Cylchgronau Cymru

lf)I RICHARD HOPTON {Continued from page 57.) Meanwhile Richard the nephew had run through the £4000 given him by his uncles, having, according to the family papers, squandered it in three years, and was now come to his wits' end for money. He fell in with bad com¬ pany, and with one John Beale, a Nonconformist divine, minister of Stretton in 1652 who preached against the King during the Civil War, calling him " a tyrant, that ought to be cut off root and branch, and not to be buried among the faithful." Beale owed Sir Edward and Richard a grudge, because they had at Hereford assizes helped on the case of the rightful rector of Stretton, Dr. Henry Wright, whose living Beale held during the sequestration of eleven years, and never gave " him his fifths, which even the mercies of the worst times thought but reasonable." So he gave Richard, the grandson, all the assistance in his power, and persuaded him to accuse his uncles of forging their father's will, and got up a case which was called " An Act for making void several conveyances and assurances made by Richard Hopton, Esq., grandson and heir of Sir Richard Hopton, late of Canon-ffrome in the county of Hereford, fraudulently procured by colour of a forged will of the said Sir Richard," and which he presented to Parliament. This bill is very long, and after describing the property, worth £1500 yearly, and the family, Richard accuses his uncles, especially Richard and those on the Parliament side in the late War, of not letting him, because he was a Royalist, have free access to his grandfather, and of making themselves privy to all their father's real and personal estate. Sir Richard dying intestate, the uncles are accused of plotting