Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/216

Bendings old, who, after fifteen years' captivity, was rescued by an English ship, and spent the rest of his life as porter in a London warehouse. We may suppose that Benbow's constitution was broken by the hardships of his savage life; he seems to have lived for a few years at Deptford, in very humble circumstances, and died 17 Nov. 1708.

He had written some account of Madagascar which remained in manuscript, and was accidentally burnt in 1714. It had, however, been seen by several, and the hazy recollections of it, together with Drury's story, were worked up, not improbably by Defoe, and published under Drury's name with the title of 'Madagascar, or Journal during Fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island' (1729).

[Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, iii. 349; Gent. Mag. (1769), xxxix. 172.]

 BENDINGS, WILLIAM (fl. 1180), judge, was, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, sent to Ireland by Henry II in 1176 as one of four envoys, of whom two were to remain with the viceroy, Richard FitzGilbert, earl of Striguil, and two were to return, bringing with them Reimund Fitzgerald, whose nulitary exploits had aroused the king's jealousy. Reimund did not at once comply with the royal mandate, being compelled by the threatening attitude of Donnell to march to the relief of Limerick, a town which he had only lately taken. It is probable, however, that on the evacuation of Limerick, which took place the same year, soon after the death of the Earl of Striguil, Reimund returned to England, as he is not again heard of in Ireland until 1182, and that Bendings was one of those who accompanied him. In 1179, on the resignation of the chief justice, Richard deLucy, a redistribution of the circuits was carried into effect. In place of the six circuits then existing the country was divided into four, to each of which, except the northern circuit, five judges were assigned, three or four of the number being laymen. To the northern circuit six judges were assigned, of whom Bendings was one, having for one of his colleagues the celebrated Ranulf Glanvill, who was made chief justice the following year. In 1183-4 we find him acting as sheriff of Dorset and Somerset, the two counties being united under his single jurisdiction. There seems to be no reason to suppose, with Foss, that the expression, 'sex justitiæ in curia regis constituti ad audiendum clamores populi,' applied to the six judges of the northern circuit, imports any jurisdiction peculiar to them. The date of Bending's death is uncertain; but that he was living in 1189-90 is proved by the fact that he is entered the pipe roll of that year as rendering certain accounts to the exchequer.

[Giraldus Cambrensis, Expng. Hibern. ii. 11, 20; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 3; Madox's Exc. i. 94, 138, 285; Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, ii. 19 Pipe Roll 1, Ric. I (Hunter), 147 ; Foss's Judg. of England.]

 BENDISH, BRIDGET (1650–1726), Oliver Cromwell's granddaughter, was daughter of General Henry Ireton, by his wife Bridget, Cromwell's eldest daughter. She was born about 1650. As a child she was a favourite with her grandfather. About 1670 she married Thomas Bendish, esq., a leading member of the independent or congregational church of Yarmouth, and a distant relative of Sir Thomaa Bendish, an Essex baronet, who was for many years English ambassador at the Porte. Soon after the marriage Bridget settled at South Town, near Yarmouth, where her husband owned farm and salt-works. She closely resembled her grandfather in personal appearance and ( the opinion of many) in character, and she gained an extraordinary reputation on that account. According to the sketch of her penned in her lifetime by Samuel Say, a dissenting minister of Ipswich, she was a rigid Calvimst of uncertain temper, with a strength of will and physical courage rarely paralleled. She laboured incessantly in her own household, on her husband's farm and at his salt works, yet was always noted for dignity mien and the charm of her conversation She was an ardent champion of her grandfather's reputation. On one occasion she was travelling to London in a public coach when a fellow-passenger in conversation with a companion spoke lightly of the Protector. Bridget not only inveighed against the offender for the rest of the journey, but on alighting in London snatched another passenger's sword from its sheath and challenged the slanderer to fight her there and then. She always took a lively interest in politics, and is said to have compromised herself in many ways in the Rye House plot (1683). She contrived the escape of a near relative who was in prison on suspicion of complicity. In 1688-9 she secretly distributed papers recommending the recognition of William III. In 1694 Archbishop Tillotson introduced her to Queen Mary, and a pension was promised her, but it was never granted owing to the death of both her patrons immediately after the interview. On 27 April 1707 her husband died. Mrs. Bendish was always careless about money matters, and although she received a large