Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 16 - Section VI
VI. Dean Drelincourt.
This dignified and munificent clergyman was the son of the famous Charles Drelincourt, Pasteur of Charenton; his grandfather was Pierre Drelincourt, a Protestant native of Caen, who fled for refuge to Sedan. As to the dean’s grandfather, if it be true, it is no disparagement to him that he was a humble tradesman, either a shoemaker or a soap-boiler. This his adversaries proclaimed as a taunt; it at any rate embodied an admission that their information was not at all precise. It is certain that he discharged with credit the office of secretary in the court of the Duc de Bouillon. Charles, his only child, was renowned for his publication, “Consolations de l’ame fidelle contre les terreurs de la mort;” but he was the author of forty other works, some of them displaying solid learning, which occasioned the anagram[1] on his name:—
Charles Drelincovrt — Cher Tresor De Calvin.
He was born at Sedan, the 10th July 1595, and died at Paris, the 3rd November 1669. He had sixteen children, of whom five sons and one daughter survived him. The fifth surviving son was Pierre, who came to England in order to study for the Established Church. The very reverend and learned Dean of Armagh (William Reeves, D.D., LL.D.), now Bishop of Down and Connor, furnished me, with his usual kindness and courtesy, with the following chronological memoir:—
Peter Drelincourt, sixth son of Charles Drelincourt, born in Paris, July 22, 1644. Came to Ireland as chaplain to the Duke of Ormond. His employment by the Duke may have been due to the services of his brother, Charles, the physician to King William III.
1681. Spring commencement — graduated M.A. in the University of Dublin.
1681. August 18. Appointed Precentor of Christ-Church Cathedral, Dublin, which office he held till death.
1683. October 17 Presented by the Crown to the Rectories of Powerstown and of Shankhill, in the diocese of Leighlin.
1683. Oct. 31. Collated Archdeacon of Leighlin, and instituted Nov. 11. Resigned this preferment in Feb. 1691, on his appointment to the Deanery of Armagh.
1690-1. Dean of Armagh by patent dated Feb. 18, and installed March 14; at which time he also became rector of Armagh.
1691. Spring commencement. He graduated LL.D. in the University of Dublin.
He published a pamphlet with the following title:— “A Speech made to his Grace the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and to the Lords of his Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council. To return the humble thanks of the French Protestants lately arriv’d in this kingdom and graciously reliev’d by them. By P. Drelincourt, Domestic Chaplain to his Grace the Duke of Ormond, and Chantor of Christ-Church. Published by Special Command. 4to. Dublin 1682, pp. 8.”
Inscription on the mural tablet over his monument in Armagh Cathedral against North Wall of the Nave:—
En tibi, Lector,
effigies Petri Drelincourtii, LLD.
e Drelincurtiorum gente Parisiense
liberali et eruditâ,
in qua pater claruit Carolus
cui, quod Fides Reformata latius effulgeat
debent populares
quod mortem non extimescant.
Christiani universi
hunc habent studiorum pariter et morum exemplar.
Patriam reliquit adolescens
Fcclesiae Anglicanae desiderio,
non suae infortunio;
habuitque Angliam
non Asylum sed Patriam,
ubi visus est Jacobo Ormondiaa Ducis, dignus
qui sibi esset a sacris domesticis,
nepoti Oxoniae literis operam danti,
tam studiorum quam consiliorum moderatori;
quibus muneribus fideliter functus
ad hujus ecclesiaa; decanatum
ultra votum et ambitum evectus est.
Hoc marmor mortuo dicavit Uxor
pietate superflâ,
cui nempe hoec ecclesia quam decenter ornata
et tantum non extructa!
cui ecclesia Sancti Dulaci[2] non tantum extructa
sed et sacrâ supellectili pretiosâ instructa,
etiam Pastore redornata!
cui Hospitium puerorum inopum apud Dublinienses
ampla munificentiâ ditatum —
Monumenta exstant Perennia.
Tu, lector,
adstrue tibi vivo monumentum.
Cippum apponant aut etiara non apponant
posteri.
On the east panel of the sarcophagus is engraved:—
“Doctor Peter Urelincourt was born in Paris, July 22d 1644.
Died March 7th 1720. Aged 76 years.”
In front panel of sarcophagus is engraved the following:—
Such was the second Drelincourt, a name
Victorious over death and dear to fame;
The Christian’s praise, by different measures won,
Successive graced the father and the son;
To sacred service, one his wealth consign’d,
And one, the living treasure of his mind,
’Twere rash to say whose talent did excel,
Each was so rich, and each improved so well.
