# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 5 - Section VIII

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VIII. Pierre de Laune.
Pierre, the third (but eventually the second surviving) son of the reverend physician, became pasteur of the French Church of Norwich. The signature, Pierre de Laune, still survives in the Norwich book of discipline, but there is no date. The only notice of him in the register is the baptism of his son, Pierre, on 5th August 1610. His ministry was during a period when refugees, and especially their children, were tempted to take offence at discipline and to fly to the parish church. A petition was accordingly presented to the Bishop of Norwich, requesting his interference in the case of individuals suspended in 1601. The petitioners — namely, the minister, P. de Laune, and the elders, Jean Fremault, Baudouin Burgar, Jaques Farvacques, and Francois Desprez — represented that the congregation was under strict obligation to the city of Norwich to maintain its own ministers, ministers’ widows, divinity students, and poor members, while its members as individuals were also taxed with parochial duties [dues] for the maintenance of the English ministry. Their suit to the bishop was to help us in bringing home these two strayed sheep [Pierre Truye and Nicolas de Corte]. This petition was, presented in 1608. The date of a final settlement was 1613 (according to Blomefield’s “History of Norfolk,” vol. ii. page 256), and was to the effect that, “According to their first patent the strangers should not be assessed by the court to the [English parochial ] ministers’ wages in their parishes for anything but their houses and grounds, the payment for their values and stock being left to their own congregations, — they being to be governed by the bishop as to spirituals, by the city as to temporals, and their own church by their elders and deacons.” In the same year the French refugees of Norwich were relieved from another grievance by the abolition of an independent commercial charter granted to the Dutch on February 6, 1606 (old style), “without ​the knowledge of the City or of the Walloons.” The Privy Council cancelled this charter on 13th November 1613, on the solicitation of the Norwich Town Council.
Troubles as to desertions from the French Church were renewed in 1621. The consistory made a representation to the Privy Council that Denis Lermitt [L’hermitte], Joel Desormeaux, and Samuel Canby, “have upon some displeasure misconceived against Mr. Peter de Lawne, their minister, whom we know to be a learned, grave, and discreet preacher, not only withheld from him their usual contribution, but have withdrawn themselves from the congregation and church wherein they had formerly borne several offices, and continued members thereof ever since their baptism.” The Privy Council referred the matter to the Bishop, the Mayor, and the Justices, who enforced the decision of the year 1613, and declared that those regulations must be adhered to. It appears that Monsieur De Laune afterwards aggravated or complicated debatable matters by accepting a benefice in the Church of England, which he declared he would hold along with the French pastorate of Norwich. He was created D.D. of Cambridge by the king’s command, on February 1636 (n.s.).
As formerly stated, there was an affinity between the families of Marie (the first refugee pasteur), and of Delaune. Ester, the sister of our D.D., was the first wife of Marie’s son, Pasteur Nathaniel Marie, of London. Nathaniel’s daughter, Elizabeth, was married in London to a pasteur, named Pierre d’Assigny. It is possible that the bridegroom may have been induced to pay a visit to his wife’s uncle, and thus the French Church of Norwich became acquainted with him. Certainly, on account of the feeling that Dr Delaune, as a beneficed clergyman, ought to go and reside at his benefice, the congregation elected D’Assigny; and a formal induction must have taken place, because the signature, “Piere d’Assigny, Ministre,” survives in the old book of discipline. (There is no date; but the next pasteur, Isaac Clementt, signs on 13th February 1650). The only date we have is the birth of D’Assigny’s son in 1643. This son seems to have been named Marie, his maternal grandfather’s surname. On matriculating in the University of Cambridge, his name was entered as Marius, a form which had the advantages of being Latin and more evidently masculine. He became an ordained clergyman, and was B.D. of his university in the year 1668. His writings obtained him a place in the Imperial Dictionary of Biography, but no church living or pastoral charge is mentioned. His works are “The Divine Art of Prayer” (1691); “The Art of Memory” (1699); “The History of the Earls and Earldom of Flanders” (1701). He translated from French into English, Drelincourt’s Christian’s Defence against the Fear of Death, and a sixth edition of the translation was published at London in 1709. He was buried in the nave of the church of Woodham-Walter in Essex, on the floor of which there is a stone with this inscription:—
Here Lyeth ye Body of the Revd. MARJUS D’ASSIGNY, B.D., Who dyed No. 14, 1717, Aged 74 Years.
*⁎* On 14th February 1716 (n.s.), “Elizabeth Dassigny, of S$^{t.}$ John, Wapping,” was married in St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, to John Raine, of Stepney.