OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Churcher, Richard

​CHURCHER, RICHARD (1659–1723) founder of Churcher's College, eldest son of Richard Churcher, gentleman, of Funtington, Sussex, was born there in 1659. He was apprenticed (1675–82) to John Jacob, an eminent citizen and barber-surgeon of London. Subsequently he engaged an the service of the East India Company and went to India. On his retirement from the service he settled at Petersfield, Hampshire. His death occurred on 3 July 1723, and he was buried in the parish church of his native village. He founded a mathematical college at Petersfield for the education of the sons of inhabitants of the town, in order to qualify them for the naval service of the East India. A history of this college was published at London in 1823, 8vo.
[The History mentioned above.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Churchill, Arabella

1904 Errata appended.
​CHURCHILL, ARABELLA (1648–1730) mistress of James II, was the eldest daughter of Sir Winston Churchill [q. v.] of Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, the father of John, first duke of Marlborough [q. v.] Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Brake of Ashe, Devonshire. She was born in March 1648, rather more than two years before her brother John. After the Restoration Sir Winston Churchill's loyalty to the house of Stuart marked his family out for royal favour, and Arabella, soon after the Duke of York's marriage to Anne Hyde, was appointed maid of honour to the duchess, while her brother John was page to the duke. In this situation between 1665 and 1668 she won the affections of James. If we may believe the malicious report of the Count de Grammont, she was far from handsome. He describes her as 'a tall creature, pale-faced, nothing but skin and bone,' and as an 'ugly skeleton' but says that the duke was so charmed by the graces displayed by her during an accident in the hunting-field, that he sought and obtained her for ms mistress. Arabella became the mother by the Duke of York of (1) Henrietta (1670–1730), who in 1684 named Sir Henry Waldegrave of Chewton, ancestor of the present earl of Waldegrave; (2) James Fitzjames (1671–1734), afterwards the famous Duke or Berwick; (3) Henry Fitzjames (1673–1702) who was created Duke of Albemarle by his mother after the revolution of 1688, and had also the title of grand prior of France; (4) another daughter who became a nun. When Arabella's connection with James II came to an end, she had a pension on the Irish establishment and married Colonel Charles Godfrey, who became, by the influence of the Duke of Marlborough, clerk controller of the green cloth and master of the jewel office in the reigns of William III and Anne, in which capacity Swift made acquaintance with him at Windsor (see Journal to Stella, 20 Sept 1711, &c.) By him she had two daughters, Charlotte, a maid of honour to Queen Anne, who married the first Viscount Falmouth, and Elizabeth, who married Edmund Dunch. Surviving to the age of eighty-two (1730) she lived to see her royal lover die an exile at the court of the French monarch against whom her famous brother was commanding, while her no less famous son, the Duke of Berwick, was serving the same monarch in Spain. A portrait by Lely belongs to Earl Spencer.
[Coxe's Life of the Duke of Marlborough, p. 34; Memoir of the Count de Grammont, Eng. ed.; 1846, pp. 274–82; Pepys's Diary, 12 Jan. 1669; Biographia Britannica.]
E. S. S.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.65 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 307 | i | 20 | Churchill, Arabella: for 1668 read 1667 |
| | | 31 | for 1670 read 1667 |
| | | 39 | after daughter insert Arabella |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chudleigh, Thomas

1904 Errata appended.
​CHUDLEIGH, THOMAS (fl. 1689), diplomatist, was son of Thomas Chudleigh, the second son of Sir George Chudleigh, baronet [q. v.] of Ashton, Devonshire, he entered the diplomatic service, and was appointed secretary to the embassy to Sweden in 1673 (Addit. MS, 28937, f. 208). In 1677 he was named secretary to the embassy to Nimeguen, and in that capacity he took part in the negotiations which resulted in the celebrated treaty of peace between France and the United Provinces. He was sent as envoy extraordinary to the States-General of the United Provinces in 1678 (Ellis Correspondence, i. 197). In April 1087 Luttrell notes that 'Mr. Chudleigh, his majesties envoy to Holland, is said to have lately turned papist' (Relation of State Affairs, i. 398; cf. Ellis Correspondence, i. 251), and William Shaw, writing to John Ellis on 30 Auff. 1688, says: 'Mr. Chud. is going out of England in three or four days, in discontent I fear: he hath parted with every servant he kept here. I was last night standing at James Clarke's door, and I see him come out of his in very great ceremony with a couple of priests. I was to wait on him. He told me he thought he should pass this winter at Paris, though I hear it will be at Rome.' (Ellis Correspondence, ii. 152). What became of him afterwards does not appear. He married Elizabeth Cole of an Oxfordshire family (Burke, Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, p. 115).
His collection of State Papers, in 10 vols., relating chiefly to the treaty of Nimeguen, is preserved in the British Museum (Harleian MSS. 1514–23); and his letters as envoy to Holland to John Ellis (1678-89) are among the Additional MSS. (Cat. of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1854–75, p. 316).
[Anthorities cited above; also Hackman's Cat. of Tanner MSS. p. 873; Addit. MSS. 15901, 15902; Ellis Correspondence, i. 160.]
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.65 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 303 | ii | 24 | Chudleigh, Thomas: before In April 1687 insert He was M.P. for Romney 1685-7 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/D'Este, Augustus Frederick

