# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 10 - Section V

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V. De Cardonnel.
This family has been traced to Caen; there is in that neighbourhood a small Norman town, named Cardonnel. The first refugee was the Seigneur of the Chateau de Cardonnel; this chateau was seized by the French government, and converted into a Jesuits’ College. M. de Cardonnel brought a large sum of money into England, and lent considerable sums to King Charles II., which were never repaid. The date of his arrival is not known, but Adam de Cardonnel of Southampton, an ancien of the French Church there, was his son, born 27th December 1620. According to the Signet Book in the Public Record Office, London, Peter de Cardonnel was appointed Customer and Collector of Southampton in August 1660; he was, no doubt, Adam’s brother, and there was another brother, Philip. Peter, as the collector of customs at Southampton, was non-resident, and, in 1665, when the plague raged in the seaport, he sent a donation of £5 from his residence in St. Margaret’s, Westminster; there he died in August 1667, and was buried in Westminster Abbey; he is registered as Mr Peter de Cardinall; his estate was administered by Catherine, relict of his brother, Philip, 15th August 1667. There was a William de Cardonnel of Magdalen College, Oxford, B.A., 1674; M.A., 1687. Peter de Cardonnel was admitted into Westminster School in 1673, from whence he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1678, took the degree of B.A. in 1681, and M.A. in 1685; he continued to reside in Oxford, where he died, and was, on 20th March 1699, buried in Christ Church Cathedral, leaving the reputation of being " a very good French scholar, in which language he wrote an elegy on the death of Sir Ferdinando Fisher, and several sets of laudatory verses prefixed to some of the works of Payne Fisher, whose great friend he was.”
We return to Adam de Cardonnel, born 27th December 1620. The Southampton Burgess-Book has, under date 23d May 1662, “Adam Cardinall, Esq., was admitted and sworn one of the burgesses and guild of this town, gratis.” About this time he married Marie, daughter and heiress of Nicolas Pescod of Holbury, Cadland, and Langley, in Hampshire; she was born in 1630, and died 27th July 1708. Mr De Cardonnel is also said to have been Collector of Customs, perhaps in succession to his brother. In 1664 he was an ancien of the French Church, called God’s house. I observed the baptisms of five of his sons in the register, Adam (1663), Daniel (1665), John and James, twins (1667), and Philip (1673). In 1690 he was elected sheriff, but was excused from serving. He died on 27th January 1711 (n.s.), aged ninety years and one month. Of his sons, Adam and James left descendants. According to the will of one of his sons, the ancien had also three daughters, Deborah, Mrs Oldfield; Elizabeth, Mrs Batt; and Mary, Mrs Prince.
The eldest son of the ancien was known as Adam Cardonnel; he was baptized in the French Church of Southampton on 1st November 1663. He obtained employment in the War Office in the reign of William III. Narcissus Luttrell notes, 18th February 169⅔,” Mr. Cardinal of the War Office is made Treasurer to the Hospital for sick and wounded men;” again, 21st November 1700, “Mr. Cardinall of the War Office is made letter-carrier to the king, in room of Mr. Vanhusle.” “29th December 1702, Mr. Cardonell succeeds Mr. Blathwayt as Secretary of Warr.” He was, however, induced to become secretary to the Duke of Marlborough, and, as such, he is remembered. He was valued as speaking and writing the French language fluently; and although no more than an Englishman of French ancestry, his connection with a French refugee church, and the influx of French Protestants from France, must have given him much of the air of a Frenchman, and familiarity with French pronunciation and idioms. On 14th January 1709-10, Luttrell says, “Adam Cardonnell, Esq., secretary to the Duke of Marlborough, is made secretary of war.” He ​had a seat in the House of Commons as M.P. for Southampton in seven parliaments, from 1701 to 1710. When the fortunes of the Duke, his master, failed at the English court, and when a semi-Jacobite and semi-Bourbon government set themselves to annoy and to discredit the illustrious Captain-General, it was not likely that his secretary would escape. In those days the sale of offices, and the pocketing of perquisites, and similar money-making tricks, were habitually indulged in and winked at, always with the risk that a change of government might bring with it an affected horror and actual punishment. This risk overtook Mr Cardonnel. Attention was called to the fact that he had been receiving a perquisite from army contractors in the shape of an annuity of £500, and of course he was expelled from the House of Commons. It is to be regretted that the English atmosphere had lowered the moral standard of a descendant of Huguenots. Still the penalty was understood to be in reality the mere vengeance of Harley and Bolingbroke. And in the next reign, according to Collins’ peerage, he might have been a Secretary of State, if he had so desired.
