FrazER—On Certain Papers relating to Lady Bellasyse. 57 
went and told the King all he had heard. The King sent for the 
Duke, and told him it was too much that he had played the fool 
once; that was not to be done a second time, and at such an age. 
The lady was also so threatened that she gave up the promise, but kept 
an attested copy of it, as she herself told me.”—See Bishop Burnet’s 
Mistory of His Own Times, p. 198, 2-volume edition. 
The end of this amour was that the Duke of York at once 
proposed for and married the daughter of the Duke of Modena, and 
when the eventful June 10th, 1688, arrived, the birth-day of the long- 
wished-for Prince of Wales, Burnet again mentions Lady Bellasyse 
as being one of the two ladies present at that important event. He 
says: ‘‘ Lord Arran sent notice to the Countess of Sunderland, so she 
came. The Lady Bellasis came also in time.” Many years passed, 
and in the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne Dean Swift, in one 
of his letters to Mrs. Dingley, mentions her death, and that Lord 
Berkeley of Stratton had succeeded by her will to about £10,000, 
which she had left him. 
Some original letters of this Lady Bellasyse and of Lord Berkeley’s 
lately fell into my possession, and they afford us a large amount of 
information, quite unknown up to this time, respecting her, and, I 
may add, quite unsuspected ; yet she was no unimportant person, and 
must have had a narrow escape of sitting on a royal throne as Queen of 
England. There are two letters written at her dictation, and signed by 
herself, that demonstrate beyond question that she must have retained 
to an advanced period of life all the cleverness and shrewdness she is 
stated to have possessed thirty-four years previously, when she capti- 
vated the affections of the Royal Duke, and obtained from him a written 
promise of marriage. They also demonstrate beyond question that 
this clear-headed widow was not unmindful of her own interests, and 
made right good terms with James, securing for herself no less than 
£2000 a-year, charged upon the Irish estates he possessed, and that 
she continued to draw her princely fortune to the end of her long life. 
As citizens of Dublin, this annuity has additional interest for us, for 
we find she had for paymasters well-known Dublin people, namely, 
Mr. Chaigneau and Sir John Rogerson. Sir John was Lord Mayor in the 
year 16938, and his name is still recorded by Sir John Rogerson’s-quay. 
These worthy people appear to have regarded Lady Bellasyse and her 
recurring payments in a different light from that in which she viewed 
them, and to have felt unreasonable annoyance at the tenacity of life 
of the old lady, who managed to draw her very handsome allowance 
from the Irish estates of James all through the reigns of William III. 
and Anne, whilst it is more than doubtful whether James was able to 
obtain the least aid or assistance for himself from these same estates 
all the years he lived at St. Germains, a pensioner on the King of 
France. 
The following verbatim copy of a letter, dated November 11, 
1712, and signed by Lady Bellasyse, which I exhibit to the Members 
of the Royal Irish Academy, appears to me to possess most interest. 
