From the present information we must conclude that some generations before Peter, our ancestors were possibly related to Louis and Estienne (today's 'Stephen'), both fought at The Boyne. Therefore a quick potted history.

On the 5th. November 1688 Prince William landed at Brixham with 12,000 English, Dutch, Swedish, and French Huguenots. His Commander was General Meinhardt Schomberg 3rd. Duke of Schomberg who had been a Marshal of the French armies. Schomberg’s Regiment of Horse was raised IN ENGLAND in 1689 comprising 242 rank and file. When he was appointed overall commander, some of the English forces revolted prior to embarkation at Harwich. The army subsequently marched into the West Country where it skirmished with James's forces. Schomberg's army then marched north and finally sailed from Hoylake on or about the 27th. August 1689 and landed at Bangor.

From 'The Irish Pensioners of William III's Huguenot Regiments, 1702' in Gaubert Irish Connections webpage, we know that a Louis Gaubert served for 12 years in William's armies in Holland, Flanders and Ireland. This suggests that Louis Gaubert was therefore either recruited in England, already serving before arriving in England, or continued to serve after the Boyne. At the moment we have no information concerning Louis's life after the Boyne.

On arriving in Ireland it headed south and Schomberg posted his forces along the north bank of the River Boyne. The left wing, which included Schomberg's Horse, was then opposite the small town of Oldbridge. Schomberg's Horse contained Cornet Louis GAUBERT. The term 'Cornet' meant a junior subaltern in a cavalry regiment.

The battle started at 0900 hrs on the 1st.July 1690. The right wing of Prince William's army had been sent to flank the poorly defended Slane Bridge. James misread this feint as the main thrust and diverted half his forces. William anticipated this move and sent his cavalry straight through the body of the enemy army. The action was short and swift. James lost about 2,500 men from a force of about 45, 000. William lost about 500 from a force of about 36,000.

During the next three weeks William marched to Waterford laying waste to the countryside and wide - scale pillaging occurred. His army returned to England but was back in Ireland, landing at Cork, on the 20th October 1690. It seems that his original regiment of horse was disbanded in 1689? It may have been merged with other regiments for the battle. The final victory wasn't achieved until the battle at Aughrim in July 1691.

Schomberg was created Duke of Leinster on the 8th March 1692 and so the regiment became Leinster's Horse. During 1692 it left London and arrived in the Netherlands via Ghent. The regiment was subsequently incorporated into the 4th.Dragoon Guards, which in turn merged with the 7th. Dragoon Guards (The Princess Royal's) becoming the 4th / 7th. Dragoon Guards. Many of the Huguenots were encouraged to settle in Ireland, including those on pension.


Statutes. 4th year of William and Mary., 1692, Chap. II.

An Act for encouragement of Protestant Strangers to settle in this Kingdom of Ireland.

Whereas in the Parliament held at Dublin 8th May 18th Cha. II., and by divers prorogations held and continued to the 17th April in the 14th year of said reign, a certain Act of Parliament was made and passed (intitled An Act for encouraging Protestant Strangers & others to inhabit & plant in. the Kingdom of Ireland) which said "Act, as to the naturalizing the Strangers thereby intended to be naturalised, had continuance only for the term of 7 years from the end of said Parliament (be it now enacted).

I. That all & every part of said Act which is now expired shall be & is hereby revived& shall continue and be in full force & vertue to all intents and purposes whatsoever for and during the term of 7 yrs. from the end of-this present Session of Parliament & no longer.

II. Provided always, that no person or persons shall have the benefit thereof until he shall, instead of the oaths of Supremacy & Allegiance which were in said Act to be taken ; take the oaths hereafter mentioned


Which said oaths & declarations shall be solemnly & publicly made & subscribed in the high Court of Chancery, Court of King's bench, or in open court in the session time, before three or more justices of the peace in any county of this Kingdom where such person or persons shall reside, or before any Judge or Justice of Assize in his circuit, who are hereby impowered & authorised to administer the same and thereupon to certify his or their doing thereof into the High Court of Chancery there to remain on record.

