Storia do Mogor 46.4

Storia do Mogor (Irvine) 46.4

Language: English

46.4.1678

The Seahorse reached Swalley on January 6, 1655-56 [O.C. 2525, Swally Marine, January 19, 1655-56], and we have one more notice in a letter from Surat, dated January 29, 1655-1656, and signed by John Spiller, Henry Gary, Thomas Reynardson, and Anty Smith. ' . . . The L. Bellamont is in Surat where he hath taken a house, so it should seem yt hee intends to remain there for some time, wee wish yt his remove from Persia may be a meanes to free you from all trouble aboutt ye Customes and allso cause of a greater annuall inlargemt. . . .' [O.C. 2534.] At this point the Company's records become defective, so that we have no further official evidence of Lord Bellomont's proceedings in India. But Manucci's account of their stay in Surat and journey via Burhanpur and Agrah towards Dihli may be accepted with some confidence.
Something is to be found, however, in the Dutch archives. On February 6, 1656, H. van Gent (and others) wrote to Jean Maatsuycker (Maatzuiker), Governor-General and Council at Batavia, that the envoy from the young King of England, named Henrico de Bellemonte, had arrived. He had been to the Persian Court about a share in the Customs, but had failed. He had fallen ill (in Surat), and had asked for aid from the Honorable (Dutch) Company's surgeon. He had a cancerous sore in his cheek, but he could not trust himself to the English there for any help. The request was willingly accepted, but they feared it would be a difficult business to heal him, as the cheekbone was exposed. 'The said lord seems a very well-informed, modest, and courteous man, who is very afflicted over this accident that has happened to him.' Maatzuiker was Governor-General from 1653 to 1678.

46.4.1616

Nor are there any reasons for declining to accept Manucci's statement that his Lordship died at Hodal on June 20 (1656). I have tried, but without success, through my friend, Mr. H. W. W. Reynolds, Commissioner of Agrah, to obtain from the Roman Catholic Bishop there a copy of any entry in the burial registers. As Bellomont had turned Catholic several years before his death, he must have been buried in their cemetery, which was, indeed, the only one at that period. Possibly there may be duplicate registers somewhere in Rome, but I have not been able to institute a search. A curious mention of Bellomont, which must refer to his stay in Agrah, is to be found on fol. 26 of B.M. Sloan MS., No. 811. John Campbell, speaking of placing the King of England's arms on some cannon he cast, says : 'I had one of his Maties great scales from my Ld Bellmount by wch I cast his armes.' The 'Dictionary of National Biography' places Bellomont's death in 1660, and Manucci in 1653. For these years I would substitute 1656, confirmed as it is by John Hall's memorandum at King's College, Cambridge, and the India Office records. Where the writer in the 'Dictionary of National Biography' got 'Arabia' as the place of death I know not; his own authorities say 'Persia.' But both statements must be wrong in the face of the official evidence that Bellomont left Persia and landed safely in India, from which he never returned.
His arms are delineated in W. Coles' 'Cambridge Collections,' vol. xv., p. 137 (British Museum Manuscript, No. 5816). As to his children, there is some difference in various authorities. The 'Complete Baronetage,' by Mr. G. E. Cokayne, ii., p. 228, gives him three daughters, but denies (in note) that he left a son who survived until 1686. On this point I think the author must be wrong. Bellomont's widow in her petitions to the King in 1660 (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., vol. xvii., No. 98, p. 300), when speaking of her children, says, 'one your Majesty's godsonne'; and in her second petition (ibid., vol. xx., No. 3, p. 331) is the expression, 'having 4 children.' Mr. W. Duncombe Pink (on the authority of Maddison's 'Lincolnshire Pedigrees,' i. 78; Harleian Society, vols. 50, 51, 1902), gave me particulars which, if accepted, overrule Mr. Cokayne's suggestion of a confusion with Charles, Earl of Bellomont, d. 1683, of a totally different family (Van der Kirkhove). The year of Charles Bard's death was 1665, and not 1685. The result is as follows:
GEORGE BARD, Vicar of Staines, d. 1616.

46.4.82

Maximilian, of Caversfield, Bucks, d. Feb., 1690-91, aged 82.

46.4.52

Nathaniel (4th son), d. early in 1714; m. his cousin Persiana, and left issue.
Henry, b. 1616, d. 1656; m. Anne Gardner, 1645 (she d. 1668).
Charles, 2nd Viscount, b. Jan. 1, 1647-48; slain at St. Christopher's 1665, s.p.
Anne.
Frances, m. Rupert, Prince Palatine; d. Aug. 3, 1708, aged 52.

46.4.20

Dudley Bard, killed at the siege of Buda, July-Aug., 1686, aged 20.

46.4.162

Persiana, m. her cousin Nathaniel, of Caversfield, Bucks; d. 1739, leaving issue.
Anne was a spinster in 1668, when she took the oath as heir and administratrix to her mother's estate (Probate Office, Administrations, July 13, 1668, p. 105). The year of Frances' death is given in an inscription quoted by Miss E. Scott in her article in the Eng. Hist. Review, vol. xv., p. 760 (October, 1900), though I have not been able to verify it myself from the authority she quotes, viz., 'L'Histoire du Peuple de Dieu.' This is a work by I. J. Berruyer, S.J. (1681-1758), the first edition being of 1728 (Paris). It is a history of the people of Israel, in many volumes, and seems to have no possible connection with an inscription on Frances Bard's tomb. There is some error somewhere. If the lady was fifty-two in 1708, she was born in 1656, more than two years after her father left Europe; and if her son was twenty in 1686, he must have been born in 1666. Therefore, she had a son when she was ten years of age, and the marriage certificate being dated July 30, 1664, she was only eight when married. Everything points to an understatement of her age at death; more probably she was sixty instead of fifty-two. Mr. J. F. Chance thinks she must have been the eldest child, and born some time in 1646. The exact date of her death, which took place in the Elector of Hanover's camp at Mühlburg, close to Karlsruhe in Baden, is obtained from 'Briefe des Herzogs Ernst August zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg an Johann Franz Diedrich von Wendt,' edited by Erich, Graf Kielmansegg (Hannover, 1902), p. 162.

46.4.p7

The date of Persiana's husband's death is from Mr. J. F. Chance's paper in the Eng. Hist. Review, vol. xi. (1896), p. 527. There is no evidence at King's College, Cambridge, that Anne, Lady Bellomont, applied there for pecuniary relief, or was ever granted any, as stated by some writers.
Maximilian Bard seems to have been about seven years his brother's senior; he is said to have helped Henry with money, and had a great admiration for him. Maximilian must have made money by his trade of silkman or mercer, for on June 20, 1653, the manor of Caversfield, in Buckinghamshire, was conveyed to him and another. At his death it passed to Nathaniel as son and heir, who was followed by his son Thomas. He, with his two sons, Thomas and George, conveyed the estate on February 3, 1704, to William Vaux, an attorney, who held it till 1735, and so on (Lipscombe, 'History of Buckinghamshire,' 4 vols., 4to., 1847, vol. ii., pp. 594, 595). There is some discrepancy between Lipscombe's date for Nathaniel's death and that given in the table; the latter is taken from Mr. J. F. Chance's article already quoted.