 25 at night.” A few years later Michael Delaune, while walking, was killed by a fall of bricks from a house. The English Delaunes descend from a brother or brothers of Gideon, the Royal Apothecary; but I have not the means of tracing and affiliating them.^[2] There were two names of some celebrity. Thomas Delaune, being challenged to the work by the Anglican Reverend Dr. Benjamin Calamy, wrote and published “A Plea for the Non-Conformists,” together with some strictures on Infant Baptism, for which he suffered imprisonment in the reign of Charles II. There was also Rev. William Delaune, D.D., of St. John Baptist’s College, Oxford, BA. in 1683, B.D. in 1688, and D.D. in 1697, President of his College, March 12, 1698 (n.s.), for four years successively Vice-Chancellor of the University, Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity, Rector of Chilbolton in Hampshire, Prebendary of Winchester in 1701, Prebendary of Worcester in 1714. He died the 3d of May 1728, aged sixty-nine. After the Revolution of 1688, the Non-jurors, having expected him to adhere to their party, bore him a grudge, which found vent after his death in a satirical Latin epitaph, describing him as tenuis in body but tumens in spirit. But his true monument is a volume containing “Twelve Sermons upon several subjects and occasions,” by William Delaune, D.D., President of St. John’s College, Oxford, and Margaret Professor of Divinity. London, 1728.

1. Lady Delaune was left a widow, and remarried with Sir Edward Dering, of Gray’s Inn.
2. The late lamented Colonel Chester intended to print a very minute Delaune pedigree, and so contented himself with answering, in a letter to myself, only a very few questions, for which I was duly grateful, and can now only regret that he did not live to print the pedigree. He informed me that the old pasteur and physician was the progenitor of all the Delaunes in England.