Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 13 - Section III
De la Cherois.
The noble family of De la Cherois were for several centuries the Seigneurs of Chery, or Cheroy, or La Cheroye, in the province of Champagne; this seigneurie was in the neighbourhood of Sens, the ancient capital of the Sennones. Their title is preserved in the surname of the good Irish family of De la Cherois, which we pronounce Delàsshery. And at Carrowdore Castle in County Down, many interesting documents illustrative of their genealogy are preserved, from which it appears that their patronymic was de Choiseul, and their title was De la Cheroy; the surname, however, came into the family in the fifteenth century through an heiress, Catherine de Choiseul, who became the wife of Seigneur Jean, and was the mother of Seigneur Claude. Towards the end of that century Claude de Choiseul, Seigneur de Chery, and Maitre des Requetes, married Marie de Beauvais des Ormes. In the sixteenth century we meet with Jean, Seigneur de Chery, whose son flourished in 1616, and was styled, Robert, Seigneur de Chery, de Beauchamp (en Bourgogne), et de la Chapelle.
The refugees were descended from the Languedoc branch of this family, founded by Samuel de la Cheroy, a captain in the French Army, who married an heiress in that Province. His captain’s commission from Louis XIII., dated in 1641, was extant until recently. The Ulster Journal gives us some hints as to the sufferings of his family for their Protestant faith. “The first of this family (the writer informs us) who settled in Ireland felt so deeply the utter ruin of his fortunes and his banishment from his country, that, in his anxiety to spare his children unavailing regret, he always evaded entering into the particulars of his history. . . . After the general flight, only two members of the family were known to have remained in France — two deaf and dumb co-heiresses, who had been placed for education in a convent; immediately on the departure of their rightful guardians they were forcibly detained, and their property was confiscated for the use of the convent.” The refugees, the five children of “Le Capitaine Samuel,” were Daniel, Nicholas, and Bourjonval, and their sisters Judith and Louise.
The eldest son, Daniel de la Cherois, intended to have spent his life as a country gentleman; but persecution drove him into Holland, where his military brothers had gone before him. There, in his zeal for William of Orange, he volunteered into his army, joined the expedition into England, and served during the campaigns in Ireland. In 1693 he left the army, and received from the king the Dutch appointment of governor of Pondicherry in the East Indies. At the peace of Ryswick, Pondicherry was restored to France, to which it had belonged before the war; Mr de la Cherois wound up his affairs and realised a large fortune. In 1699 he finally returned, first to London and then to Lisburn. On 7th December 1699 he was married, in the Swallow Street French Church, London, to Marie Angelique Crommelin, daughter of Abraham Crommelin by Marie, daughter of Samuel Boileau, “Heer van Caisse” and “Bailliu van Cramaille.” In the register he is styled of “Ham in Picardy,” and she “of St Quentin,” where she was born on 9th October 1663. “He seems,” says the Ulster Journal, “never to have given up the hope of recovering some of his former possessions in France, and is said to have gone over there himself secretly, several times, with this fruitless expectation.” She died at Lisburn in 1710, and he in September 1732. He left an only child and heiress, Marie Angelique Madeline,[1] who was married first to Philip Grueber, Esq., of Feversham Park, Kent, and secondly, to the Hon. Thomas Montgomery, afterwards the fifth Earl of Mount Alexander. At his death, without issue, she became the heiress of the Mount Alexander estates in the County of Down.
The second refugee brother was Nicholas, born about 1651; he and the youngest, named Bourjonval, were officers in the army, and their commissions are among the family papers. Nicholas was enrolled as a lieutenant of fusileers on the 12th April 1675, and was promoted to the command of a company on the 16th November 1677; the latter commission is addressed, “Pour le Sr. de la Cheroy.” In 1686 he received leave of absence for two months. In August he was given the command of a recruiting party, and the “route” given to him is preserved. He undertook to get recruits at Liege; and a passport was granted to him, dated at Strasbourg, 22nd October 1686, which describes him as “about thirty-five years of age, with chestnut-coloured hair, wearing a perruque, captain of the king’s regiment of fusilecrs, going to Liege to enlist recruits for his regiment and for his company.” It is supposed that this employment afforded him an opportunity to quit France altogether, as we next find him, on the 17th July 1687, receiving a Dutch commission, in which he is styled Nicholas de la Cherois, late captain in the service of the King of France. He received a similar commission in the English service in 1689. He, with his brothers, served in Ireland under King William, whom he followed to Flanders, continuing in active service until the peace of Ryswick. He was promoted to the rank of Major, 1st August 1694, and took the sacrament and the oaths on the 3d of February following. The commission from William and Mary to Nicholas de la Cherois, Esq., appoints him “to be Major of our regiment of foot commanded by our trusty and well-beloved, the Comte de Marton, and likewise to be captain of a company in the same.” The Ulster Journal thus narrates the remainder of his career. “After King William’s death, he served under Marlborough, and distinguished himself on several occasions. Tradition records that one of his promotions was received in consequence of his having made 150c men lay down their arms, with only a subaltern’s guard; and that he also received a reward of 1500 crowns. His commission as Lieut.-Colonel was drawn out, but not gazetted, when he unfortunately lost his life about the year 1706, through the carelessness of an apothecary who sent him poison instead of medicine.” He had married a sister of the great Crommelin, called Marie in the pedigree,[2] although registered as Madelaine on February 25th, 1694 (n.s.), on the occasion of the baptism of her daughter, Marie Madelaine, born 21st January of that year. Besides this daughter, he left a son, Samuel. The daughter was married to Daniel, son of Samuel Louis Crommelin. The son founded the senior line of the De la Cherois family in Ireland.
Bourjonval De la Cherois, the youngest military refugee, held a French commission dated 1677, and an English one dated 1689. He rose to the rank of lieutenant. He fought gallantly at the battle of the Boyne. In the same year (1690) he was at the head of a small party of men near Dungannon, when he was overpowered by superior numbers who attacked him unexpectedly; he made a brave resistance, but was killed in the skirmish. He was a favourite brother and unmarried.
The two maiden sisters took refuge first at Bois-le-Duc, and then at Leyden, where they were disposed to settle for life; but at last they yielded to the pressing invitation of their family, and came to Ireland. According to Presbyterian custom, they brought a tesmoinage or certificate from the consistory, to the following effect:—
“We, the undersigned, being pastors and elders of the Walloon Church of Leyden, certify that Mesdemoiselles Judith and Louise de la Cherois, natives of the town of Ham in Picardy, after having given up their all in France for the sake of the Church, and having spent some years at Bois-le-Duc, from whence they brought a favourable certificate, retired to Leyden where they have resided these four years, during which period they have conducted themselves in a most Christian and edifying manner, giving proof of their piety and zeal by assiduously frequenting our sacred assemblies, participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper on all the occasions of its celebration, and exhibiting on all occasions such wisdom, humility and modesty as have won for them the esteem of every one.”
This certificate is signed by two pasteurs and three anciens; dated 5th July 1693. Louise did not long survive this change of residence. But Judith lived to the age of 113, and two or three days before her death, she proved the remarkable possession of her faculties by teaching a child to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. She never acquired the English language, having been discouraged in some early attempts to speak English by the unrestrained ridicule of Irish listeners. [See the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol. i. pp. 216, 217, 219, 220; vol. ii., pp. 180, 181.]