The family of Mountain, which is a very old Norman family, and
therefore of French extraction, originally wrote their
Name "de
Montaigne," from the name of their estates at Perigord, near Bordeaux,
and as stated in the life of one of its members, the well-known
Michael Seigneur de Montaigne, the essayist and philosopher, "This
race was noble, but noble without any great lustre till his time,
which fortune showed him signal favours, and, together with honorary
and titular distinctions, procured for him the collar of the Order of
St. Michael, which at that time was the utmost mark of honour of the
French noblesse, and very rare. He was twice elected mayor of
Bordeaux, his father, a man of great honour and equity, having
formerly also had the same dignity."
Michael left only a daughter - Leonor or Leonora, who by marrying a
distant cousin of the same name, preserved the estates in the family,
as they had been for more than a century before they were inherited by
her father. These remained in possession of the senior branch until
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when, having espoused the
Protestant cause, they were forced to sacrifice them and quit the
country in 1685, with what ready money they could hastily get
together. With this they purchased an estate in Norwich, England; from
which in after generations several of the family went out to Canada,
and among them the late Bishop of Quebec.
To him, likewise I have heard attributed the irreverent piece of wit
alluded to by the Witness; but with equal injustice, as his son, the
late Bishop of Quebec assured me. [241]
It is one of those sayings evidently made up for people whose names or
position suit for hanging them on.
George Mountain, D.D., Archbishop of York, was a contemporary of
Michael de Montaigne, and a scion of the same family, though through a
younger branch, which appears to have crossed over from France about
the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and for the same reason that the elder branch did
afterwards, namely, because of their religious tenets.
It is not by any means improbable that by this separation from the
rest of his family, who were still adherents of the Roman Catholic
faith, and the consequent abandonment of worldly prospects for the
sake of religious principles, the Archbishop's progenitors may have
been reduced in circumstances, but only comparatively with what he had
lost before, for history shows that the Archbishop himself was, born
at Callwood Castle, educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, chosen a
Fellow in 1591, and Junior Proctor of that University in 1600, Dean of
Westminster in 1610, Bishop of Lincoln in 1617, Bishop of London in
1621, Bishop of Durham in 1627, and Archbishop of York in 1628.
JACOB J. C. MOUNTAIN,
Formerly of Coteau de Lac, Canada, now Vicar of Bulford, England.
BULFORD VICARAGE, Amesbury, Salisbury, May 30, 1877.
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