Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 15 - Soubise
Soubise.
Benjamin de Rohan, Seigneur de Soubise, was the brother of the famous Henri, Due de Rohan. He was born in 1583, and presented for baptism by four magistrates of La Rochelle. He aided the Duke in his war with Louis XIII. and Richelieu; but was more engaged in diplomacy and collateral military and naval projects than in fighting along with the main body. He served brilliantly both by land and by sea. He came on an unsuccessful mission to England in 1622, but Louis XIII. having proclaimed him guilty of high treason, he did not dare to return to France till the end of 1623. Again, in 1625, he distinguished himself both as a General and an Admiral, but had to retreat with twenty-two of his ships to England. In 1627 he visited England again as a Huguenot envoy, and obtained permission to levy men and ships for the defence of La Rochelle, and came back in the Duke of Buckingham’s fleet. This expedition came to worse than nothing. After the assassination of Buckingham, the Earl of Lindsey, in the year 1628, appeared before the brave little town with a second fleet, which did no service except to convey the Seigneur Soubise to England in its homeward voyage. Although he was specially included in the pardon granted by the Edict of Nismes in 1629, Soubise never returned to his native country. He took up his abode in London, and died there, unmarried, on 9th October 1642, aged fifty-nine. (The Due de Rohan, his brother, was mortally wounded at the battle of Rheinfelt, and died on 13th April 1638, in his fifty-ninth year.)