Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 16 - Section VIII
VII. Rev. John Dubourdieu.
The Rev. John Du Bourdieu, son of Isaac, and also styled, on his portrait, Docteur en Theologie, was born about 1642. He was his father’s colleague at Montpellier. Cardinal de Bonsy had great hopes of obtaining his abjuration, partly through intimidation, and specially through the influence of some relations or bosom friends. His Eminence asked for and received from the French government a lettre de cachet, containing an order for the imprisonment or banishment of Du Bourdieu, le fils. The coveted divine was immoveable, and was allowed to remain at his post in the Reformed Church till the Revocation. He then retired to England, and was lowed by many of his flock, who increased the numbers of the London Savoy congregation.
He was chaplain to the three Dukes of Schomberg successively. He was at the old Duke’s side when he fell at the battle of the Boyne. He accompanied Duke Charles to Turin. During the irruption into France, when about two hundred native Protestants left France under the Duke’s protection, Du Bourdieu was the minister before whom they recanted the abjurations of their faith previously extorted from them. At his instigation Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, espoused the cause of the Waldenses. When the Duke of Schomberg breathed his last at Turin, the good chaplain was with him, and undertook the burial of his honoured remains at Lausanne, and embalmed his heart, which in 1696 he brought to England.
As a resident in England, he avoided domestic politics, and declared his motto to be, Exul! tace. But he wrote, preached, and published much. Before his exile he published a sermon preached at Montpellier, entitled, “The Blessed Virgin’s Opinion regarding what all Generations should say of her;” also a Brief Correspondence with Bishop Bossuet. He wrote the Duke of Schomberg’s manifesto to the French people, on his irruption into France, dated at Embrun, 29th Aug. 1692. At Turin, within the church of the Jesuits, on 20th January 1693, he witnessed the idolatrous worship paid to the Thebean soldiers, Solutor, Adventor, and Octavius, the patron saints of Turin. This was the occasion of his writing and publishing “An Historical Dissertation upon the Thebean Legion, plainly proving it to be Fabulous.” He also published a Funeral Sermon on Queen Mary, entitled, “Sermon prononce la veille des Funerailles de la Reine,” 1695. To him is also attributed the sermon preached at Chelmsford Assizes, published in 1714 (but not having seen it, I can say no more). Neither am I sure whether to attribute to him or to his nephew the anonymous work entitled, “Comparison of the Penal Laws of France against Protestants with those of England against Papists, with an Account of the Persecution of the Protestants abroad, by J.D., a clergyman of the Church of England,” 1717. Dr. John Du Bourdieu died in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, London, on the 26th July 1720, aged 78. The Historical Register for 1720 calls him “a celebrated preacher among the French Refugees.”
Dr. Dubourdieu’s two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, remained in France. He had two sons, Peter and Armand, both clergymen of the Church of England, a grand-daughter, the child of Peter, and a grandson, John (afterwards an English clergyman), son of Armand. Before returning to any of these descendants, I give his Will (it would appear that he was a widower, his wife having died in France).
