Many believed him to have been Rupert's lawful son, and there seem to have been some grounds for the belief. He was universally known as "Dudley Rupert", and his mother maintained to the end of her days that she had been Rupert's wife. Her claim was practically acknowledged in Germany, where morganatic marriages were already in fashion; and even in England rumours of it were rife. "Some say Prince Rupert, in his last sickness, owned his marriage," says a letter in the Verney Correspondence, "if so, his son is next heir, after him, to the Palsgrave.[49] But no public acknowledgment ever took place, and Rupert styled the boy in his will, "Dudley {360} Bard." On the other hand, he bequeathed to him property entailed on heirs male, and the Emperor actually paid to Francesca, after her son's death, the sum of 20,000 crowns which he had owed to Rupert.[50] It seems possible that there was some kind of marriage,[51] but that such marriages were of rather doubtful legality. It could not have given Dudley royal rank, and hardly even a claim to the Palatinate,[52] for, had such a claim existed, Rupert would certainly have put his son forward when the House of Simmern was crying out for an heir. His niece, Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans, declared that he had deceived Francesca with a false marriage. But the good Duchess was notoriously ignorant of her uncle's affairs, and added to her story several impossible circumstances which tend to discredit it, asserting, among other things, that Rupert had been lodging at the time, in Henry Bard's house, though Bard had been dead nearly ten years.[53] Moreover, such treachery is at variance with Rupert's whole character and all his known actions, and, though he cannot be said to have treated Francesca well, he may at least be acquitted of the baseness suggested by his niece. During Rupert's life-time no mention is made of Francesca in letters or papers, public or private. Yet, after his death, we find frequent reference to her as to a well-known personage. Two reasons for her retirement suggest themselves. In the first place she was, as she herself asserted, too virtuous to care to have any dealings with the corrupt Court, and in the second place she was a devout Roman Catholic. Considering the prevalent horror of "Popery," the fanatical agitation concerning the second marriage of the Duke of {361} York, and Rupert's position as the popular hero, it may be that Francesca's religion made him unwilling to bring her forward publicly. But, be the exact facts of his connection with her what they may, that bond was probably the true reason for his obdurate refusal to hear of any other marriage.