Further continued by 2 Anne 14 & made perpetual by 4 George L, 9, as to encouragement of Protestant Strangers.



In some cases the Huguenot families settled whilst the men remained in the army and served in various parts of the world including Spain and the West Indies (Dominica ?). It is unclear what spoils each man received but the records show that many were living in homes soon after the battle.

It is sad that a group of devoutly religious people were forced to flee their homes because of being persecuted for religious intolerance. It was equally immoral for them to then act as mercenaries and assist in invading another country to further another religious war. The consequences of their actions in Ireland are with us today more than three hundred years later.

Rather like the Saxons, they soon settled into a domestic life and took-up their old skills. Some experts claim that had the Huguenots not arrived in England, the Industrial Revolution could not have happened. The refugees brought some of the finest academic, scientific, commercial, and military brains with them. A glance through the names of the veterans and you can see the ancestors of some of the great. Their period of immigration into England has been called ' The Quiet Conquest '. This indicates how quickly they were accepted and assimilated into the native population, and of their worth. They were viewed with some hostility in certain trades simply because of their craftmanship, innovation and commercial prowess. They clung fiercely to their religion and built their own churches. Yet within one to two generations they had been largely absorbed into British society.

Waterford History

1652AD - Act of Settlement of Ireland (To Hell or to Connaught), printed in Waterford
1654AD - (Jun 23) Order that no Papist be allowed to trade in the City of Waterford
1656AD - (Jan 30) An Order that all Quakers be rounded up and shipped from Waterford or Passage, to Bristol
1678AD -The Lord Lieutenant and Council, ordered that the Popish inhabitants to be removed from Waterford, except those necessary to the town.
1688AD - (Mar 22) King James II grants a new charter to the Popish citizens of Waterford
1690AD - (Jul 2) King James II, arrives in Waterford, after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, and sails for France, from Duncannon, Co. Wexford.
1690AD - (Jul 25) Waterford surrendered to King William's forces. The following day King William went to see the town, and ordered that no person or their goods be disturbed.
1693AD - (Mar 27) At a council meeting on this date, the Waterford Corporation passed a resolution stating that the City provide habitations for fifty families of the French Protestants. These were commonly called Huguenots, and were given the dismantled Choir of the Old Franciscian Abbey (Greyfriars), by Bishop Foy, to conduct their services in.


From "The Huguenots & Ulster 1685 - 1985"

WHY THE HUGUENOTS LEFT FRANCE AND WHERE THEY SETTLED IN IRELAND

The 'Huguenots' (the origin of the term is obscure) were French Protestants of the Presbyterian kind who followed the teachings of John Calvin (1509-64). The majority of the Huguenots, some 700,000, remained in France and most of these became nominal converts. More than 200,000, however, risked imprisonment or the galleys by going abroad. The largest number fled to Holland , many to Switzerland and Germany , some to Denmark . Forty to fifty thousand escaped to England , where they joined those who had settled there earlier. About 10,000 came to Ireland . They were not the first. Some of those who had left France in earlier years were already settled here, though the numbers were small.

In the 1660s, indeed, special inducements to encourage immigrants were offered in Ireland that did not apply in England . Charles II 's lord lieutenant, the Duke of Ormonde, in 1662 sponsored an act of parliament that made it easy for 'Protestant strangers' to become naturalized citizens and freemen of towns and guilds; and grants of land were made to them. Ormonde himself established a colony of Huguenot linen weavers at Chape1izod near Dublin and groups of wool workers at Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. Most of those who came in Charles II's reign, however, settled in Dublin , where two French congregations were established.

