8 Transactions. 



Laurie of Maxwelton caused Cornet Bailie give me martyrdom." 

 This is one side of the picture, we will now travel somewhat afield 

 for the other, and, as I hold, the happier and the better side. 

 In the 16tli century the ancient family of de Bailleul had long 

 owned estates in Spanish Flanders ; but, having embraced the 

 principles of the Reformation, they emigrated in the next 

 century from Spanish Flanders, then under Philip II. and the 

 Inquisition, to French Flanders, and thence, when persecution 

 began under Louis XIV., to England, where they purchased 

 property near Peterborough, and intermarrying with the 

 families around them, were ere long known by the English name 

 of Bayley. From one of those Protestant refugees my father's 

 family is descended. Thus shortly before the time at which 

 Sir Robert Ijaurie was sentencing William Smith to death for 

 adlierence to Reformation principles, an ancestor on my father's 

 side was, for the sake of the same principles, forsaking his own 

 country, and seeking refuge in England. But we have another 

 link with the principles of the Reformation. In the year in 

 which William Smith was put to death, a member of the 

 French family of Minet, Isaac by name, was carrying on 

 business in Calais. In that year the edict of Nantes was 

 revoked by Louis XIV. The persecution of the Protestants 

 became exceedingly severe, and Isaac Minet, who had embraced 

 the new faith, was cast into prison, and told by the president 

 that if he did not sign to be a Roman Catholic he would be 

 burnt. He, however, made his escape, and with other members 

 of his family, 23 persons in all, crossed by night in an open boat 

 to Dover, and there founded a b-mking house. He was joined in 

 due course by his nephew, Peter Fector or Vechter, a native of 

 Mulhausen, who, with his father, had married into the Minet 

 family, and together they carried on for many years the bank of 

 Minet and Fector, now absorbed into the National Provincial 

 Bank of England. Tlie son of Peter Fector and Mary Minet 

 was my mother's father, as also of the late Mr Laurie (formerly 

 Fector) of Maxwelton. Thus whilst on my father's side we 

 claim direct descent from the victims of Roman Catholic 

 persecution, we claim a like connection on my mother's 

 side also, and can show that at the very time that the one 

 ancestor was doing the Covenanter to death, other ancestors 

 were bearing witness to Reformation principles, and forsaking 

 their own counti-y for ever rather tlian renounce them. And this 



