The following article is, as provided, a translation
which has several shortcomings.
DOUGLAS (de) , formerly GLAS, or GLAS, in Brittany, Haute-Picardie and
Bugey. Arms: Azure to a castle of money donjonné of three towers and
masonry of sand . - The French family of Douglas has abandoned these
coats of arms to adopt those of the illustrious house of Douglas, in
Scotland: Argent a heart Gules, crowned Or; to the chief azure charged
with three silver stars . - It also often wears the following coat of
arms: Azure a silver castle donjonné of three towers, brickwork of sand,
charged in heart of an escutcheon Argent in the heart Gules, crowned Or,
and to the chief Azure charged with three silver stars . - Crown: of
Count . - Tenants:. - Battle cry: A DOUGLAS! A Douglas! - Currency:
NEVER BACK! - Saying: TENDER AND FAITHFUL .
The family LE GLAS, or GLAS, today DE DOUGLAS, fixed in Bugey since the
XVIIth century, is native of the country of Cornwall, in Brittany(2).
She will find information in the various nobiliaries of Brittany, in the
New d'Hozier , in the Dictionary of the nobility of Chesnaye des Bois,
in the French Chartrier (year 1867), etc.
The family of Douglas has for first known authentic author a Yvon le
Glas, or Glas, who had married Marie Clévédé and who figured with her in
1427 among the nobles of the parish of Chateauneuf-du-Faou, in Cornwall,
on the territory of which he owned the seigniory of Pontpol.
Potier de Courcy believes that this gentleman belonged to a branch of
the family of the lords of Chateaugal, in the parish of Landeleau, in
the diocese of Cornwall. This family carried for arms: Gules with three
castles of gold . The direct branch of the lords of Chateaugal melted in
1312 in the family of Kermellec who adopted the coat of arms.
Guillaume du Glas, which goes back the filiation followed, had around
the middle of the fifteenth century the lordship of Pratulo, in the
parish of Châteauneuf-du Faou. He was probably the son, or at least the
close relative, of Yvon du Glas, mentioned above, who in 1427 owned the
seigneury of Pontpol in the same parish. However, according to the
system of filiation adopted later by his descendants, he would have been
a son of Archambaud Douglas, Earl of Wigton, Scotland, from one of the
most famous houses of this country, would have come very young in France
to exercise the profession of arms, would have set the country of
Cornwall, in Brittany (Cornouaille), after the marriage he contracted, February 13,
1440, with Marguerite, heiress of the lordship of Pratulo, and would
then have abandoned his coat of arms to take that of his wife's family.
This system of filiation is difficult to reconcile with the presence of
a Glas in Châteauneuf-du-Faou from 1427. Guillaume du Glas, Sgr de
Pratulo left a son, named Jean, who married Marie de Coetbihan and who
continued the descendants. According to the French Chartrier and other
modern works, this John of the Glas would have served among the archers
of the Scottish guard of King Louis XI and would have obtained from this
prince letters of naturalness given to Sorges, near Chinon, in February
1458. These letters of naturalness are mentioned neither by Potier de
Courcy, nor by Kerviler, nor by any of the historians of the nobility of
Brittany. Jean du Glas was father of Alain du Glas, Sgr de
Pratulo and
Châteauneuf, who married Jeanne le Prévost, and grandfather of Gilles du
Glas, Sgr of the same estates, who married Miss Plaisonne, aliàs
Marjolie, of Hamon, daughter of the lord of Coetqueveran, and who had
five sons. The youngest of these sons, Olivier du Glas, was the author
of the branch that has continued to this day in Picardy, then in Bugey.
One of the elders, Jean du Glas, Sgr de Chateauneuf, was in 1570
Lieutenant of Chateaulin; he left only one daughter, Catherine, heiress
of the property of the Glas family, who married Georges de Muzillac. The
family of Glas had figured from 1427 to 1562 to the reforms and watches
of the nobility of the diocese of Cornwall.
Olivier du Glas, the last of Gilles's sons, left Brittany very young to
serve in the company of men-at-arms of the Grand Prior of Aquitaine. He
became in the hotel suite of the Dowager Duchess of Guise and married on
September 23, 1530, by contract before notaries in the Provost of
Sainte-Menehould, Isabeau de Wignacourt, maid of honor of this princess
and issue of an illustrious family from the north of France. He settled
permanently in Vermandois as a result of this marriage. He paid homage
on December 20, 1536, for his lordships of Ployart and Arancy, in the
country of Picardy. Having been disturbed in his nobility, he had an
inquiry carried out and obtained, on February 24, 1541, the seneschal of
Pochaer, in Brittany, a certificate attesting that his father, Gilles,
and his grandfather,a castle with three towers of silver on a field of
azure . He made his will on 22 January 1552, died on 18 August 1558 and
was buried with his wife in the church of Ployart. He left four sons:
Philippe, author of a first branch;
2. Louis, author of a second branch, nowadays only existent;
3. Valentin, bishop duke of Laon and peer of France in 1581, died in
1598;
4. John, knight of the Order of the King, ordinary gentleman of his
House, governor of Soissons, ambassador to Venice, died without
posterity in 1586.