Under James II the act of 1662 was annulled and the pastor of the congregation attached to St Patrick's cathedral was imprisoned. None of the Protestants in Ireland more devoutly wished for the victory of William of Orange and his French allies than the Huguenots. That victory and the restoration of easy naturalization made Ireland an attractive place of refuge, especially when an act of 1692 granted the newcomers a degree of religious toleration greater than that enjoyed by Catholics and Protestant Dissenters.

Of the 10,000 or so who settled in Ireland , some came directly from France but many more had escaped first to England or Holland before moving on. One group of 600 families that arrived in 1690 came from Holland ; so too did the families that Louis Crommelin brought later to Lisburn.

A significant part in William's victory in Ireland - and in many a later campaign against the armies of Louis XIV and his allies-was played by Huguenot soldiers. The best known of them was his commander in Ireland, Frederick Duke of Schomberg, once a Marshal of France, who was killed at the Boyne. Two years later the commander-in-chief in Ireland was another Huguenot, Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, whose brother had been killed at the Boyne and who himself had commanded the victorious cavalry at Aughrim. William created him Earl of Galway and rewarded him with a large grant of confiscated land at Portarlington, where he established a colony of French officers. This aristocratic and military settlement retained its French character longer than any of the others in Ireland; its French church did not close till 1841. Other French soldiers settled at Youghal in Co. Cork, but the colony was not a large one and its members either moved away or became assimilated during the following century. Some of the rank and file of Schomberg’s army settled at Belfast but since, unlike the Huguenots at Lisburn, they never had a separate congregation or meeting-place, they have no distinct history.

Apart from those who were ex-soldiers, most of the Huguenot refugees who settled in Ireland were merchants or craftsmen. The Lisburn colony of linen weavers, from which the cambric manufacture at Lurgan and later enterprises at Dundalk and Waterford derived, is dealt with in more detail elsewhere. A later venture of a similar kind was the attempt by Thomas Adderley to establish the manufacture of silk on his estate at Innishannon in Co. Cork in the 1760s. Sixty families of refugees arrived in Cork from France in 1765 at his invitation, fleeing from renewed persecution (the last of their ministers to die for the faith was hanged in 1762).

Merchants and traders were attracted to the ports on the southern coast of Ireland that had long had direct trading links with France. Waterford had a numerous colony with a flourishing congregation and church for most of the eighteenth century; there, Huguenots were especially prominent in the linen trade and the manufacture of sailcloth. There was a smaller settlement at Wexford, which at one time had its own minister but no separate church; all trace of it had gone by the later eighteenth century, however. Much more important than either of these was the settlement at Cork where a congregation was established which lasted until 1813. Huguenots were involved in the growing manufacture and trade of Cork in the eighteenth century to such an extent that much of the wealth of the city was in their hands.

Inland in south Leinster, there was a settlement at Kilkenny (where there were even plans at one time for a French university) and another at Carlow. Both had congregations and clergy for the first generation or so, but both appear to have become assimilated rapidly thereafter. Still less is known about the history of small groups at Enniscorthy and Wicklow, and about others at Bandon and Tullow in Co.Cork. In the north, there was a short-lived agricultural settlement at Castleblayney in Co. Monaghan and mention of an early colony at Killeshandra in Co. Cavan.

Above all, the Huguenot refugees in Ireland settled in Dublin. In the early years of the eighteenth century there were for a time no fewer than four congregations in the capital, two of them conforming to the established church, the other two retaining their Calvinist form of worship. It was estimated at one time that nearly 2,000 members of the professions in Dublin were Huguenots - many of them among the clergy of the Church of Ireland and in the legal profession. The nonconforming Huguenots maintained a separate church in Dublin until 1814. Three years later, the church attached to St. Patrick's cathedral also closed. By that time, the descendants of the refugees had long been part of the Protestant section of Dublin society.


