Robert Pointz

Frances brought him a comfortable inheritance which made him financially independent of his father, who was notorious for improvidence and died penniless.

In the last stages of the litigation Robert, though generally regarded as a "sober and learned man", became so irritated that he insulted one of the judges, and as a result, was briefly committed to the Fleet Prison.

Apart from his father's insolvency, the principal threat to his political career was his family's traditional attachment to the Roman Catholic faith.

Robert himself was a zealous Protestant, but his sister Elizabeth, Lady Thurles, mother of the first Duke of Ormond, was a prominent recusant.

He was re-elected MP for Gloucestershire in 1628 and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.

[2] In the English Civil War Pointz visited Bristol when it was a garrison for the King and later was called to account as a delinquent Royalist.