Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/121

BELLOMONT 105 BELLOMONT, and BELLAMONT(^) VISCOUNTCY [I.] I. Henry Bard, 2nd and yst. s. of the Rev. , George B., Vicar of Staines, Midx. (who d. 1616), ^ ■^■^* by Susan, da. of John Dudley, was i^. in 161 5 or i6i6;C') ed. at Eton, and was admitted as a scholar at King's Coll. Cam- bridge 23 Aug. 1632; B.A. 1636; Fellow 26 Aug. 1635-45, when he m. Having travelled in the East and elsewhere, he became a proficient linguist. He returned to England about 1642, obtained a Colonel's commission, distinguished himself greatly in the Royal cause, particularly at the battle of Cheriton Down, where he lost the use of an arm, and was taken prisoner; was made Governor of Campden House (near Evesham), co. Gloucester,("') and subsequently of Worcester. () Knighted 22 Nov. 1643, obtained a warrant for a Baronetc}' (by docquet, dat. 8 Oct. 1644, at Sherborne, Oxon), and on 18 Julv 1 645 was cr. BARON BARD OF DROMBOY, co. Meath, and VISCOUNT BELLOiMONT,(') co. Dublin [I.]. He accompanied Charles II in exile, by whom he was sent on an Embassy to obtain money from the Shah of Persia, and from the Great Mogul. He reached Persia in 1654, and Surat, in India, in Jan. 1655/6, but a. suddenly while on his way to the Mogul's Court. He tn., in 1645, Ann, da. of Sir William Gardiner, of Peclcham, Surrey, by Frances, (ist cousin to the said William) da. of Christopher Gardiner, of Bermondsey.(') He d. as afsd., 20 June 1656, apparently from heat apoplexj-, at Hodal, between Agra and Delhi, and was bur. there, aged about 40.(^) His widow, who applied for relief to King's Coll. Cambridge, after the Restoration, d. before 1668. Admon. 13 July 1668, as "Lady Ann Bard, widow, of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Midx." (') This is an attempt to latinize Ballymount. Information as to the Bard family has been kindly furnished by William Irvine, who has mad3 an exhaustive study of it. V.G. C") In Diet. Nat. Biog. he is stated to have been b. in 1 604, in which case he must have left Eton for King's when aged 28! V.G. ("^) Bard was responsible for the destruction of Campden House, in May 1645, "a house, as my Lord Cambden says, that hath cost ^^30,000 in building and furni- ture " (see SUngshy's Memoin), which act, according to C larindon i Rebellion^ "brought no other benefit to the public than the enriching the licentious governor thereof, who exercised an unbounded tj-ranny over the whole country, and took his leave of it by wantonly burning the noble pile which he had too long inhabited." l^) "A man of a very personable body and of a stout and undaunted courage." {MS. by John Hall, c. 1660, penes King's Coll. Cambridge). Anthony a Wood calls him "a compact body of vanity and ambition, though robust and comely." The Koran which he collected on his travels in Eg}^pt and presented to King's Coll. is still preserved there. V.G. (•) There is no enrolment [I.] of this patent, but in Ulster's oflScial Roll it is given as Belljmont. (^ See Ca/L Top. et Gen., vol. iii, pp. 1 5 and 1 8. (^) His arms are given as "Sable on a chevron between 10 martlets Argent 5 pellets." (Ant. Allen's MS. Cataloeue, penes Kina's Coll. Cambridge). V.G"^ 15