Gaubert pensioners
(from British History Online at http://www.british-history.ac.uk)

 

select subparagraph number below to view original

1

1a

2

3

4

5



1. & 1a. 'Appendix', Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 16: 1700-1701 (1938), pp. 433-446


Huguenot pensions payable monthly or quarterly upon personal appearance or upon authentic certificates of their being alive and in no employment

£

s

d

 

Rousse; Maleray; Du Faij; Chapel; St.Christoll; Nicholas; Comarques; Dallez Soustelles; Drulhon; Theremin; Desmarettes; Sijol; Duchesne; Gaubert; Constantin; Therond; Sigoniere; Moncornet; Dumarest; Duval; Constantin junr.; LaRouviere; Le Feron; Jean La Roque;Le Blanc; Cambes: each

45

12

6

Peter Grindor; Charles Quinsac; Pierre Baracus; David Bellegarde; Jaques D'Alterac; Isaac Falaquier; Pierre Massot; Jaques Grenier; Pierre Pelat; Jaques Guizot; Vicause; St. Meard; François du Figuier; Royal; Mathieu Bonneval; Jean Gout; Gaubert; Jean Rouviere; David Langlade; Chating senr.; Chating junr.; La Milliere senr.; La Milliere jun.; Louis Valotte; Pierre Clavier; Pierre Verdier; La Garde; La Bastide de Lon; Villemesson senr.; Villemesson junr.; Jean Champfleury; Cercler; Hubert; each

9

2

6



2.  'Anne: August 1702', Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Anne, 1702-3 (1916), pp. 204-234

These persons to be paid monthly or quarterly on appearance or sending certificates to shew they are alive, and not otherwise employed. Pensions to commence from 24 June, 1702.

 
a day
  s d
Gaubert 0 6


3. 'William and Mary: January 1694', Calendar of State Papers Domestic: William and Mary, 1694-5 (1906), pp. 1-16

Jan. 11. 1694  Whitehall

Passes for Elie Guiban to go to Holland; for Jean Gaubert, a French Protestant, ditto, recommended by Brocas de Fondeplons, French Minister; for Abraham Duguè and Paul Papillon, ditto, by Mr. Satur, French Minister; for Hillebrant Baan, Dutch seaman, ditto, by Mr. Bade; for Jean Adam Duren and Haak Leoners, ditto; for Rasmus Berens, Abraham Roluffsen, Jean Hansen, and Carstin Noorens, all Danish seamen, ditto, recommended by Mr. Becceler, the Danish Minister [S.P. Dom. Warrant Book 38, p. 456]; and for Pierre Chevalier, a French Protestant, ditto, by Mr. Rivière, French Minister

 

4. 'Warrants etc: August 1699, 26-31', Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 15: 1699-1700 (1933), pp. 138-157  August 1699, 26-31

Pensions payable monthly or quarterly for personal appearance.

 

per diem
  s d

Gaubert

2

6


5.  'Treasury Warrants: August 1718, 11-15', Calendar of Treasury books, Volume 32: 1718 (1962), pp. 502-527

 

Per annum

 

£

s

d

Stephen Gaubert, ditto, 6d. a day

9

2

6

 

6. 'Treasury Warrants: August 1717, 11-12', Calendar of Treasury books, Volume 31: 1717 (1960), pp. 507-544.

August 1717, 11–12 Appendix of Respited Half Pay Officers

The King hereby authorises the Lord Lieutenant to examine into the respective circumstances and pretensions of the following persons and where he shall find any of them justly and regularly entitled to the King's favour and bounty, there he is to represent the same to the Treasury Lords in order to the laying before the King the cases and the allowances to be made to them for the King's pleasure thereupon: the said persons being respited from the aforegoing lists until such enquiry as above can be made: they being Officers who served in the Regiments of Galway, Melonier, Lifford and Belcastle at the reduction of Ireland and at the end of that war quitted the service and went not with their respective Regiments into Flanders.

 

Per annum

 

£

s

d

Stephen Gaubert, ditto, 6d. a day

9

2

6

 

7. Gobert, —, pension for, page 146.