Melville Henry Massue

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	(1868-04-26)26 April 1868 Fulham, Middlesex, England
Died	6 October 1921(1921-10-06) (aged 53) Southwark, London, England
Spouse(s)	Rose Gaminara ​ (m. 1893)​

Biography

Massue's wife Rose Amalia Gaminara, the "Marquise de Ruvigny"

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 to 1894 and again from 1897 to 1899.^[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, including his comprehensive, albeit unreliable, account of the Jacobite peerage which was published in 1904. He was 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

• 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)