​D'ESTE, Sir AUGUSTUS FREDERICK (1794–1848), was son of the Duke of Sussex. On 4 April 1793 the Duke of Sussex, youngest son of George III, was married by an English clergyman at Rome to Lady Augusta Murray, second daughter of John, fourth earl of Dunmore. The marriage ceremony was repeated on 6 Dec. following, in St. George's Church, Hanover Square, London. George III was much displeased at the union. The marriage was annulled by the court of arches in August 1794, the provisions of the Royal ​ Marriage Act (12 George III) having declared that marriages of descendants contracted without the royal assent should be invalid. Two children were the fruit of the marriage: Ellen Augusta, who in 1845 married Sir Thomas Wilde, afterwards Lord Truro, and the above-named Augustus Frederick. The name of D'Este, anciently belonging to the house of Brunswick, was given to the two children, and their mother, on separating from the duke in 1806, assumed the name of De Ameland. D'Este was born in 1794, and entered the army as lieutenant in the royal fusiliers, which regiment he accompanied to America, where, as aide-de-camp to Sir John Lambert, he participated in the attack on New Orleans. In 1817 he received the command of a troop in the 9th lancers, and five years later was appointed major in the 4th royal Irish dragoons. In 1824 he was promoted to a lieutenant-colonelcy, and became full colonel in 1838, the first year of Queen Victoria's reign. From William IV in 1830 he received a knight commandership of the Hanoverian Guelphic order, a pension of 500l. a year out of the civil list, and the appointment of deputy-ranger of St. James's Park and Hyde Park. ‘The chancellor,’ writes Greville in 1831, ‘told me that the young man Sir Augustus d'Este had behaved very ill, having filed a bill in chancery, into which he had put all his father's love letters, written thirty years ago, to perpetuate evidence; that it was all done without the Duke of Sussex's consent, but that D'Este had got Lushington's opinion that the marriage was valid on the ground that the Marriage Act only applied to marriages contracted here, whereas this was contracted at Rome. He said Lushington was a great authority, but that he had no doubt he was wrong. The king is exceedingly annoyed at it.’ In 1834 he presented to the Duke of Cambridge, viceroy of Hanover, a memorial entreating his ‘powerful intercession’ with the king for the restoration of his rights as a legitimate son of the Duke of Sussex. Nine years later, in 1843, when the Duke of Sussex died, D'Este preferred to the House of Lords a claim to succeed to his father's honours. The house, after consulting with the judges, resolved that the claim was not established. D'Este died unmarried on Thursday, 28 Dec. 1848, at the age of fifty-four.
R. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/D'Assigny, Marius