Mr. Cardonnel was twice married, first, to Mrs. Elizabeth Teale, a widow lady, and secondly, to another widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Frankland, daughter of a French refugee, Rene Baudouin, of London, merchant. Mrs. Frankland had been a relation of the baronet of that name at Chiswick, with which place Mr. Cardonnel either had become connected or became connected after his second marriage. In his will he left £10 to Mr. Wood, minister of Chiswick; £10 to the poor of the parish, and £10 to its charity school, while he styles himself “Adam Cardonnel, of the parish of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, Esquire.” The Historical Register announces: “1719, Feb. 22. Dy’d, Adam Cardonnel, Esq., secretary to the Duke of Marlborough.” His life, though active and eventful, had not been long, for he was only in his fifty-sixth year. He left a son, Adam, and a daughter, Mary, both by his second wife. She survived him as his widow, residuary legatee, and executrix; there were other three executors, Charles Le Bas, Esq.; René Baudouin, and Frederick Frankland, Esq., barrister-at-law, a son of Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart. He left £35,000 to purchase an estate for his son, and £10,000 to his daughter; £100 a-year to be doled out to his brother Peter; a legacy of £500 to his brother Daniel; as to James, he forgave him a debt of £2000 and upwards, and gave him a legacy of £1000. To his stepsons, Isaac and Thomas Teale, he left £500 each; to his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Frankland, £5000. Omitting legacies to some friends and servants, I note that he left sums “to buy him a ring” to Henry Lumley, Esq., 100 guineas; to Rev. Richard Hill, 100 guineas; to Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart., £20; to Thomas Frankland, Esq., his son, £20; to Rev. Dr. Hare, Dean of Worcester, £20; to Robert Pescoe, of the city of Winchester, Esq., £20. The will was proved by the widow only, 5th March 1719 (n.s.). Her father died in 1728, aged seventy-eight; this accounts for one trustee. Charles Le Bas, of Cecil Street in the Strand, Esq., died suddenly, 22d September 1724. Young Adam Cardonnel, Esq., died 22d September 1725, and administration of his affairs was granted to his widowed mother on October 26. It was probably in consequence of this sad event, and of the complications it occasioned, that the widow accepted an offer of marriage from the surviving trustee; and thus, although married for the third time, she became the first wife of Frederick Frankland, Esq. (See the Peerages.) According to his original powers, Mr. Frankland proved the late Secretary Cardonnel’s will on 16th May 1738. The representation of the first line of De Cardonnel thus devolved upon the only daughter, Mary. She had been married in February 1734 (n.s.) to the Hon. William Talbot. Collins says that she was only fifteen years of age, but the fact was that the marriage took place fifteen years after her father’s death. Mr. Talbot succeeded to the peerage in 1737 on the death of his father, and became the second Baron Talbot, and was created Earl Talbot in 1761 (the first and last earl). Mary, Countess Talbot, had an only child, Lady Cecil Talbot, who was married on 16th August 1756 to George Rice, Esq., M.P. for Carmarthen. On 17th October 1780, Earl Talbot received the title of Baron Dynevor, which was to descend to his daughter, Lady Cecil Rice, who had become a widow on 3d August 1779. On the death of the earl, 27th April 1782, she thus became Baroness Dynevor, and is the ancestress of a line of barons still subsisting. In 1787 she assumed the surname and arms of De Cardonnel only, and for a long period of years this was the surname of the Lords Dynevor. Ultimately the surname Rice was resorted to, De Cardonnel being sometimes inserted as a Christian name. The first De Cardonnel Baroness died on 14th March 1763, aged fifty-nine. The present baron is Arthur De Cardonnel Rice, sixth Lord Dynevor, born 1836, succeeded 1878.
