THE FIRE KINDLERS - CHAPTER 6

THE HUGUENOTS

In the Middle Ages it was not so difficult to follow the fortunes of our family, for they were mostly bound within the precincts of the New Forest and the county of Hampshire, but, as industry migrated to other parts of the United Kingdom, and as the new learning resulted in new inventions and ushered in the great industrial era, the family scattered to various parts, of England. And later, when steamships started to plough the oceans, and freedom of trade led Britain's interest s into the four corners of the earth, the family spread all over the world, and today the name is found on five continents. They have generally been enterprising and successful in business, and have remarkably maintained their traditional social status, a voiding both extremes of riches or poverty.

Yet there have been those who thought too much of the old homestead which had stood for so many centuries, to leave it, and they have pursued the ancient ways of the charcoal burner and husbandman, untempted by the rewards of modern industry.

The family have been Jacobites, Whigs and Liberals. Many of them have adhered to the Church of England since the Reformation, but despite their Jacobinism they have leaned rather towards Puritanism than Romanism. They have , nevertheless, been always tolerant, broad-minded and friendly to all. Probably the reason for their Jacobinism was a very practical one.

King James I restored to the charcoal burners their right to cut timber, subject to certain restrictions. He also caused many new trees to be set out in the New Forest. Some of the beeches set out by order of James I may he seen, grown to gigantic size, at Holly Farm, the residence of Mr. James Purkis at Minstead.

I have heard it said that King Charles I hid in the Charcoal Burner's cottage during his pursuit by the Roundheads.

It was not long, however, before industry was to return to Hampshire, but not this time to the cottages scattered all over the Forest. Now it was to settle in towns, and it came by means of the Huguenot refugees driven from France by fire and the sword. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Louis XIV ordered regiments of Dragoons into Cevennes and Bearn to "annihilate heresy". Two hundred thousand fled to England and Holland , and they took their industries with them.

They established themselves in Hampshire as weavers of cloth and manufacturers of paper. After the death of Louis XIV, the Prince Regent being a minor, the affairs of France were administered by Abbé Dubois, his tutor, who was subsequently created a cardinal. He was a very able administrator, but he continued the periodical "dragooning" of the Huguenots. He commenced life as the son of an apothecary, but died immensely wealthy. Apparently the seeds of heresy h ad been sown in his own home, for we find in the middle of the eighteenth century two little children of the Dubois family, a boy and a girl, their parents slain by the Dragoons and their home confiscated, adopted by one John Purkis of Houndsdown, near So uthampton, in the New Forest. When they became of age they were informed that they were heirs of the great Dubois fortune. If they would return to France and to the Catholic faith, their estate would be restored to them.

This the boy did, but the girl, Marie, did not. Love had been stronger than the lure of gold. She stayed and married John Purkis, the oldest son of her guardian, and became the mistress of Houndsdown. She became the mother of a family of fourteen, of whom all but two were raised to maturity. Nearly all of these children raised large families, so that when she reached the age of eighty she had over one hundred descendants living. She was a woman of strong constitution and firm character. She never had a day's sickness and died in her e ighty-eighth year from the effects of a fall.

The farm at Houndsdown was famous for the raising of fine horses. Brothers of John Purkis owned and operated the stage coaches that ran in those days between London and Southampton, and the horses for the stage were raised at Houndsdown.

They attended the Church of England for some years. Religion was then at the ebb tide, and the incumbent of their parish was a man of lax morals. He was tolerated until one Sunday when he said or did something that savoured of Papistry and Marie got up and walked out of the church, taking her children with her. She never entered an Established Church again, but used to go to worship in an Independent chapel, and the younger 9 members of the family were brought up as Indepen dents. John and William, `the two older boys, appear to have adhered to the Church of England, but all the rest of the family grew up to be Dissenters.

John continued in his father's business of raising horses. William, I have been told, had some artisti c ability and went to the Naval Dockyards at Portsmouth, where he used to carve and sculpture the figureheads of the great wooden battleships that were the pride of Nelson's navy.

