Note 161 — V THE HEIRESS OF GREAT BRITAIN (HERRENHAUSEN, 1701-1714)

The Duke, we learn inter alia, played a game at cards with the Electress and ‘Madame Bellmont.’ This Lady Bellmont or Bellamont, whom Leibniz in vain begged the Electress not to admit into her intimacy, was no other than Frances Bard, who claimed to be the widow of Prince Rupert, and whose relations with him had certainly been of the most intimate kind. She justified Leibniz by misusing her position at Hanover to engage in Jacobite intrigue, thereby giving much trouble to Cresset and to Edmund Poley, who succeeded him as envoy extraordinary in 1703; and it is just conceivable that she may have in some measure influenced the Electress in favour of the Pretender and his cause. She died in 1708.