“In the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. Translated out of French. Our help be in the name of God who made heaven and earth. Amen. John Dubourdieu, minister, living in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, doth above all things recommend his soul to God, and desires that his body be buried near that of his father in the Chapel of the Savoy. He gives £20 sterling to the poor of the said Church, and £20 sterling to the six oldest French ministers who are assisted or are upon the list of the Royal Bounty. I give to my eldest son Peter Dubourdieu, Rector of Kirby-over-Carr in Yorkshire, the annuity of £14 per annum of the year 1706, No. 1769. I give to my son Armand Dubourdieu the annuity of a like sum of £14 per annum of the year 1706, No. 1770. I give and bequeath to Anne Dubourdieu, my daughter, who is still at Montpellier in France, the other annuity of 1706, No. 1771, which is also of £14 per annum, upon condition (and not otherwise) that she shall come here in England and profess the Protestant religion, willing and intending also that, although she comes here, she shall not have the power to dispose of the fund but after she shall have lived here ten years a Protestant; nor shall she receive anything of the income whilst she shall continue a Papist either in France or here; but as soon as my administrators shall be convinced that she is sincerely a Protestant, they shall deliver her the annuity, together with the income grown due thereon. I give and bequeath to my daughter Elizabeth, who is still at Montpellier in France, the annuity of 1704 upon the 3700 excise, but upon this express condition (and not otherwise) that she shall come here in England, to abjure the Popish religion and profess the Protestant religion. And whereas the said Elizabeth is married and hath children, I will and intend that in case any of them, in default of their mother, shall come in this country and live here professing the Protestant religion, my executors shall apply the income of the said annuity for adding to their maintenance or for putting them apprentice, and that they shall not have the power of disposing of the fund but after they shall have attained the age of five-and-twenty years. And in case my daughter Anne, or lawful child or children born of her body, shall not come out of Prance within ten years after my decease, then I give and bequeath to Peter Dubourdieu, my son, the annuity of £14 per annum of 1706, No. 1771. And in case my daughter Elizabeth or any of her children shall not come out of France within ten years after my death, I give and bequeath to Armand Dubourdieu, my son, the annuity of 1704 of £14 per annum upon the 3700 excise, and all the income grown due thereon till that time. I give and bequeath to my grandson, John Dubourdieu, son of Armand, all my books and all my papers, which shall not be delivered him till he shall be a minister, and in case he should embrace another profession, I give them to the first of my grandsons who shall be a minister. And whereas I have still an annuity for thirty-two years of the year 1710, No. 620, of £13, 10s. per annum, and also some Lottery Orders, which may amount to £120, besides my silver-plate, and all my household goods, I will that after payment of my legacies for charity, the whole, together with the money I may have at the time of my death, shall be equally divided between John Du Bourdieu [Prevenau], son of Armand Pigné Prevenau, and the eldest daughter of my son Peter.”
As to his two sons, Peter Dubourdieu was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and was B.A. in 1692 and M.A. in 1697. In 1708 he appears to have been chaplain of Townshend’s regiment. He became the rector of a parish, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, now called Kirkby-Misperton. Nichols relates of him that “being quick to discern and willing to encourage merit,” he sent to school a clever boy, John Clarke (son of a mechanic in his parish), who became M.A. and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and was successively master of the schools of Shipton, Beverley, and Wakefield.
I have read the Will of the second son of Dr. John Dubourdieu, Rev. Armand Du Bourdieu. He was Vicar of Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, having been collated to that vicarage on 27th April 1716. There he died on 25th August 1733. His wife, Elizabeth, had died on 15th April 1724, and had been buried underneath the sacrarium, and he was laid beside her. He left two daughters, Elizabeth and Emma, and six sons, John, Jacob, Isaac, Armand, Peter, and Charles.
*⁎* Armand’s son, John, early was destined for the ministry, as appears from his grand-father’s Will. He proved his father’s Will as executor on 17th October 1733; there was this clause concerning him, “I give and bequeath to my eldest son, John Dubourdieu, clerk, all my manuscript papers” (he was already the heir of his grandfather’s library and papers). He succeeded his father as Vicar of Sawbridgeworth, being collated on 28th August 1734; it is said that he resigned the living, but no date has been ascertained, and his successor was not collated till the year 1752. That may have been the year of his death, and perhaps he was a pluralist and non-resident. A Rev. John Dubourdieu solemnized marriages in the parish church of St. Antholin’s, London, from 1733 to 1747. There was a John Dubourdieu, M.A., Vicar of Layton, and Lecturer of Hackney, who published in 1745 a “Sermon on 2 Samuel xv. 21, on the present Rebellion.” A clergyman of the same names was the Lady Moyer Lecturer “on the Trinity and the Divinity of our ever-blessed Saviour,” for the years 1745-6.