# Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 1 - Section I

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Chapter I.
THE LA ROCHEFOUCAULDS AND THE CHAMPAGNÉS.
I. Frederic Charles de Roye de La Rochefoucauld, Comte de Roye.
The Comte de Roye was a great grandson of Francis, the third Comte de La Rochefoucauld, who was killed at the St. Bartholomew Massacre in Paris in 1572. This comparatively youthful victim of Popish ferocity was in company with Charles IX. late in the evening that ushered in the dreadful night. The king, desirous to save his life, invited him to stay all night in the palace, but the Count replied that his wife expected him at home, and bade his Majesty adieu. When amid thick darkness the murderers burst into his chamber, the unsuspicious youth thought that they were a band of humorists whose errand was some practical joke, and that the king was their ringleader. The martyred count left a son by his first wife, who became the head of the family. But he was married to a second wife, Charlotte, the sister of Eleonore de Roye, Princess of Condé, and the youngest daughter of Charles, Seigneur De Roye and Comte de Roucy. The offspring of this marriage was Charles, Comte De Roucy, who died in Paris in 1605.
His son was Francois, Comte De Roucy, who married in 1627 Julienne Catherine de la Tour, youngest daughter of Henri, Due de Bouillon, Prince of Sedan and Marshal of France, by Isobel of Nassau and Orange. And their son Frederic Charles was the Huguenot refugee.
The refugee Comte de Roye was born in 1633. He married, 3d June 1656, his cousin, Elisabeth de Durfort, youngest daughter of Guy Aldonce de Durfort, Marquis de Duras by Elisabeth de la Tour de Bouillon. The Count served in the French army with distinction, and was a lieutenant-general in the year 1676. His Protestantism arrested his further promotion, but he obtained the king’s permission to accept an invitation of his Majesty of Denmark in 1683. His family, however, were required to remain in France. He received the chief command of the Danish army with the rank of Grand Marshal, and he was made a Knight of the Order of the Elephant. A letter from him to Pastor Du Bosc is preserved, from Copenhagen, 10th July 1685:—
“Sir, — I have received the letter which you have been so good as to write me. I am very much concerned that an apprehension as to the very cold climate of this country hinders you from resolving to come to pass your life near a great Queen, according to her intense and expressed desire. Having shewn your letter to the Queen, I am commanded to write to you, and to state that the cold is not so great as people say, and that her hope was, that if you would make up your mind to come, you would have no cause to repent your resolution. That I would experience the deepest joy, you, sir, are well assured; and I can further assure you that so great is your reputation in this country, that the leading members of court, who are all Lutherans, are as anxious to see you as are those of our religion. Accordingly Her Majesty has been pleased to conclude upon nothing until you have sent me another reply, which I vehemently hope will be such as I desire. Be assured, sir, that here you would have accomodations and attentions, such as you would hardly find elsewhere. I can guarantee what I say. Therefore make your reflections upon it, and on quitting your country, come to a kingdom where you are so much desired, and particularly by myself, who am entirely yours,
“De Roye.”
On the Revocation, the Countess de Roye was allowed to join her husband in Denmark, on condition of her leaving some of the children in France. The Count and Countess went to Hamburg in 1686, and the same year she removed to England; he came over in 1687, and spent the remainder of his life with us. She was a sister of General, the Earl of Feversham, and aunt of the Marquis de Miremont. The ​connection of these relations with the Court of King James perplexed the De Roves; and requiting the royal hospitality, they stood by the King as long as possible, although the refugees generally were not pleased with them on that account. Comte De Roye, however, refused to command King James’s army.
As soon as she arrived, the Comtesse was made a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen; but her title not being British, the question arose whether the queen might kiss her as a female member of our nobility. Henry Savile wrote from Whitehall, April 1686, “The Countess de Roye is come, but it is decided against her that the Queen shall not salute her, which you may suppose is no great affliction to the Lady above-mentioned.” This interesting question could not rest, as we find from the Ellis correspondence; a letter, dated London 23d July 1687, reports, “The reason why the Comte de Roye is made an Irish Baron was, that his lady might, with the less difficulty, it is supposed, wait on the Queen’s Majesty, and have the honour to be saluted by her, which otherwise she could not have pretended to.” Although no patent of nobility was ever given to Comte de Roye under the Great Seal of Ireland, yet there is evidence for the fact that he received the King’s Letter to be the Earl of Lifford, and that he bore that title for life as a courtesy title, as was usual in similar cases when some obstacle prevented the Royal Grant from passing under the Great Seal.
