In 1656 Frederic Charles de La Rochefoucauld, Comte de Roye et de Roucy, married his cousin, Elisabeth de Durfort, and they became the parents of twelve children. In 1676 he became a Lieutenant General in the French army but, in 1683, being a Protestant and on invitation of 
the King of Denmark, he joined the Danish army where he became Grand Marshal and received the Danish Order of the Elephant. He had received permission from the French king to go to Denmark on the condition that his wife and children remained in France. 
When the Edict of Nantes was revoked, his wife received permission to join him in Denmark, so long as she left a couple of their children in France. In 1686, when they had been invited to dine with the Danish Sovereigns, his wife, the Comtesse de Roucy, compared the Queen with 
Madame Panach‚. Afterwards the Queen asked her ambassador for details about this woman, and was told she was an ugly creature of the worst kind. As a result the Comte de Roye was thanked for his services and dismissed. 
First they moved to Hamburg, but his wife then moved on to England where she was made a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen-Consort. However, since her title was not British, the question arose as to whether the Queen could consider her as part of the English aristocracy. In April 1686 Henry Saville wrote to Whitehall: "The Countess de Roye has arrived, but it has been decided that the Queen would not be able to greet her, which, you may believe me, has caused the Countess much pain. 
In 1687 Frederic Charles joined her and in that year he is presumed to have been made an Irish Peer as Earl of Lifford. The reason he was made an Irish nobleman was that this would enable his 
wife to serve the Queen with less difficulty, and have the honour of being greeted by the Queen, which was not possible otherwise. Even though no letter sealed with the Great Seal of Ireland was given to the Comte de Roye, it is obvious that he had received a letter from the King, James II, making him Earl of Lifford, and that this title was only a courtesy title, as happened in such cases where Royal harmony is prevented by such an obstacle. 
"On the 20th October 1688," according to Oldmixon, "a proclamation was issued to watch the coast for sight of the enemy, and to take all horses, oxen and cattle twenty miles away from their arrival point." 
It was said that this order, intending to hinder the progress of William of Orange and his army, was given by the Count de Roye, whose involvement in this matter caused a great scandal amongst the French Protestants. The king had sent a letter to the Earl of Feversham, asking him to take control of the army of the Comtesse de Roye, his sister, in order to send it to him, and this was the last order King James II ever gave. 
The health of Frederic Charles rapidly worsened and he went to Bath to take the waters in the spring of 1690. He died there on the 9th of June, aged fifty-seven, and was buried in Bath Cathedral. His widow survived him by almost a quarter of a century before, aged eighty-two, dying in London on 14 January 1715. 
 

Source: Leo van de Pas