Philippe du Glas, known as Ployart, Sgr d'Arancy, author of the first
branch, was admitted into the Order of Malta in 1555. He was later an
ordinary gentleman of the King's Chamber and captain of one of his
galleys. It was maintained in its nobility, May 30, 1559, by a judgment
of the Paris Court of Aids which is reported all along in the New Hozier
. His descendants were still maintained in his nobility on February 7,
1668, on evidence dating back to 1530, by a judgment of Dorieu, steward
of Soissons, which is also reported throughout the New Hozier. She died
with Marie-Eléonor-Julie Douglas, married in 1768 to the Marquis de
Bertoult d'Hauteclocque. Two representatives of this branch, Charles
Duglas, knight, Sgr d'Arancy, and Jean Duglas, esquire, Sgr d'Arancy,
had their coat of arms registered at the Armorial General of 1696
(register of Laon): from azure to a castle three towers pavilions of
silver, masonry of sand, charged with an escutcheon Argent charged with
a heart Gules, crowned with the royal of gold, and of a chief also
Gules, charged with three stars d money . Another, Joseph-Hyacinthe
Duglas, knight of Malta in 1881, became in the following commander of
the Order.
The author of the second branch, Louis du Glas, Sgr partly of Ployart,
was deputy of the nobility of Vermandois, in 1567, and knight of the
Order of the King. He had married Isabelle de Mardy, widow of Henri de
Riencourt, and died in 1578. He was father of Louis du Glas, Sgr de
Ployart, partly governor of Soissons in 1580, who married Catherine
d'Aumale, and grand- father of Antoine du Glas, Sgr partly of Ployart,
in Picardie, baptized the 22 of January of 1595. This last one came to
settle in Bugey after the marriage which he contracted, on February 27,
1619, with Françoise de Rubat, heiress of the seigniory of Richagnard.
His son, Pierre du Glas, Sgr de Richagnard, born February 4, 1623,
married in 1648 to Françoise Charbonnier, obtained, on December 9, 1653,
letters of relief. He was first sentenced to fine as usurper of nobility
by judgment of October 7, 1667 Bouchu, steward of Burgundy. He appealed
against this conviction to the Council of State which maintained it in
his nobility by a decision of March 27, 1669. He died very old in 1703.
His son, Charles-Joseph Duglas, esquire, born in 1653, married in 1680
to Catherine Simonnet seems to have sought first to be attached to the
Douglas of Scotland. He adopted their coat of arms, which he registered
at the Armorial General of 1696 (register of Belley), later substituted
in the name of Duglas that of Douglas, which was preserved by his
descendants, attached to the party of the Stuarts, became a captain in
the regiment of Douglas-infantry and died in 1723. He left, among other
children, a son, Charles Douglas, Sgr de Mépillat, Isle and Nerciaz,
born in 1689, general syndic of the nobility of Bugey and Valromey, died
in 1750. This one had several children. The two eldest, Charles-Joseph
Douglas, born in 1720, died without posterity in 1788, and Joseph
Douglas(1), born in 1721, ambassador of France in Russia, died without
posterity, attached in their youth to the party of Stuarts, followed in
1745 Prince Edward in Scotland and were taken prisoner at the Battle of
Culloden. The first of them had bought in 1756 the heirs of Bernard de Budé the important land of Montreal, in Bugey, which had been erected
into a county by letters of July 1570 and which has remained to this day
the principal residence of the Douglas's family. He has been known since
this acquisition under the title of Count Douglas, which has since been
preserved by the head of the family. François-Prosper Douglas, brother
of the preceding, born in 1725 in Montreal, in the diocese of
Saint-Claude, in Bugey, was captain of the Languedoc-infantry regiment
when he married in Montreal, Canada, April 12, 1757, Charlotte de Chapt
of the Horn. We will find in New of Hozier the proof of nobility that he
made in 1769 to obtain the admission to the School of the Arrow of his
second son, Luc-Charles Douglas, born in 1759 in Montreal, Canada, later
canon of the Metropolitan Church of Auch, who was slain in Paris in
1792. Louis-Archambaud Douglas, eldest son of François-Prosper, born in
1758 in Montreal, Canada, after the death of his uncle the estate of
Montreal, in Bugey ; he was then known as Count Douglas under whom he
took part in 1789 in the assemblies of the nobility of Bugey. He was
later deputy and general councillor of Ain and died in 1842. It is from
his son, Charles-Sholto, Count Douglas, born in 1786, married in 1813 to
Miss Jallier du Mollard, that the current representatives descend.
