Guillaume Wildigos

In the seventeenth century the Chateau de Briou and its land belonged to Guillaume Wildigos, a Protestant banker who lived in Paris and who possessed it through his first wife Elizabeth Aschurse. On 26^th. December 1661 William married his second wife, Ann Katherine Pineau, with whom he had three children, William Theophilus, Joseph and Anne, all born in Paris.

William, persecuted for his Protestant religion, took refuge in England before the revocation by Louis XIV of the Edict of Nantes which had been signed in 1598 by King Henri IV giving freedom of worship and legal quality to Calvanist Protestants in what was mostly Catholic France. In 1680 William died and his widow and her three children also fled to England.

After several appeals the Chateau of Briou was awarded to the children of Roman Catholic Elizabeth, the daughter of William’s first marriage and thus passed out of the hands of the Wildigos family.

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William Theophilus Wildigos

On 8^th. May 1698 William Theophilus received the Sacrament according to the usage of the Church of England in the parish Church of St. James’, Westminster and on 10^th. May of that year he took the Oaths appointed in orders to his Naturalization

The following July, being an Adjutant  in the Second Troop of Guards, he was appointed Brigadier, succeeding William Huffey.

William made his last Will and Testament on 26^th. July 1729 wherein he declared his “dear and loving” wife Elizabeth to be his sole Executrix and benefitrix of his estate which, apparently was much diminished following the disastrous collapse of the South Sea Company. Elizabeth was requested to pay ten pounds sterling to William’s “dear” brother, Joseph, whom, together with the heirs of Doctor Francis Upton, he also exonerated from “all manner of actions and suits either at law or in equity” which had taken place before his marriage to Elizabeth. These unspecified actions were apparently done at William’s own “earnest desire and request”.

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Joseph  Wildigos

Joseph Wildigos feld to England on 21^st. March 1688 and settled in Shoreditch, London.

There is record of him being on the Island of Antigua on14th. May 1702. He evidently returned to England because on 5^th. March 1705 he married Elizabeth Smith of St. Andrew’s parish in Holborn.