​D'ASSIGNY, MARIUS (1643–1717), author and translator, was born in 1643. His name indicates that he was of French extraction, and he was probably a son of Monsieur D'Assigny, French protestant minister at Norwich. He took orders in the church of England, and in 1668 obtained the degree of B.D. ‘per literas regias’ from the university of Cambridge (Cantabrigienses Graduati, ed. 1787, p. 110). In Woodham Walter Church, Essex, is the following inscription: ‘Here lieth the body of the Rev. Marjus D'Assigney B.D., who died Nov. 14, 1717, aged 74’ (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 781; Wright, Essex, ii. 660 n.)
His works are: 1. ‘The Assurance of the Faithfull: or the glorious estate of the Saints in Heaven described, and the certainty of their future Happiness manifested by Reason and Scripture,’ Lond. 1670, 4to. 2. A translation of Pierre Gautruche's ‘Histoire Poëtique’ under the title of ‘The Poetical Histories, being a compleat collection of all the stories necessary for a perfect understanding of the Greek and Latin Poets … Englisht and enricht with observations concerning the Gods worshipped by our ancestors. Unto which are added two treatises [by D'Assigny]; one of the curiosities of old Rome, the other containing the most remarkable hieroglyphicks of Ægypt,’ Lond. 1671, 8vo. This work, dedicated to Sir Orlando Bridgeman [q. v.], keeper of the great seal, was very popular; the eighth edition was published in 1701. 3. ‘The Divine Art of Prayer, containing the most proper rules to pray well, with divers meditations and prayers suitable to the necessity of Christians,’ Lond. 1691, 8vo. 4. ‘The Art of Memory. A treatise useful for all, especially such as are to speak in publick,’ Lond. 1697, 1699, 1706, 8vo (Feinagle, New Art of Memory, ed. 1812, pp. 170–88). 5. ‘Rhetorica Anglorum; vel, Exercitationes oratoriæ in rhetoricam sacram et communem. Quibus adjiciuntur quædam regulæ ad imbecilles memorias corroborandas,’ Lond. 1699, 8vo. 6. Translation of Charles Drelincourt's ‘Christian's Defence against the Fears of Death,’ 4th edit. Lond. 1701, 8vo. This passed through many editions; the twenty-seventh appeared at Liverpool in 1810. 7. ‘The History of the Earls and Earldom of Flanders from the first establishment of that sovereignty to the death of the late King Charles II of Spain. To which is prefixed a general Survey of Flanders, with a curious map of that country [by Moll],’ Lond. 1701, 8vo. 8. ‘Seasonable Advice to the Protestant Nonjurors: showing the absurdity and danger of acknowledging the pretended Prince of Wales for King of England,’ Lond. 1702, 4to. 9. ‘An Antidote against the pernicious Errors of the Anabaptists, or of the Dipping Sect.’ An answer to this work, by R. Morgan, was published at London in 1708.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/D'Ewes, Gerrard

Garret Dewes in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​D'EWES or DEWES, GERRARD, GEERARDT, or GARRET (d. 1591), printer, was the eldest son of Adrian D'Ewes (d. 1551), descended from the ancient lords of Kessel in Guelderland, who settled in England about the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. Adrian D'Ewes married Alice Ravenscroft, a gentlewoman of good family, who bore to him Peter, James, and Andrew, besides Gerrard. A woodcut of a glass window and inscription erected by Sir S. D'Ewes to the memory of Adrian and his wife in the old church of St. Michael Bassishaw is given by Weever (Ancient Funerall Monuments, 1631, p. 698). The first book which bears the name of Gerrard D'Ewes is ‘Epitome troporum ac schematum, Io. Susenbroto collectore,’ 1552. He was made free of the Stationers' Company 4 Oct. 1557. In 1562 he printed a broadside, ‘The Description of a Monstrous Pig,’ reproduced by Huth (Ancient Ballads and Broadsides, 1867, pp. 163–5). He was taken into the livery of the Stationers' Company in 1568, served renter in 1572 and 1573 and under-warden in 1581. His house was at the sign of the Swan in St. Paul's Churchyard, and his device a rebus mentioned by Camden: ‘And if you require more, I referre you to the wittie inventions of some Londoners; but that for Garret Dews is most remarkable, two in a garret, casting dews at dice’ (Remaines, 1629, p. 142). Between 1552 and 1587 he only printed about thirteen pieces. He married Grace Hynde of Cambridgeshire. She died in 1583, and was buried in St. Faith's Chapel, under the old cathedral of St. Paul's, London. He left the city and retired some years before his death to South Ockendon in Essex, where he also purchased the manor of Gaines, chiefly in the parish of Upminster. Here he lived as a country gentleman and bore coat armour. He died 12 April 1591, and was buried at Upminster Church, where a brass still exists (Weever, Funerall Monuments, p. 653). His only surviving son was Paul (1567-16His only surviving son, Paul (1567–1631), one of the six clerks in chancery, was father of Sir Simonds D'Ewes [q. v.] He had also a daughter, Alice, married to William Lathum of Upminster, Essex.
H. R. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/D'Auvergne, Edward

