sister (their older married sister being Mrs Bonnell) Joanna (wife of Abraham Clarke) Lady of the Manor of Flaxley Abbey, whose son Abraham Clarke inherited the estate, and dying in 1684 left it to William, only son of the above-named James Boevey by Isabel daughter of William de Visscher. William Boevey of Flaxley Abbey married in August 1685 Katherine, daughter of John Riches of St Laurence Pountney, London, merchant, and left her a young and childless widow on 16th August 1692; she is supposed to be the perverse widow who is such a fascinating figure in the Sir Roger De Coverley papers, and who has a monument in Westminster Abbey. She enjoyed the life-rent of Flaxley Abbey, according to her husband’s will; and, at her death on 11th January 1726 aged 57, Thomas Crawley, Mrs Bonnell’s representative, became Thomas Crawley Boevey, Esq. of Flaxley Abbey; the lineal descendants of the latter, namely, the Crawley-Boevey Baronets, are now also “of Flaxley Abbey.”
The name of Bonnell obtained celebrity in the person of James Bonnell, Esq., whose memoir, compiled by Archdeacon William Hamilton (published in London in 1703, and frequently reprinted) is a valued piece of biography. “Thomas Bonnell (says the memoir), a gentleman of a good family near Ypres in Flanders, to avoid the Duke of Alva’s fury then cruelly persecuting the Protestants in the low countries, transported himself and his family into England, and settled at Norwich, where he was so well received and so much esteemed, as to be afterwards chosen Mayor of that city.” His son Daniel Bonnell, merchant in London, left a son Samuel who married Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Sayer, Esq., a residenter in the neighbourhood of Norwich, and who spent the prime of his life in Genoa and Leghorn. The Rev. John Strype, the famous ecclesiastical antiquary and annalist (born in 1643) was a nephew of Samuel Bonnell, Esq., and an associate of his distinguished son, James. James Bonnell was born at Genoa in 1653; and was brought by his parents to England in 1655. The father had been a prosperous merchant but met with serious losses, by which, as well as by private advances of money to the exiled royal family, he was seriously impoverished. Soon after the Restoration he was rewarded, as appears from the Irish Patent Rolls (14 Charles II. part 2), the index to which informs us that that on 22d December 1662, Samuel Bonnell, Esq. and James Bonnell, gent., received the office of Accountant-General of Ireland. On the death of the former in 1664, the duties were discharged by deputy on behalf of James, whose education proceeded under the charge of his widowed mother and by the advice of Mr Strype. Having taken his degree at Cambridge, he continued his preparation for public life by travelling as a tutor to a young Englishman. In 1684 he settled in Dublin, and “took his employment of Accomptant-General into his own hands.” His admirable mother died in England in 1690. The following sentiments he left in writing:— “My chiefest benefactress on earth is my mother; she hath brought me to heaven. And blessed be the memory of my father which hath influenced my life. I have no children to bequeath these blessings to, let them descend ujjon all the faithful children of Abraham, and diffuse themselves the more for not being confined to a single line, till after many descents they shall come at last to meet themselves at the great day of jubilee. O all ye that love God, this is my legacy. The blessing, descended on me from my father and mother, I leave among you.” During the reign of James II., public servants, popishly inclined, were apt to be thrust into offices, especially in Ireland; however, Mr Bonnell, though an enthusiastic Protestant, was not a politician, and was undisturbed. His office was coveted by an influential gentleman in the next reign, by whom he expected to be superseded; but no change took place. When the abdicated King was in temporary possession of Dublin, Mr Bonnell shared in the general consternation. In Sir Henry Ellis’s volumes of Letters there is one from the Rev. Theophilus Harrison to Rev. John Strype, dated Dublin, dated August 23, 1690, and containing this sentence:— “Mr Bonnell tells me he acquainted you with the transactions of King James’s government here, and how severely the poor Protestants were handled; their churches, contrary to the royal word, seized and profaned by idolatrous worship.” His biographer says, “In the progress of the war, the Protestants in Dublin were denied the exercise of their religion, their churches turned into prisons, and their ministers confined.” The victory of the