Her favourite son seems to have been Isaac. It was the custom of the Huguenots to use biblical names. Isaac was born in 1784. He was rather delicate as a child, and so was thrown into close companionship with his mother, whose genuine piety and strong and vigorous mind, made a deep impression upon his character. He is said t o have been exceptionally serious and thoughtful as a child. At the age of sixteen, reading Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted", his soul was awakened and he decided to devote his life to the preaching of the Gospel. After receiving his primary education in England he was sent to complete his studies in France. There, besides learning to speak French with rare fluency, he became accomplished in music. There he heard the brave stories of the Jesuit missionaries in North America. Canada was a much-talked-of country just then. The maps and pictures and. descriptions of Governor Simcoe were the delight of his boyhood, and it was but natural that he should dream of some day going to Canada to preach to the wild Indians, like his namesake, the venerable Isaac Jogues.

So, at the age of twenty-three he entered the Theological Seminary at Gosport, then conducted by the Rev. David Bogue, D.D. He was ordained to the sacred ministry in 1809 and was at once sent by the London Missionary Society to the West Indies.

The tropical climate however did not suit his health and in the second year of his ministry at Kingston, Jamaica he became very ill. He had become very friendly with the son of the Governor, who was about his own age, and he took him to the Governor's hou se and waited on him personally. He always afterward maintained that he owed his life to the care and kindness of the Governor's son. As soon as he was convalescent he returned to England.

It is possible that he took a delicate brother out with him, for amongst his son's papers there is a statement that "Uncle Stephen died in Jamaica at the age of seventeen". Of course he might have gone there on a sailing vessel which is perhaps more likely. The date of Stephen's death was not given.

As soon as he got back in England his thoughts turned to marriage. When at the Theological Seminary at Gosport he had become engaged to the daughter of Arthur Johnson, a naval officer attached to H.M.S. Belleraphon.

Mary Johnson, afterwards Mrs. Isaac Purkis, often used to recall having tea with Lord Nelson and her father on H.M.S. Victory when she was a very small girl. Her mother belonged to the Molyneux family, well known for their staunch adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. When she married Isaac Purkis, it was a case of Greek meeting Greek, for Thomas Babington Macaulay says of Sir William Molyneux, that he used to boast of "Greek blood pure enough to entitle him to enter a chariot race at any Olympiad." He it was who, in the stormy days of William of Orange, def ied the power of the British legislature over Southern Ireland, and worked hard and nobly, though unsuccessfully for the establishment of the woollen and clothing industries in Southern Ireland. Lord Macaulay further describes him as " an English gentleman of fortune living in Ireland". Mary Johnson's mother was the daughter of a London banker, a descendant of his, who was very wealthy. One day at confession the priest offended her idea of conscience and she walked out of the confessional unshriven and thereafter declared herself a Protestant. She shortly afterward married Arthur Johnson, who was of course a Protestant also. The Molyneux family were highly mortified by her conduct. They never spoke to her again, and her father left her penniless, the large fortune which should have been hers going to the Church.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson died together at sea at the age of 41 and 40 respectively. When her mother heard of her death at sea she was broken hearted, she had always hoped and prayed that she would return to the Roman Catholic faith before she died. She never spoke again and passed away at the age of seventy.

Mary Johnson was only seventeen when Isaac Purkis returned from the West Indies, her parents had recently died and their estate was in Chancery. Arrangements were made for them to be married at a church in Bristol. They were to meet at the church. Isaac arrived in good time but his heart sank within him when he found the church locked up. He felt that it was an ill omen. However he found the sexton and the clergyman, who had mistaken the hour, before the bride and her party arrived, and his spirits rose again, but only for a few moments. He had secured the consent of her parents before their death and thought that that was all that was nece ssary, but she was a ward of the Court of Chancery and the consent of the Court must be obtained, the minister said, before they could be married. So with a heavy heart he had to say "good-bye" to his bride to be, for a time at least. He then set out on an evangelical tour of Gloucestershire and Somerset which lasted about a year, during which he organized groups of Dissenters into congregations. While on this tour he finally got married to Mary Johnson, and his oldest child, Mary Purkis, was born at Lechlade, Gloucestershire, on February 17th, 1812. She was not to live very long. He wrote a short account of her life and death. It reads very much like a page from the "Lives of the Saints". The little child seemed to have had an extraordinary and precocious concern about spiritual things, and soon returned to the Heavenly Father with whom she seemed more familiar than she was with earthly things.

