Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/208

 202

NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 S.IL SEPT. 9.1018.

Beigne of our Soveraigne Lord Charles y L Second l>y \ Grace of ,God King of England, Scotland, France & Ireland, Defender of y c Faith &c. Annoque D ni 1682. RCPERT.

Signed sealed & delivered in y* presence of

E. Andros. Will Button Colt.

Fra. Hawley. Hob* Wroth.

George Kirk. David Piker.

Ra. Marshall.

It thus appears that Prince Rupert left the bulk of his property to his natural son, " Dudley Bart " ; to Margaret Hewes, whose name is usually now spelt Hughes ; and to their natural daughter, Ruperta. Dudley's mother was Francesca, eldest daughter of Sir Henry Bard, who had been raised by Charles I. to the Irish peerage as Viscount Bellamont. He seems to have been a most attractive boy, brave as his father, and of a lovable nature. He was sent to school at Eton, and afterwards to study under Sir Jonas Moore at the Tower. After his father's death he went to Germany to secure the house and estate at Rhenen, mentioned in the will, but we are told that, as it was entailed, there was a difficulty about it. He came back, fought bravely against Monmouth at Norton St. Philip, and soon afterwards, returning to the Continent, was killed, August, 1686, when fighting against the Turks in a desperate attempt to scale the walls of Buda. He was then only 19 years of age. Francesca, who, on the death of her only brother, rightly or wrongly assumed the family title as Lady Bellamont, was much befriended by Prince Rupert's sister, the Electress Sophia, and always maintained that she had been his wife. The Emperor of Germany paid her 20,000 crowns, which he had owed to her son Dudley.

How in the summer of 1668 Prince Rupert, heedless of his old love, fell a victim to the charms of the actress Margaret Hughes, is told with malicious wit in Hamilton's ' Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont.' As regards the Earl of Craven, devoted friend of Rupert's mother, the titular Queen of Bohemia whose will is also among those printed by the Camden Society, it is, perhaps, enough in this connexion to state the follow- ing facts. There is, or was, at Combe Abbey a book of accounts of what was paid and received by him as executor of Prince Rupert, at the end of which a release to Lord Craven is signed by Margaret Hughes and Ruperta. One item runs as follows : " Of Mrs. Ellen Gwynne for the Great Pearl Necklace, 4,620Z." Of the witnesses to the signature the only one whose name appears in the ' Dictionary of National

Biography ' is >ir Edmund Andros, who had been gentleman in ordinary to the Queen of Bohemia, and major in Prince Rupert's Dragoons.

Ruperta married Emmanuel Scroope Howe, a lieutenant-general, and from her is descended Sir Maurice Bromley-Wilson. A topographical difficulty with regard to her mother occurs to the writer of this note. Eva Smith, in her ' Rupert, Prince Palatine/ 1899, an interesting account of him, well equipped with references to original docu- ments, states that he purchased for Margaret Hughes a house at Hammersmith. This was the famous mansion, afterwards called Brandenburgh House, where the unhappy Queen Caroline breathed her last. Lysons^ in his 'Environs,' makes a similar statement. He says that the nephew (really the grand- son) of Sir Nicholas Crispe, who built the mansion, sold it in 1683 to Prince Rupert,, who gave it to Margaret. He adds in a note : " The purchase was made in her name Court-rolls of the manor of Fulham." But Mr. C. J. Feret, who, in the year 1900, pub- lished an exhaustive history of Fulham parish, says that he was unable to discover that particular Court Roll. As Prince Rupert died in November, 1682, it is a ques- tion if he had anything to do with this pur- chase, which may have been made under the clause in the will giving power to Lord Craven to lay out money " in purchasing of lands and tenements for the use and behoof " of Margaret Hughes and her daughter. Mr. Feret quotes from a Court Baron, showing that on June 9, 1 692, Margaret Hewes, gentlewoman, and George Maggot surrendered one messuage (undoubtedly this) to "Timothy Lannoy of London, merchant, and George Tread way " ; she therefore held it for nearly ten years, but survived until long afterwards. Her burial is thus recorded in the register of Lee, Kent : " Mrs. Margaret Hewes from Eltham buried, Oct. 15, 1719."

PHILIP NORMAN.

CAPT. COX'S ' BOOK OF FORTUNE/

1575. (See ante, p. 185.)

OUR English folio of 1686, and the method of consulting any of Spirito's books of fortune may now be described briefly as follows :

On the back of the title there is a list of the twenty questions which are answered ill