“On the 20th October 1688,” says Oldmixon, “a proclamation was published giving directions to watch the coast, and oti the appearance of the enemy to drive all horses, oxen and cattle for draught, twenty miles from their place of landing, which is said to have been done by advice of the Count De Roye, whose conduct at the Revolution has been much condemned.” “The King’s journey to Salisbury was hastened by the advice of the Count De Roye, whose officiousness in this business gave great occasion of scandal to the French Protestants.” “The King sent the letter for the Earl of Feversham about disbanding the army to the Countess De Roye, the Earl’s sister, to be conveyed to him, and it was the last order he gave.”
The Count’s health declined, and he went to Bath “to drink the waters” in the spring of 1690. There he died on the 9th June of that year, aged fifty-seven. Du Bosc’s biographer speaks of the pasteur as deeply affected at the news of the death of Monsieur le Comte de Roye. “He was satisfied as to his piety as well as to that of his countess and daughters; and he long regretted that good nobleman, whom he esteemed even more for his probity and candour, than for all the other qualities which caused him to be regarded as one of the worthy captains of the age.”
The Comte de Roye was buried in the Cathedral of Bath, and Misson copied the epitaph on his tombstone before 1698:—
Fredericus de Roye de la Rochefoucault, Comes de Roye, de Rouci, et Liffort, Nobilis Ordinis Elephantini Eques, Natalibus, Opibus, Gloriâ Militari, et (quod majus est) Fide erga Religionem inclytus, Decessit die 9 Junii 1690, AEtatis 57.
A letter from Johnstone to Leibnitz, dated Berlin, June 17-27, 1690, “begins (says Kemble, p. 57) with a discourse which passed between the Elector and Mr. Johnston concerning the Count De Roy, who died at the Bath, and so there can be no use of it now.”
His widow survived for about a quarter of a century; she died in London on the 14th January 1715, aged eighty-two. His refugee daughters were his eighth and ninth children, Charlotte and Henrietta. The former was in March 1724 made governess to Prince William [afterwards Duke of Cumberland], and to his sister, Princess Mary. Henrietta became the second wife of the Earl of Strafford. The first Earl, who was executed on Tower Hill, left a son, William Wentworth (born 8th June 1626), who lived in obscurity until the restoration of Charles II. He was made a Privy Councillor, and Knight of the Garter, by King Charles, and restored to all his father’s honours; his first wife, Henrietta Maria, daughter of Edward, Earl of Derby, and widow of Richard Lord Molyneux, died childless, 27th December 1685. He married, secondly, Henrietta de Roye de la Rochfoucauld, and left her a widow in 1695, and childless also.
The refugee descendants of the Comte De Roye lived to a great age. The first death was on the 11th November 1732, when Henrietta, Countess Dowager of Strafford died. They seem to have had a predilection for the ancestral title of De Roucy — which, however, the scribes at Doctors’ Commons mis-spelt, making it De Roussy, as may be seen in the letters of administration granted to the Countess’s brother and sister, who exhibited an inventory of her property in May 1733. The ​Gentleman’s Magazine, records under 8th January 1743, the death of “Lady Charlotta De Rucy of a noble family in France, near ninety; she came over in King William’s reign on account of her religion.” The Dublin Journal of January 15th says, “Last Saturday, died of a lingering illness, at her house on the Terras in St. James’s Street, London, near ninety years of age, the Lady Charlotta de Rucy, a French lady of a great family in the kingdom, and who has resided here on account of her religion ever since King William’s reign. By her death a considerable pension reverts to the crown.” On the 24th of that month her brother was granted letters of administration of “the goods, chattels, and credits of the Right Honorable Lady Charlotte De Roussy De Roy and De la Rochefoucauld.” Of this brother I have next to speak.
* ↑ Misson’s Observations, Article Bath.
* ↑ Guy de Durfort, Marquis de Duras. = Elisabeth de la Tour d’Auvergne. Louis de Durfort, Earl of Feversham. Henriette de Durfort. = Marquis de Malauze. Elisabeth de Durfort. = Comte de Roye. Armand de Bourbon, Marquis de Miremont. Charlotte de Bourbon. Frederic William, Earl of Litford. Charlotte. Henriette, Countess of Strafford.