He subsequently received a call to become pastor of the Congregational Church at Deptford, London, where he remained for nine years. During that period he wrote several books, one of which I have read. It is a treatise on the observance of the Lord's Day, published in 1814. It is a very searching and serious discourse. He also wrote several poems, some of which are still in the possession of his descendants. Some of them are quite humorous, but whatever their subject may be, his zeal for the Gospel inevitably finds room for expression.

Amongst his papers are a number of printed notices informing the public that Mrs. Purkis is conducting a school for young ladies with special courses in French and Music at No. 1 Poictiers Place, Deptford.
In the year 1821, his boyhood's dream was realized. At the invitation of St. John's Church, Quebec, he went to Canada, eventually to take up the work of a pioneer missionary.

One winter's day early in 1803, two of the boys, George, who was then twelve, and Charles, who was about five, were on the road in front of their home at Houndsdown to see His Majesty, King George II I, who with his youngest daughter, the Princess Amelia, and a few other gentlemen, were out riding on horseback. Perhaps they were more interested in the Princess, who could not have been many months older than George Purkis at that time.

The Princess Amelia was riding about 300 yards behind her royal father when her horse stumbled and fell, throwing her and breaking its leg.

The boys went with King George to her assistance. She was bruised and cut about the face, but with the help of a woman whom they summoned, a Mrs. Richard Lock, she washed herself, and mounting another horse, rode to Southampton. It was not very long after this that poor Princess Amelia died, whether as a result of injuries sustained in the fall I know not, but her father, King Geo rge III, was so affected by the loss of his youngest and favourite daughter that his reason left him.

Charles was the youngest and by no means the least interesting of the family. He seems to have lived the life of a gentleman of leisure. He built himsel f a home on the banks of the river Itchen between Woolston and the village of Weston. There he seems to have lived an ideal kind of life, looking after his large and beautiful garden and observing and making friends with the birds who visited there as well as in the neighbouring woods at Netley. He frequently contributed ornithological observations to the press, especially the "Hampshire Advertiser". These were published posthumously in book form under the title of "Notes of a Naturalist". I am fortunately in possession of a copy. It is most interesting, and shows that he was a very keen observer of nature and possessed a deep affection for his feathered friends. He frequently protested against the ruthless destruction of birds and had a good word to say even for the sparrows. He married twice. His first wife was a Miss Elliott and the second, whom he married when he was seventy and she was forty-seven, was the daughter of Captain Polhill of the Life Guards, who distinguished himself in the Battle of Waterloo.

But this gentle naturalist had another very different side to his nature. He was also the inventor of missiles of destruction. However, he was unsuccessful in getting his inventions recognized. One of them, the punch shaped shell in universal use today, was adopted to replace the old-fashioned cannonball years after he had unsuccessfully tried to get the War Office to consider it. An extract from one of his letters tells the story in his own words:

"Some few years since, I wrote to the Princ e for leave to send him some of my inventions which had cost me some time and trouble. The answer was that 'the Prince never gave an opinion on new inventions.'

"My first invention was nine different projectiles, or cannon shots, of various shapes for de stroying stone walls and iron steamers-representing punches, 'ohssels', hammers used by masons. These were invented in 1844, but I took no steps till the Russian War commenced. I felt 'England expected every man to do his duty'. I wrote to every department of the government to allow me to exhibit them. But it was no use. I felt disgusted with their treatment, and what is most galling to me is to see Whitworth and Mackay of Liverpool making some of the very projectiles that I had in model years before! I shall now drop it all."

