His name does not appear until the era of the Westminster Assembly and the Long Parliament. The City of London French Church claimed the charge of all the French Protestants in London, and resisted the formation of a congregation in Westminster. About 1641 the Due de Soubise, being physically unable to go to the City Church, provided service in a room in his house, which he opened for public worship. Perhaps Monsieur D’Espagne was the preacher to this courtly congregation; at all events, we find him established under the patronage of the Parliament when (as above stated) his name first appears. That he had long resided in England appears from his Dedication of his book on “Popular Errors” to King Charles I. in 1648, to whom he says, “The deceased king, father of your Majesty, was pleased to command the impression [i.e., to order the printing and publication] of a manuscript which was the first fruits of my pen.” In 1647 Mr. D’Espagne’s congregation met in the house of the Earl of Pembroke; and many of his published pieces were originally sermons preached before that auditory. He obtained celebrity among the nobility and gentry. The consequence was, that during the Commonwealth, when Presbyterian and Congregationalist worship prevailed, and when the liturgy of the Anglican Church was under interdict, the fact that such an aristocratic congregation and such attractive preaching was under the protection of the men in power, was the occasion of a large accession of members to Mr. D’Espagne’s church. They found more ample accommodation in Durham House in the Strand. And on the pulling down of that mansion, Parliament, on 5th April 1653, gave them the use of the chapel of Somerset House.[1] Pasteur D’Espagne dedicated a tractate to Oliver Cromwell, probably in 1652, for the English translation issued in 1655 has the following addition:— “An Advertisement to the Reader, who is to understand that this book in the originall made its addresses to his Highness the Lord Protector at that time when he was onely Generall of the Armies of the Commonwealth.” The original Dedication began thus:
“A Son Excellence, Messire Olivier Cromwell, General des Armées de la Republique d’Angleterre. Monseigneur, Ni le temps ni aucun changement ne me rendront jamais ingrat envers mes bien-faicteurs. Mon troupeau et moy demeurons eternellement redevables à tous ceux qui ont esté membres du dernier Parlement, specialement au Seigneur Comte de Pembroke, au Seigneur Whitlock l’un des Commissaires du Grand-Sceau, et a un grand nombre d’autres personnes honorables. Nous sommes aussi grandement obligez au tres-honorable Conseil d’Etat qui est a present, et, entre tous, au Noble Chevalier Gilbert Pickering et a Monsieur Stricland. Mais sur tout nous devons à Votre Excellence un remerciement particulier et perpetuel,” &c.
Mr. D’Espagne did not survive till the Restoration, and thus was spared from sharing in the liturgical disputes inaugurated by the jovial king; he died 25th April 1659, aged 68. As already stated, Dr. De Garencieres was one of his converts; he wrote an epitaph for his spiritual father in the following terms:
JOHANNES DESPAGNE, Sti. Evangelii Minister,
Doctrinâ Singulari,
Studio indefesso,
Morum suavitate,
Adversorum tolerantiâ,
inclytus,
Post exantlatos in Dei vineae cultura per annos 42 labores
Meritus orbis admirationem
Quotquot bonorum recordationem,
Famâ, non solum legibus, sed etiam calumniatorum ore
confitente et chirographo, integrâ,
Et (quod caput est) Ecclesiâ Gallo-Westmonâsteriensi
(in cujus sinu corpus ejus conditur)
auspiciis suis et ductu,
Hispanis frustrà reluctantibus,
fundatâ.
Senio confectus, sensibus integer, mori se sentiens
placidé ultimùm dormivit,
Anno 1659, Aprilis 25, AEtatis 68.
Theophilus de Garencieres, D. Med.,
ejus proselyta, posuit.
Dr. De Garencières prefixed three sets of verses, one in French, one in Latin,
- ↑ John Evelyn writes on 3d August 1656: “In the afternoon I went to the French Church in the Savoy, when I heard Monsieur D’Espagne catechize.”
