But notwithstanding the averseness of the intended bridegroom, the project was not at once renounced; and Rupert's last letter to Sophie, written shortly before his death, contained definite proposals on the subject. "En ma derniere, chere soeur, je vous ai informe que cette poste je pourrai dire plus de nouvelles assurees de l'affaire en question. Saches done, en peu de mots, on offre 40 mille livres sterl. assigne caution marchande, et 10 mille livres sterl. par an, durant la vie de M. le Duc, votre mari; et on souhaite {357} que donerez liberte a M votre fils de demeurer quelques temps en ce pays la, fin d'aprendre la langue, et faire connaitre au peuple, ce qu'on trouve necessaire en tout cas. Voyez ce que j'ai ordre de vous dire, et de demander un reponse pour savoir si l'affaire vous agree; si vous avez pour agreable, quelle en face, il sera necessaire que M. le Duc m'envoie un homme d'affaires, avec ses instructions, et ses assurees que sera bien ... de celui qui est a vous; Rupert. "Il faut vous dire si 1'affaire se fait ou non vous avez fort grand obligation a la Duchesse de Portchmouth;[38] elle vous assure de toutes ses services en cette affaire."[39] Apparently the offered terms were not acceptable to the Hanoverians, for the negotiation closed with Rupert's death. Rupert died, to all appearance, unmarried, but he left two children, a son and a daughter. More than once he had seriously contemplated matrimony. In 1653 it had been rumoured that he was about to wed his cousin Mary, the Princess Royal, widow of the Prince of Orange.[40] In 1664 he made proposals for a Royal lady of France, but the said lady objected that he had been "too long and too deeply attached to a certain Duchess."[41] That obstacle was removed in the same year by the Duchess of Richmond's clandestine love-match with Thomas Howard; but the French lady was long in coming to a decision, and in the meantime the young Francesca Bard crossed Rupert's path. Francesca was the eldest daughter of Sir Henry Bard, one of the wilder Cavaliers, who had been raised to the Irish peerage as Viscount Bellamont; the same who had pleaded so earnestly with Rupert for Windebank's life in 1645. He had died during the exile, when on a mission to {358} Persia; and Francesca, on the death of her only brother, assumed the family title, as Lady Bellamont. Except a title her father had nothing to bequeath, and it was probably the urgent petitions for the relief of their poverty, addressed by the family to the King, that first brought Francesca into contact with Rupert.[42]