They invited him to their house, made him drunk, and when drunk sign a paper promising to marry their sister before three months were up or to forfeit £20,000. They took care to have this document well attested, and next morning presented it to Mr. Froude, who had forgotten all about it. He was very angry, blustered, cajoled, tried to laugh it off—all to no purpose. He was constrained to marry her. And he seems to have been really fond of her. Certain it is that she was warmly attached to him, and after his death would speak of him as her "dear departed saint," which implies a singular misappropriation of terms, and confusion of ideas". Death In The Maid of Sker, Blackmore represents Chowne as torn to pieces by his hounds. Baring-Gould relates the actual circumstances of Froude's death as follows: "Before his parlour window grew a peculiarly handsome trimmed box-tree. Now Froude had done a mean and cruel act to a young farmer near, tricking him out of a considerable sum of money. One night the box-tree was pulled up by the roots and carried away, no one knew whither, or for certain by whom, though the young farmer was suspected of the deed. Froude raged over the insult; but as he was unable to bring it home, and as his powers were failing, his rage was impotent. The uprooting of the box-tree apparently precipitated his death. He felt that the awe of him was gone, his control over the neighbourhood was lost. This thought, even more than mortification at not being able to revenge the uprooting of his box-tree, broke him down, and he rapidly sank, intellectually and physically, and died 9 December 1852". He was buried at Knowstone. According to Hoskins: "He left his two parishes, like himself, in a heathen and lawless condition". He appears to have been succeeded by the descendants of his sister Prestwood Love Froude who married William Bellew (1772–1826) of Stockleigh Court in Devon. Her son and heir was John Prestwood Bellew (born 1803) who married Mary Ann Hancock, eldest daughter of William Hancock of Wiveliscombe in Somerset, a wealthy brewer. His son and heir was John Froude Bellew (born 1829), of Rhyll Manor, East Anstey, who in 1866 was the major landowner in that parish and in 1878 was described as lord of the manor. A connection of this family