Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/195

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families founded by refugees from flanders.
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James Burkin, merchant in London (their children were registered in the Dutch Church); another daughter, Leonora, was married, first, on 7th July 1658, to Charles Marisco [Marescaux], merchant, of London, and secondly, on 28th September 1675, to Jacob David.

Of the sons, Peter died at Ilford in 1646, aged ten. Samuel, born in Amsterdam in 1643, was perhaps the most prosperous of all, but he lived a bachelor; on 12th July 1694 he was elected one of the first Board of Directors of the Bank of England; on 18th July 1695 he paid the fine to be excused the acceptance of the office of Sheriff. Narcissus Luttrell writes on 7th February 1710 (n.s.), “Samuel Lethulier, Esq., an eminent merchant of this citty, is dead, and, ’tis said, has left an estate to the value of £100,000.” There were also twin sons, William and Abraham, born 2nd December 1646. William married Mary, daughter of Henry Powell, of London, merchant; he died at his house in Maddox Street, Hanover Square, 9th February 1733. In 1688 he had three daughters, Mary, Sarah, and Anne, and two sons, John and William; after 1688 he appears to have had a son, Henry, probably Henry Lethieullier, Esq., a Director of the South Sea Company in 1721. Abraham Lethieullier married Protesay, daughter of Edward Pitts, of London, linen-draper; in 1688 he had Mary, Jane, and Abraham; after 1688 he had a daughter Anne, who was married to Christopher Burrow, of Holborn, a Director of the East India Company, son of Thomas Burrow and Jane Lethieullier, and grandson of Sir Christopher Lethieullier. Luttrell writes, “21st June 1705. This morning Mr. Abraham Lethulier, an eminent merchant, being melancholly, hanged himself.”

But the two elder sons of John Lethieullier and Jane de la Forterie, named John and Christopher, demand special notice. For the sake of clearness, we shall speak of them as knights, the rank to which they attained.

(1.) Sir John Lethieullier, the refugee’s eldest son, was born in 1633; he married in London, 18th May 1658, Ann, daughter of Sir William Hooker, knight and alderman. Pepys is not complimentary to Hooker, who (says the diarist) “keeps the poorest, mean, dirty table in a dirty house that ever I did see any Sheriff of London, and a plain, ordinary, silly man I think he is, but rich.” But he goes on to say, “Only his son, Mr Lethieuillier, I like for a pretty, civil, understanding merchant, and — the more by much — because he happens to be husband to our noble, fat, brave lady in our parish that my wife and I admire so.” John Lethieullier was elected Sheriff of London in 1674, and was knighted at Guildhall on the 29th October of that year. He became a widower in 1702. He was an influential member of the Old East India Company. The Historical Register announced: “4th January 1719. Died, Sir John Lethieullier of Lewisham in Kent, knight, aged ninety years. He was, in fact, about eighty-six. He had four daughters, of whom Anne (born 1663) was married on 17th April 1683, to John Delaune, of London, merchant (she married, secondly, Sir William Dodwell of Sevenhampton, Gloucestershire, and died in 1719). The youngest daughter, Leonora, died in 1717, unmarried, aged thirty-eight; Letitia, who was aged twenty-two in 1688, died unmarried, and Jane in early childhood. As to Sir John’s two surviving sons, I begin with the second, William, who was by birth the third, named after Sir William Hooker, but Sir John was so anxious to do honour to his father-in-law, that after the death of one William, he gave his name to the next son, born in 1672. William Lethieullier, Esq., married, first, Mary, daughter of Nicolas Manning of Hamburgh, merchant, and secondly, Miss Salkeld; and, according to the Dublin Journal, he died on 3d April 1743. His son was Colonel William Lethieullier, F.A.S., who married, on 10th April 1733, Kitty, third daughter of Sir John Tash, knight, alderman of Walbrook Ward; he was celebrated as an Egyptian traveller and collector of curiosities, and dying in 1756, bequeathed to the British Museum “a very perfect mummy,” and a curious collection of English antiquities. The eldest son of Sir John Lethieullier was John Lethieullier, Esq., of Aldersbrooke in Essex, where he settled in 1693. He married in 1695, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Joseph Smart of Havering in Essex, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. The death of this lady is thus recorded in the Historical Register:— “1724, Nov. 20, Died Mrs. Lethieullier, wife of John Lethieullier of Aldersbrook, in the county of Essex, Esq., of a contusion she received in her head by the overturning of her coach.” Mr. Lethieullier was reported to be aged twenty-nine in the year 1688, and must have been born in 1659; at his death, in 1737, he must have been in his seventy-eighth year, although the Historical Register says, “January 1737. Died in the eightieth year of his age, at his house in Ormond Street, John Lethieullier, Esq., merchant, and son of the late Sir John Lethieullier, knight.” His eldest son John had predeceased him; he was therefore succeeded by his second son, Smart. His third, and second surviving, son was Charles Lethieullier, LL.D., F.A.S., Fellow of All-Souls’ College, Oxford, and Counsellor-at-law,