Melville Amadeus Henry Douglas Heddle de la Caillemotte de Massue de Ruvigny[1] (26 April 1868 – 6 October 1921) was a British genealogist and author who was twice president of the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland. He styled himself the Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval.[2]
Melville Henry Massue | |
|---|---|
 Massue in 1911 | |
| Born | 26 April 1868 Fulham, Middlesex, England |
| Died | 6 October 1921 (aged 53) Southwark, London, England |
Biography
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Massue was descended from a sister of Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, a Huguenot aristocrat who emigrated to England in 1688 and became a prominent supporter of William of Orange.[3] He was born in London to Colonel Charles Henry Theodore Bruce de Ruvignes and Margaret Melville Moodie, the daughter of a Scottish laird.[4] He succeeded his father as 9th Marquis of Ruvigny and 15th Marquis of Raineval in 1883,[1] though his right to these titles was disputed by the authors of The Complete Peerage.[5] In 1893, he married Rose Amalia Gaminara, with whom he had three children.[4]
Massue was an early member of the Jacobite Order of the White Rose, though he found the sentimental nature of the order restrictive.[6] In 1891, he co-founded the Legitimist Jacobite League with Herbert Vivian and Ruaraidh Erskine as a more political and radical Jacobite society.[7] He served as president from 1893–94 and again from 1897–99.[2] The league was one of the principal organizations driving the Neo-Jacobite Revival of the 1890s. In 1898, he was made a knight of the Order of Charles III by the Duke of Madrid, the Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain.
Massue was a prolific author of genealogical works and a committed member of the Roman Catholic Church, which he joined in 1902.[8] He died in a London nursing home and was succeeded by his second son, Charles, "Comte de la Caillemotte", his first son having died unexpectedly shortly before the First World War.[9]
Publications
edit- Moutray of Seafield and Roscobie, Now of Favour Royal, Co. Tyrone: An Historical and Genealogical Memoir of the Family in Scotland, England, Ireland and America (London: Elliot Stock, 1902)
- The Family of Hicks (privately printed, 1902)
- The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal, 5 vols. (London, 1903–1911)
- The Jacobite Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Grants of Honour (Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1904)
- Morris of Ballybeggan and Castle Morris (privately printed, 1904)
- The Moodie Book: Being an Account of the Families of Melsetter, Muir, Cocklaw, Blairhill, Bryanton, Gilchorn, Pitmuies, Arbekie, Masterton, etc., etc. (privately printed, 1906)
- The Nobilities of Europe (London: Melville & Co., 1909)
- The Legitimist Kalender for the Year of our Lord 1910 (London: Forget-Me-Not Royalist Club, 1910)
- The Titled Nobility of Europe: An International Peerage (London: Harrison & Sons, 1914)
- The Roll of Honour: A Biographical Record of All Members of His Majesty's Naval and Military Forces Who Have Fallen in the War, 2 vols. (London: Standard Art Book Co., 1916)
References
edit- ^ a b Massue 1909, p. 10.
- ^ a b "Ruvigny and Raineval, 9th Marquis of". Who's Who & Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. 2007.
- ^ Massue 1909, pp. 118–120.
- ^ a b Massue, Melville Henry (1906). The Moodie Book. Privately printed. pp. 98–99.
- ^ Cokayne, G. E. (1926). Gibbs, Vicary; Doubleday, H. A. (eds.). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant. Vol. 5 (2nd ed.). London: St Catherine Press. p. 613.
- ^ Guthrie, Neil (12 December 2013). The Material Culture of the Jacobites. Cambridge University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-1-107-04133-2.
- ^ Gardner, Laurence (31 March 2007). The Shadow of Solomon: The Lost Secret of the Freemasons Revealed. Weiser Books. ISBN 978-1-57863-404-0.
- ^ Addison, Henry Robert; et al., eds. (1903). Who's Who. London: A. & C. Black.
- ^ The Times dated 7 October 1921, p. 9, col. C.
- Massue, Melville Henry, ed. (1909). The Nobilities of Europe. London: Melville & Company.