The family of Douglas furnished, apart from the personages mentioned in
this notice, gentlemen of the King's house, a brigadier of the armies of
the King (Charles Douglas of Arancy, died at Douai in 1748), numerous
officers, two of which died in the army in the war of 1870-71, an
attorney general of the Carthusian Order, a visitor to Italy, who died
in 1749, Knights of Malta, a general councilor of Ain, etc.
Main alliances: de Wignacourt 1530, Athies, Failly 1597, Brouilly 1615,
Marie, Rouvroy, Beauvais, Aumale, Moyria 1710, Bertoult d'Hauteclocque,
1768, Forcrand 1725, Bordes Châtelet 1763, Seyssel 1763, Espinay de Laye
1783, Catalan 1806, Chabanacy de Marnas 1839, Gamon de Monval 1838,
Sallmard 1860, the Gentile of Paroy 1872, the Chesne de Lamotte, Chapel
d'Espinassous 1903 , Avène de Fontaine 1905, etc.
Crann,
in Spézet
Lord of
Cran-huel, Cranhuel, Crannuhel (?) parish of Spézet. Note: Bernard du
Chastel, a crusader in 1248 (often cited as a "companion of Saint
Louis"), survived the plague and built a modest oratory on the site of
the current chapel of Notre-Dame du Crann in Spézet. The bars of gold
and red combined with billets (Du Perrier) lords of Bois-Garin placed
around 1671 on the eastern gable of the building after a dispute over
precedence, recall the role he played as the founder of the first
chapel. The Chapel was rebuilt in 1535, as evidenced by the inscription
on the northwest buttress by the Vieux-Châtel lords of Cranhuel parish
of Spézet or the du Glas
Among the other figures linked to the Brunault family, we find Charles du Vieuxchastel, lord of Kerguern in Plévin, the lawyer who defended the interests of Isabeau Keranflech in 1530. He appears to be the brother or first cousin of Louis du Vieuxchastel, lord of Pellahez in Spézet, and of Louise du Vieuxchastel, lady of Draon. Louise, from the Crann household, is the wife of Guillaume le Glas, lord of Pont-Pol in Châteauneuf-du-Faou, whose coat of arms is azure with a castle of three towers argent, masoned sable.
Note: The Scottish Douglas House is not part of this article. Everybody
knows that she is one of the most illustrious of Great Britain, and that
one of her branches belongs to the Dukes of Hamilton. William-Archibald
Douglas, 11th Duke of Hamilton, married in 1843 Princess Marie de Bade,
daughter of Stephanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden. Their son,
Guillaume-Etienne Douglas, 12th Duke of Hamilton, born in 1845, was
confirmed on April 20, 1864, by decree of Napoleon III, of which he was
very close relative, in the hereditary possession of the French title of
Duke of Chatellerault. He died in 1895 leaving only one girl married to
the Marquis de Graham. eldest son of the Duke of Montrose, and his
British titles and peerage passed to the head of a collateral branch.
The French title of Duke de Chatellerault was conceded on February 8,
1548, by letters patent from King Henry II, to James Hamilton, 2nd Duke
of Hamilton. His descendants died with Anne, Duchess of Hamilton,
heiress of the great estates of her branch, who in 1656 married William
Douglas, count, or Earl , of Selkirk, created Duke of Hamilton first as
an individual in 1660, then inherited in 1698.
(Chaix of East-Angel).
See also:
• Douglases of France
Note:
1. Although this reference appears a number of times in the
Douglas Archives, I can find no record of a Joseph Douglas as an ambassador in
Russia. Alexandre-Pierre de Mackensie-Douglas or
Mackenzie-Douglas, baron de Kildin (1713-1765), was a French chargé
d'affaires in St Petersburg at that time. If he was a 'spy', I
suppose he would not show up in official records?
2.
Cornouaille; Breton: Kernev, Kerne) is a historical region on the west
coast of Brittany in West France. The name is cognate with Cornwall in
neighbouring Great Britain. This can be explained by the settlement of
Cornouaille by migrant princes from Cornwall who created an independent
principality founded by Rivelen Mor Marthou,[1][2] and the founding of
the Bishopric of Cornouaille by ancient saints from Cornwall. Celtic
Britons and the settlers in Brittany spoke a common language, which
later evolved into Breton, Welsh and Cornish.
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