The secretary’s brother, James de Cardonnel, was one of the twins, baptized in the French Church of Southampton, 2d June 1667. He entered upon public life as secretary to Mainhardt, Duke of Schomberg and Leinster. In the Burgess-book of Southampton there is this entry: “1698-9, January 31. James de Cardonnel, Esq., ​secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, is admitted free.” He and his sons are recognised in his brother’s will as presumptive heirs in the event of the brother’s own descendants failing. [One of these sons was Maynard (named after his ducal patron), who died in Ireland in February 1719 (n.s.), and is styled “late of Chelsea.”]
For twenty-eight years he was one of the Commissioners of Salt. On 9th December 1714, Benjamin Mildmay, John Danvers, Thomas Woodcock, James Cardonnel, and Charles Dent, Esqs., were appointed Commissioners for the receipt and management of his Majesty’s duties on salt. This Board was reconstituted on 21st November 1715, omitting Danvers, and adding Arthur Ingram, Esq., for duties “upon salt and rock-salt;” and again, on 4th April 1721, the names being Thomas Woodcock, James Cardonnel, Thomas Milner, Esqs.; Sir Thomas Rous, and William Churchhill, jun., Esq. Mr. Cardonnel in his last years was settled in Scotland, and his migration northward is thus explained. Before 1742, fourteen Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs were appointed for England and Scotland, seven to reside in London, five in Edinburgh, and two to attend to the outports; no particular Commissioners being named for any port, they all resided by turns in the different places. But on 9th September 1742, five Commissioners for Scotland were appointed, namely, George, Lord Ross, Richard Somers, Colin Campbell, James Cardonnel, and Alexander Arbuthnot, Esqs. Mr. Cardonnel occasioned the first vacancy, for he died on nth April 1744. On 18th February 1745 a new Board was gazetted, containing the four surviving commissioners, and Mansfeldt Cardonnel, Esq., in the room of his deceased father. Mansfeldt Cardonnel held this office for thirty-five years; he resided at Musselburgh. Accidentally I met with his name in an old Edinburgh Literary Gazette, in a burlesque action for damages, in which the Lord Justice-Clerk (Rae) is represented as referring to “the genteel inhabitants of Fisherrow and Musselburgh and Inveresk, and likewise Newbigging,” and to “Commissioner Cardonnald, a gentleman whom I knew very well at one time, and had a great respect for; he is dead many years ago.” He died 17th November 1780, aged eighty-four; he sat along with Mr. Alexander Legrand from 1747 to 1763; the Board was joined in 1777 by the renowned Adam Smith; Mr. Cardonnel was the senior commissioner on and after 2d December 1758. His son was an accomplished gentleman of literary, artistic, and antiquarian tastes, and reverted to the Huguenot name; he was Adam Mansfeldt de Cardonnel, member of the Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh. As Adam de Cardonnel, he published two volumes of interesting engravings and etchings, with explanatory letterpress, namely, Numismata Scotiae (in 1786) and “Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland” (in 1788). His friend, Mr. Lawson, of Chirton and Cramlington, in Northumberland, inserted his name in a deed of entail of those estates. Mr. Adam de Cardonnel eventually succeeded to them, and assumed the additional name of Lawson. His eldest son, Mansfeldt de Cardonnel Lawson, Esq., died without issue at Acton House, Northumberland, on 21st November 1838. His youngest daughter, Hannah Mary, was married on 9th February 1824 to Lieut-Colonel Joseph Edward Greaves Elmsall, of Thornhill and Woodlands, Yorkshire, whose eldest son was William De Cardonnel Elmsall of Woodlands, each child being named De Cardonnel.