Template:Wp-Richard Bellings (courtier)

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Sir Richard Bellings (sometimes spelt Bealings) (1622 – 30 October 1716) was an Irish courtier who served as the Knight secretary to Catherine of Braganza.^[1] He was one of a number of Irish Catholics given office in England following the Restoration.

In 1662 Charles II sent Sir Richard Bellings to Rome to arrange the terms of England's conversion to Roman Catholicism.^[2]

On 1 June 1670 he was one of the signatories of the Secret Treaty of Dover for England. Others who signed it were Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, Sir Thomas Clifford, Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour and Jean-Baptiste Colbert for France. That secret treaty engaged Charles II to declare himself a Roman Catholic, for which Louis XIV was to pay him two millions of francs, and, in the event of anticipated disturbances in England, provide military support.

It was the signing of this treaty which effectively created an alliance with England and France and against Holland, in March 1672. This was the second Dutch War of the reign of Charles the Second.