Gardemau, Balthazar (1656 -1739)

Balthazar Gardemau was born in Poitiers, France, and was educated at the University of Saumur. He was incorporated M.A. of Cambridge University, and was Vicar of Coddenham in Suffolk from 1669 to 1739, and Vicar of Ashbocking from 1692. He married Lady Catherine, youngest daughter of Edward Montague, 1st Earl of Sandwich, and widow of Nicolas Bacon of Shrubland Hall, Suffolk. He died 19 December 1739 age 84. The library was given by his successor John Bacon to Basil Bacon of the Inner Temple, his executors and administrators in trust for the use of the Vicar, and they were kept at the vicarage until it was sold in 1964, when the books were transferred on permanent loan to Bury St Edmund’s Cathedral Library, and finally to the Suffolk Record Office. The portrait of Gardemau formerly in the vicarage was removed to the Church vestry. The collection of 325 titles in 365 volumes includes about fifty volumes of French Protestant and Catholic theology. They are listed with their provenances in Canon Fitch’s article. The arms are most extraordinary, showing the arms of his wife Lady Catherine and those of both her previous husbands on either side of Gardemau’s.