Nor was his charity delayed till death,
He chose to give what others but bequeath.
Much though he gave and oft, yet more he meant
Had life proportion’d to his will been lent.
But to compleat a scheme, so well design’d,
Belongs to her who shar’d his bed and mind,
Whose pious sorrows thus to future days
Transmit his image and extend his praise.
The edge of the cushion has the inscription, M. Rysbrack Fecit.
“This monument was erected by his widow, Mrs. Mary Drelincourt, before 1731. This elegant piece of sculpture was executed by the famous M. Ruysbrack, and is a noble specimen of his talents. The Dean is represented as recumbent. His attitude is graceful and dignified; and the several parts of the figure harmoniously combine in producing a pleasing unity of effect. The drapery is simply disposed, and so arranged as to excite in the mind of the spectator the idea of a perfect symmetry of form, slightly veiled beneath its flowing folds. The features are strongly expressive of intelligence, mildness, and benevolence, and were peculiarly admired by Dr. Drelincourt’s contemporaries for the strong resemblance which they bore to the original.” (Stuart’s Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh; Newry, 1819; p. 518.)
In 1732 Mrs. Mary Drelincourt founded and endowed a school, called the Drelincourt Charity, in Armagh, which still subsists under this name.
Dean Drelincourt was not an author. He employed the Rev. Marius D’Assigny to translate his father’s consolatory book regarding death. His wife, Mary, was probably a Welsh heiress, at all events he had a good estate in Wales. He spent most of his latter years in London, where he died on the 7th March 1722 (the “1720” on his monument is a mistake), (a quarterly periodical named The Historical Register says March 15th), his age was seventy-six. He was very generous with his money during his lifetime, beautifying the cathedral, building a church at St. Dulough’s, and founding an educational hospital for boys in Dublin. In his will he left £500 to the French Church in Dublin, £700 for a charity school in Wales, £800 to the blue boys’ hospital of Dublin, and £1000 for charitable and pious uses either in Armagh or in Clonfeickle, and £2000 for his own or his wife’s relations, at her discretion, but this £5000 was to be disposed of as above, only if his daughter married without her mother’s consent. This daughter, their only child Anne, was married on 21st June 1739, to Lieut-Colonel Hugh, third and last Viscount Primrose. Both charity and wedlock seem to have been pleasingly arranged; the school in Armagh, called the Drelincourt Charity, was founded in 1732 by the dean’s widow, Mrs. Mary Drelincourt; she also founded a chapel and school, named Berse-Drelincourt, in the parish of Wrexham in Wales, which subsists upon the income of a landed estate now yielding about £500 per annum, dedicated to the double object. As a widow she resided in London; she styled herself “of the parish of St. George, Hanover Square,” in her Will, which was entirely in favour of her daughter; the Will was proved on 14th June 1755.
*⁎* Viscount Primrose died at Wrexham on 8th May 1741, in his thirty-ninth year. Anne, Viscountess Primrose, died in London on 3rd February 1775. Her Will leaves her freehold lands in Denbighshire, &c, to Thomas, Lord Dartrey, and to his son, the Hon. Richard Dawson, and their heirs, whom failing, to the daughter or daughters of the Hon Elizabeth Terry, wife of the Right Hon. Edmund Sexton Perry. (The above Lord Dartrey leaving no surviving issue, Lady Primrose’s heiresses must have been the two daughters of Viscount Pery, Diana, Countess of Ranfurly, and Frances, wife of Nicholson Calvert, M.P.) Among other legacies she left to Charlotte Elizabeth De Laval, £400, and to Daniel DeLaval, £400, to the French Hospital, £100, to the French Charity School in Court Road, £50, “I give to the Honourable and Right Reverend his Grace the Archbishop of York, Doctor Robert Drummond, £200, as a small mark of my friendship and gratitude to him;” “I give to my friend, Mrs. Dorothy Johnson, my father and mother’s pictures;” “I give £200 Irish, for the marrying, or settling in any way of business, four young women, those of Armagh or of French extraction to have the preference.” The Will and Codicil are signed, A. Primerose.
- ↑ The anagram would be literally (if not verbally) accurate thus:— L’Cher Tresor D’Calvin.
- ↑ The small parish of St. Dulough’s in the County of Dublin is an appendant on and in the gift of the precentor of Christ Church Cathedral, to which, I presume, Dr. Drelincourt presented himself in virtue of his Precentorship. — W.R.