56 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
XIT.—On certain Papers retatinc to Lapy BrELiasysE, AND THE 
Private History or James I]. waoen Duxe or York. By 
W. Frazer, F.R.C.S.1. 
[Read, November 29, 1879.] 
Wuo was Lady Bellasyse? She was a lady who might have been 
Queen of England, Susan Armine, the daughter of Sir William Armine, 
of Osgodby, Lincolnshire; her mother was Mary Talbot, niece of the 
Earl of Shrewsbury. She married Henry Bellasyse, son and heir of 
Lord Bellasyse, and nephew of Lord Fauconberg; he was created 
Knight of the Bath, but appears to have been a rash, foolish man; he 
quarrelled with his dearest friend, Tom Porter, Groom of the 
Chambers to Charles II., and for a punctilio of honour they killed 
each other; the duel took place in Covent Garden, in 1667. His 
widow captivated the affections of the Duke of York, afterwards 
James II., and only relinquished her claim for substantial reasons, 
now for the first time, I believe, fully known, although part of the 
consideration was her receiving a peerage for life from Charles II. in 
1674, when she became Baroness Bellasyse of Osgodby, having suc- 
ceeded to her family estates upon the death of her parents. Ten 
years afterwards she was married to a gentleman named Fortrey, of 
whom little is known, and she survived him. Her son, Henry 
Bellasyse, succeeded in 1684 to his grandfather, as Lord Bellasyse of 
Worlaby, and died about 1690. He married Anne Bradenel, sister of 
the Countess of Newborough, and she afterwards married Charles 
Lennox, Duke of Richmond. Lady Bellasyse herself died 6th 
January, 1713. 
Bishop Burnet, in his Mistory of His Own Times, gives an inte- 
resting account of this lady, referring to whom he says :— 
‘The Duke [of York ] was now looking for another wife. He made 
addresses to the Lady Bellasis, the widow of the Lord Bellasis’s son. 
She was a zealous Protestant, though she married into a popish 
family. She was a woman cf much life and great vivacity, but of a 
very small proportion of beauty, as the Duke was often observed to be 
led by his amours to objects that had no extraordinary charms. 
Lady Bellasis gained so much on the Duke, that he gave her a 
promise under his hand to marry her; and he sent Coleman to her to 
draw her over to popery, but in that she could not be moved. When 
some of her friends reproached her for admitting the Duke so freely 
to see her, she could not bear it, but said she could show that his 
addresses were honourable. When this came to the Lord Bellasis’s 
ears, who was her father-in-law, and was a zealous papist, and knew 
how untractable the lady was in those matters, he gave the whole 
design of bringing in their religion for gone if that was not quickly 
broke ; so he, pretending a zeal for the King and the Duke’s honour, 