​D'AUVERNE, EDWARD (1660–1737), military historian, belonged to the Jersey branch of the D'Auvergne family, claiming descent from a cadet of the house of the last reigning Duke of Bouillon. He was son of Philip d'Auvergne of Jersey, and born in that island in 1660. He entered Pembroke College, Oxford, at Michaelmas term, 1679, and took his degree as B.A. 1684, and M.A. 4 May 1686. Wood (Athenæ Oxon.) speaks of him as holding the living of St. Brelade in Jersey. In 1691 he was chaplain to the Scots guards, and served with that regiment throughout the wars in Flanders under William III, of which he became the historian. Afterwards he was made one of the king's domestic chaplains. Narcissus Luttrell records his appointment to that post, in the room of Dr. Willis, in 1699, and that ‘Dr.’ D'Auvergne, as he styles him, was about to accompany the king to Holland (Relation of State Affairs, iv. 322). On 11 Dec. 1701, upon the preferment of Dr. Huntingdon to the bishopric of Raphoe, D'Auvergne was given by the king the rectory of Great Hallingbury, Essex, which he held up to his death. In 1729 D'Auvergne married Esther, daughter of Philip Le Geyt, lieutenant bailey of Jersey, and by her had one child, Philip. The latter had a large family, and lost a son, a midshipman, in the Royal George at Spithead in 1782. D'Auvergne died at Great Hallingbury 2 Dec. 1737.
He was author of:
* ‘History of the ​Campaign in Flanders, 1691;’ printed 1692.
* ‘Relation of the Last Campaign of the Confederate Army, 1692,’ London, 1693.
* ‘History of the Last Campaign, 1693,’ London, 1693.
* ‘A History of the Campaign in the Spanish Netherlands in 1694. With a Journal of the Siege of Huy,’ London, 1695.
* ‘A History of the Campaign in Flanders for 1695. With an Account of the Siege of Namur,’ London, 1695.
* ‘A History of the Campaign in Flanders in 1696,’ London, 1696.
* ‘A History of the Campaign in Flanders in 1697,’ London, 1698; and, it is believed, other works.
A sermon, delivered by him and printed in 1705, is in Lambeth Palace Library.
[Payne's Armorial of Jersey, p. 55; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (ed. 1721), ii. 1111; Morant's Essex, vol. ii., under ‘Great Hallingbury.’ In Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 28880, pp. 186, 190, 28904, p. 48, are three unimportant letters from D'Auvergne to J. Ellis, written about 1697, when the troops were returning home from Flanders.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/D'Espagne, Jean

Jean Despagne in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​D'ESPAGNE, JEAN (1591–1659), French protestant pastor and theologian, born in 1591 in the Dauphiné, was pastor at Orange in 1620, and then at the Hague, which he seems to have left in 1629, under disagreeable circumstances, if we may trust a very hostile pamphlet published against him in London in 1657 (Réponse aux questions de M. Despagne adressées à l'Eglise francoise de Londres, London, 1657, apparently written by a M. Herbert).
From the Hague he came to London, wrote his first work on the lawfulness of the ‘Duello’ (‘Antiduello, or a treatise in which is discussed the lawfulnesse and unlawfulnesse of single combats,’ 1632; republished in the same year under the title of ‘Antiduello. The Anatomie of Duells with the Symptomes thereof,’ &c.) D'Espagne became pastor to a French congregation in London, which met, through the kindness of the Earl of Pembroke, ‘in Durham House in the Strand, and after that was pulled down at the chapel in Somerset House, which was procured for that assembly by order of the House of Lords’ (New and General Biog. Dict. 1798).
D'Espagne evidently adopted a somewhat independent line among his countrymen and co-religionists, not only venturing to criticise Calvin—which won him the posthumous encomiums of Bayle—but holding aloof from the older French church of London. He accused the latter of millenarianism and other folly. They in turn accused him of schism. The controversy raged angrily, and appears to have been carried in some form before the House of Lords, who adjudicated in D'Espagne's favour (see pamphlet already ut supra).
D'Espagne's books and pamphlets relate to a variety of subjects. Some were translated into English, and the collected works were translated into German. A catalogue is in Haag's ‘La France protestante.’
D'Espagne died on 25 April 1659. There is a mediocre portrait of him in the translated ‘Essay on the Wonders of God,’ published in London by his executor in 1662.
[Didot's Nouvelle Biographie Générale, and works quoted above.]
F. T. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bereford, Richard de

