ill qualified to cope with the entanglements of debts and mortgages with which his father and grandfather, in their devotion to the Royalist cause, had encumbered the estate. His mother and sister, both strong-willed women, wielded masterfully the reed they could not lean upon. Richard ingratiated himself with them, and making much of his alleged "near relationship," which they afterwards repudiated, and which does not appear to have been established, seems to have persuaded them that their own interests, and the desire of the childless young John, that North Wyke should continue in the name of Weekes, could best be served by inducing the said John to constitute him, Richard Weekes, his heir, on condition of giving the mother an annuity of £100, and the sister a marriage portion of £2000, besides paying young John's debts, amounting to £5000, and his funeral expenses.
Now the rightful heir was young John's uncle, John Weekes of Blackball, but he had mortally offended Mistress Weekes immediately on her widowhood, by contesting with her both the care of her children and the custody of the family deed-box.
This latter he had violently raided, though he is said to have soon returned it undespoiled, and without having mastered its contents, he being "a man of very slender understanding in matters of the law." But "his specious pretence to do his nephew good and undertake his tuition," had been vehemently rejected by the mother, to whom it may have occurred that if little John and his sister were to be confided to their grasping uncle's control, such another tragedy as that of the Babes in the Wood might stain the annals of Dartmoor!
Mistress Weekes who, as Mary Southcote, had married before the settlements were executed, had