Alas! poor Charles, so near to fame and fortune, and yet so far! But surely it was better thus. Posterity would hardly like to think of the gentle protector and interpreter of the feathered tribes, whom the birds feared so lit tle that they would eat out of his hand and light upon his shoulder, as one to place dangerous and death-dealing weapons in the hands of civilization. I cannot but think that his failure to get his inventions recognized must have been because his heart, so devoted to the birds and the beauties of nature, could not have been but half set upon his inventions. His second marriage seems from his letters to have been an idyll of romance. He died in 1881.

It appears to be the custom of our family for the elde st son to bear the father's Christian name. Thus we find a long line of Johns, the sons of johns; Charles the son of Charles; James the son of James, and so on. Direct lineal descent from the Charcoal Burner who picked up William Rufus has been claimed b y the "Johns". However, the same claim is made by the Aaron Purkis branch. The latter have the undoubted advantage of being the last in lawful possession of the historic little homestead, said to be the original house of the Charcoal Burner associated with King William II. They are still living in the parish of Minstead, on property that was probably a part of the Purkis estate before the Norman Conquest, and before the time of Alfred the Great. They claim that Aaron Purkis was the original name, and t h at they are descended from an age-long line of Aarons. With the latter claim I cannot agree. There have been several generations of Aarons, but the name does not appear before the coming of the Huguenots and is, I think, a Huguenot name. There were Johns and Williams and Arthurs for centuries before that; I am inclined to believe that John is the oldest name. May I repeat that if only some of those genealogical trees, that seemed to he so plentiful a hundred years ago, would come to light, this point c o uld be cleared. Whatever the Christian name may have been, the freehold property which belonged to the Purkis associated with William Rufus, and which was all that was left of the estate confiscated to make the New Forest a royal game preserve, was entailed to the oldest son and heir of the family for ever. For seven hundred years it remained the home of the head of the family. At least a part of it was the original building that stood in Rufus' time. The identical cart which had been used to convey the corpse of King William II to Winchester, containing the blood stains of the Red Monarch, as well as the stirrup which had been cut to free the dead King's body from his horse, were most carefully preserved as family heirlooms.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century, the head of the family being a widower, married again and started to raise a second family. So the story goes as I have heard it. I have found it impossible to check and verify it up to the present. I have in fact heard one or two variations, and I am simply telling that which appears to me to be most plausible. The second wife was rather disagreeable to the first family, so they all got out. Aaron went to Holly Farm, a little over a mile from Minstead, in the direction of Lyndhurst . The old homestead was about two miles from Minstead parish church, near Stoney Cross, within a stone's throw of the monument marking the spot where William Rufus was slain. The old father died, leaving the widow in possession of the home as long as she lived. When she died she willed the property to her oldest son, who had possession at the time of her death. Aaron, being the oldest son of his father, claimed the property according to the ancient entailment, but the widow's son refused to give it up. He (Aaron) took the ancient cart and kept it at Holly Farm and the case went to the Court of Chancery. On looking into the records of the Court we find the case registered as Purkiss v. Purkiss, Hilary Term 1817. There was no pleading and so there is no further record of the case. I feet certain this must be the one, as the date fits exactly. I am not perturbed by the spelling of the name, as it nearly always is spelled in a variety of different ways in official records. Naturally, ill feeling developed b etween the rival claimants to the property. By a mysterious accident the Charcoal Burner's cart was destroyed. Aaron Purkis was heart-broken. The preservation of the cart had been a symbol of a tradition of filial fidelity unbroken for seven centuries; but he was not to blame; he had done his best. He had considered the widow and the orphans in their affliction. He had been loyal to a nobler tradition than that which assigned to him his ancient heritage. A short time afterward the homestead was destr oyed by fire, and the son of the widow and his family went to live at Fareham.

The property was sold by the Court of Chancery to one Turner, who tilled the land. In 1898 two granddaughters of Rev. Isaac Purkis visited the cottage which was then a complete ruin, the property then belonged to a Jefferys. To-day all trace of it has gone and another cottage of more modern type stands approximately on the site. Who burnt down the cottage? and why? are questions as unanswerable as "who killed William Rufus?", and, as the Court of Chancery never gave a judgment on the case, it is just as impossible to say who is the rightful heir. And so once more the smoke of mystery is wrapped around the Charcoal Burner's fire.