​BEREFORD, RICHARD de (fl. 1283–1317), judge, was contemporary with William de Bereford, the chief justice [q. v.], but their relationship, if any, is not known. He first appears early in 1283 as a collector of the thirtieth in Worcestershire. On 3 June 1300 he was appointed treasurer of the Irish exchequer (Fin. 28 Ed. I, m. 8), received letters of protection as 'Richard de Bereford clk.' 12 June, and reached Dublin on 7 July. He was at once joined with the justiciar and three others in a royal commission to treat with the Irish magnates for the Scottish war (Claus. Ed. I, No. 223, m. 12 dors.; Fin. 28 Ed. I, ro. 17; Pat. 29 Ed. I, m. 20, &c.). He still occurs in that capacity in 1305 (Plac. Trin. 33 Ed. I, ro. 53), but was named as a justice of assize for six English counties in 1310. In 1314 he was made chancellor of Ireland (Pat. 7 Ed. II, m. 16), and occurs as such at his last appearance, August 1317.
[Foss's Judges, iii. 234; Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, 1293-1301.]
J. H. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beranger, Gabriel

​BERANGER, GABRIEL (d. 1817), artist, was born in Rotterdam about 1729, and was descended from one of the Huguenots who had settled in Holland. In 1760, when he was about twenty-one years of age, he came to Ireland to join some of his relatives who had settled there, and after some time opened a print shop and artist's warehouse at 5 South Great George's Street, Dublin, where for many years he followed the profession of an artist. At that time many of the leading men of Dublin took great interest in Irish history and antiquities. Foremost among these were General Vallancey and Colonel Burton Conyngham, who became acquainted with Beranger and were struck by his skill as an artist, his intellectual tastes, and his lively social disposition. They resolved to employ him in sketching antiquities, and as his business in George's Street was not successful, they had him appointed to a government situation in the Dublin exchequer office.
He was an indefatigable draughtsman, and, whether working for himself or for others, seems never to have passed an object of antiquarian interest without sketching it. He first drew all the antiquities of Dublin and its neighbourhood, and afterwards, accompanied by a French artist named Bigari, made several sketching tours through the counties of Leinster, Connaught, and Ulster. He was not only a good artist, but a close observer of the people among whom he travelled, and many of his drawings are accompanied by vivid descriptions of the scenery and antiquities of the places he visited, and racy notion's of his intercourse with the gentry and of the customs and manners of the peasantry. He transferred his drawings and descriptions to several manuscript volumes intended for publication, most of which are now preserved in Dublin, in the Royal Irish Academy, and elsewhere. The drawings are extremely valuable, as they preserve faithfully the appearance of ancient buildings and stone monuments as they existed a century ago, many of which are now greatly dilapidated or wholly destroyed. Dr. Petrie made much use of these drawings to illustrate his book on the round towers of Ireland.
In later life Beranger was made independent by a bequest from his brother-in-law. He died in 1817 at the age of eighty-eight, and was interred in the French burial-ground in Dublin.
[Willie's Memoir of Beranger; Petrie's Round Towers. 248.]
P. W. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Berchthun

Berhthun in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​BERCHTHUN, Saint (d. 733), abbot of Beverley, was originally a deacon under John, bishop of Hexham, now known as St. John of Beverley. When John was translated from Hexham to York, Berchthun appears to have accompanied him. One of John's first acts as archbishop was to found a monastery at Beverley, then called In Derawuda, and in the year 700 he appointed Berchthun its first abbot. In 717 the archbishop resigned his see, and at the invitation of Berchthun took up his residence at Beverley, where he died in 721. It was from Berchthun that Bæda obtained much of the information respecting the life and miracles of the sainted archbishop which is contained in his history. The year of Berchthun's death is variously given as 733 and 740, but the former date appears to be the best attested. Although no formal record of his canonisation seems to exist, the title of saint is given to him by early writers, and his name appears in the calendar under 15 May, the day of his death. In 1088 his remains were disinterred, and placed beside those of John in the minster church at Beverley. His name, which in Anglo-Saxon orthography would be written indifferently Beorhthun or Brihthun, is variously latinised as Berchthunus, Bercthunus, Bertunus, Brythunus, and Britunus.
[Bæda, Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 3, 4, 5; Acta Sanctorum, May, iii. 503.]
H. B.