2»<» S. VI. 134., Jolt 24. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



es 



that of James I., claim your reconsideration as to 

 publishinp; the recent discoveries of Dr.Maitlan'd, 

 and will, I trust, induce you to preserve them in 

 your pages. Geobge Offob. 



HEAI.E-HO0SE : REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF THE 

 PROVISIONS OF AN UNJUST WILI, BEING DE- 

 FEATED. 



As Heale House in Wiltshire is about to be 

 visited by the archaeologists assembling in Salis- 

 bury, the following narrative may add somewhat 

 to the interest of the spot : — 



Sir Robert Hyde of Dinton, Sergeant-at-Law, 

 and M.P. for Salisbury, came by the demise of 

 his brother Lawrence [p. p. m. though there 

 were daughters] into possession of the Heale 

 estates in the Amesbury Valley ; and by the ele- 

 vation of his kinsman, the Earl of Clarendon, was 

 himself created Chief Justice of the Common 

 Pleas. He had moreover in his possession a va- 

 riety of interesting heir-looms, specified as " the 

 pearl necklace, and the chain belonging to the 

 watch, and the diamonds in that chain, and the 

 picture of James I. and his four children, and a 

 small picture of Charles II.," the memorials of the 

 well-known royalism of the house of Hyde and 

 of their relationship to the crown through Lord 

 Clarendon's daughter ; and he appears to have 

 been very desirous that the landed estates con- 

 taining so interesting a member as Heale House, 

 should, together with the aforesaid heir-looms, 

 always belong to a Hyde, and finally revert to an 

 Earl of Clarendon. In pursuance of this design, 

 therefore, in a settlement of his property which 

 he executed by deed, enrolled in the Common 

 Pleas two years before his death, he passed over 

 the daughters of his brother Lawrence, who had 

 lived on the estate before himself, in favour of 

 the sons of his next brother, Alexander Hyde, 

 the Bishop of Salisbury ; and in default of issue, 

 then to the sons of other brothers. But now, 

 mark the result. In a very few years after the 

 Chief Justice's death, one of his nephews. Dr. 

 Robert Hyde, being the very first person who had 

 the power to cut off the entail, did so ; and left 

 Heale to a person bearing another name, his sis- 

 ter, the widow of Dr. Levinz, Bishop of Sodor 

 and Man ; thus totally frustrating the cherished 

 designs of his. uncle. But this is only half the 

 story. We have now to see how the estate came 

 to be possessed by persons of exactly an opposite 

 way of thinking, viz. the descendants of Oliver 

 Cromwell. The widow Levinz left the Heale 

 estates, worth more than 2000Z. a year, together 

 with all the heir-looms aforesaid, to Matthew 

 Frampton, M.D., of Oxford, who had married 

 her only daughter (though that daughter pre- 

 deceased her) ; and from Dr. Frampton, who 

 died in 1742, the estates passed in succession to 



three nephews, and these all dying without male 

 issue, then to a cousin, William Bowles, a canon 

 of Salisbury, who came into possession in 1759, 

 only seventeen years after Dr. Frampton's death. 

 This canon Bowles' son William married Dinah, 

 the second daughter of Admiral Sir Thomas 

 Frankland, a descendant of Oliver; and William 

 Bowles was himself a Foxite, and a member of 

 the Wilts Reform Association of 1780. [This 

 William Bowles, by the way, is father of the Ad- 

 mirals Bowles.] Thus it came to pass that a spot 

 consecrated to Royalism became the abode of a lady 

 who piqued herself not a little on her relationship 

 to the usurper. Here it was that Dr. Samuel 

 Johnson came to pay a visit to his friend Bowles 

 (Whig though he was) ; and in the very parlour 

 probably where the fugitive Charles had supped 

 in disguise, the Doctor and his friend laid their 

 plans for a new and improved life of Oliver the 

 Great. [See Boswell's account of that visit. Bos- 

 well does not say that the new life of Cromwell 

 was planned at Heale, but his narrative indicates 

 it.] 



So much for the fortunes of Heale. But what 

 became of the descendants of the Bishop of Salis- 

 bury, in whose favour the wiU was made ? The 

 following article in the Annual Register will at 

 least inform us respecting one of them : — 



"There is now living [February, 1768] in Lady Ca- 

 ere's Almshonses, Westminster, one Mrs. Windimore, 

 whose maiden name was Hyde. She was grand-daugh- 

 ter of Dr. Hyde, Bishop of Salisbury, brother of the 

 great Lord Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Clarendon ; and she 

 lost her fortime in the South Sea year, 1720. She is also 

 a distant cousin of their late Majesties Queen Mary and 

 Queen Anne, whose mother was Lady Anne Hyde, 

 Duchess of York, whose royal consort was afterwards 

 King James II. A lively instance of the mutability of 

 all worldly things, that a person related to two crowned 

 heads should, by a strange caprice of fortune, be reduced 

 to live in an almshouse ! She retains her senses in a 

 tolerable degree ; and her principal complaint is that she 

 has outlived all her friends, being now upwards of an 

 hundred years of age." 



If comment on the above be admissible, it might 

 be this. While the venerable lady, impoverished 

 by the South Sea bubble, and sitting alone in the 

 Dacre Almshouse, is no more an object of pity 

 than Mrs. Bowles, surrounded with affluence, and 

 brewing a dish of tea for Dr. Johnson ; yet the 

 short-sighted provisions of the will-maker, who 

 would gladly have averted such a result, may 

 surely be allowed to remind us. that our own 

 stewardship ceases with our own life. 



J. Watlen. 



THE BLUE BLANKET. 



Not having seen a notice of this celebrated ban- 

 ner in the pages of " N. & Q.," and considering it 

 well worthy of preservation in that curious miscel- 

 lany, I have extracted the following from The 



