Man in the Iron Mask Huguenot Roux de Marcilly. After his master's execution in 1669 the valet was taken to France, possibly by capture or subterfuge, and imprisoned because he might have known too much about his master's affairs. In "The Man of the Mask" (1908), Arthur Barnes presents James de la Cloche, the alleged illegitimate son of the reluctant Protestant Charles II of England, who would have been his father's secret intermediary with the Catholic court of France. Louis XIV could have imprisoned him because he knew too much about French affairs with England. One of Charles's confirmed illegitimate sons, the Duke of Monmouth,
Man in the Iron Mask He was placed in a solitary cell in the prefurnished third chamber of the Bertaudière tower. The prison's second-in-command, de Rosarges, was to feed him. Lieutenant du Junca, another officer of the Bastille, noted that the prisoner wore "a mask of black velvet". The masked prisoner died on 19 November 1703 and was buried the next day under the name of "Marchioly". All of his furniture and clothing was reportedly destroyed afterward, the walls of his cell were scraped and whitewashed, and everything of metal which the man had possessed or used was melted down. In 1711, King Louis's sister-in-law,