Bridget Bendish

Archbishop Tillotson introduced Bridget to Queen Mary in 1694, and a pension was promised her, but it was never granted, owing to the death of both her patrons immediately after the interview.

Mrs. Bendish was always careless about money matters, and although she received a large bequest from her aunt, Lady Fauconberg, she had to depend for her livelihood in her old age on her own exertions.

This work, which was not published until after her death, portrayed her as a rigid Calvinist of uncertain temper, with a strength of will and physical courage rarely paralleled.

According to Say, she labored incessantly in her own household, on her husband's farm, and at his saltworks, yet was always noted for dignity of mien and the charm of her conversation.

[4] Samuel Say recorded an incident when Bridget was traveling to London in a public coach when a fellow passenger, in conversation with a companion, spoke lightly of Oliver Cromwell.

Bridget not only inveighed against the offender for the rest of the journey, but on landing in London snatched another passenger's sword from its sheath and challenged the slanderer to fight her there and then.

Bridget's mother (pictured) died in 1662, and, because her father had died in 1651, Bridget lived with her stepfather, Charles Fleetwood , until age 19.