94 



The Wiltshire Compounders, 



With this view, in a settlement of his property, which he effected 

 two years before his death, and enrolled in the Common Pleas, he 

 passed over the daughters of his brother Lawrence, who had lived 

 on the estate before himself, in favor 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. Such was the lawyer's dream ; 

 but mark the issue of the scheme. 



In a very few years after Sir Robert's death, one of his nephews, 

 Dr. Robert Hyde, being 1 the first person who had the power of 

 cutting off the entail, did so ; and left Heale to a person of another 

 name, his sister, the widow of Dr. Levinz, Bishop of Sodor and Man. 

 This widow then left the estates, worth more than £2000 a year, 

 together with all the heirlooms aforesaid, to Matthew Frampton, 

 M.D., of Oxford, who had married her only daughter ; and from 

 Dr. Frampton, who died in 1742, they passed in succession to his 

 three nephews, Thomas Bull, Edward Polhill, and Simon Polhill ; 

 and these three 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's son, William, married Dinah, the fifth daughter of Sir 

 Thomas Frankland, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell. 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 William Bowles (Whig though he was), and in the 

 very parlour, probably, where the fugitive Charles II. had supped 

 in disguise, the Doctor and his friend laid their plans for a new and 

 improved life of Oliver. See BoswelPs account of that visit. 

 Boswell does not say that the new Life of Cromwell was planned 

 at Heale, but his dates indicate it. 



So much for the fortunes of Heale. But what became of the 

 descendants of the Bishop of Salisbury, in whose favour the will 

 was made ? The following passage in the Annual Register will tell 

 lis at least respecting one of them : — " There is now living [Feb., 

 1768] in Lady Dacre's almshouses, Westminster, one Mrs. Windi- 

 more, whose maiden name was Hyde. She was granddaughter of 



