SKELETONS can be found in cupboards when family history is researched.

Dorothy Turcotte’s family had always spoken with pride that there was a family stone in Christchurch Priory and that they were descendants of Peter Mews, Bishop of Winchester from 1684 to 1706, who fought at the Battle of Sedgmoor.

But when she began searching the family’s links she unearthed another Peter Mews – the Bishop’s nephew Sir Peter Mews who lived at Hinton Admiral House in the Manor of Christchurch.

He was involved in questionable inheritances and a political scandal while alive and, after he died, his own will became the subject of a juicy wrangle.

Now Barbara Turcotte, who lives in Ontario, Canada, has written a book about his life, called Strange Affairs at Christchurch: Sir Peter Mews Knave or Knight?, which has just been published by Natula Publications (£7.95).

Sir Peter’s father, Col John Mews, came from Purse Caundle in Dorset and died when Peter was seven. But it was his ordained Uncle Peter who became more significant.

He fought for the Royalists in the English Civil War and then served as a spy for the royalist cause, once being captured in Scotland and nearly hanged.

But Uncle Peter was rewarded when Charles II was restored to the throne, eventually becoming Bishop of Winchester and advising the king on military matters to help quash the Monmouth Rebellion that led to the Bloody Assizes.

Peter Mews the younger became the Bishop’s chancellor, living in his household and managing his affairs.

When Bishop Peter died, strangely, no will was found… and his nephew was his legal heir. He claimed he inherited only debts. Had a will been sneakily destroyed?

It wasn’t the first issue over inherited money Sir Peter had been embroiled in.

As a youngster, he had always been a favourite with his mother’s brother and was expected to inherit part of his wealth.

But 10 days before that uncle died he made a new will disinheriting Peter and that led to a legal challenge.

Somehow, by 1708, Sir Peter had accrued enough money to buy the Manor of Christchurch for £22,000 – a huge sum then – and within two years had become an MP for the borough.

In 1719, to his servants’ consternation, aged 47, Sir Peter married in the Henry VIII Chapel at Westminster Abbey.

His bride was Lydia Jarvis, who had inherited £9,000 and had a £340 a year income. She was three years his junior.

Hinton Admiral House was built the following year for his new bride.

Dorothy Turcotte’s research reveals that Sir Peter and Lady Lydia returned to his manor swiftly after their wedding, for there were elections for the mayor of Christchurch and Sir Peter wanted to make sure his chosen man got in.

A fraudulent election eventually saw Sir Peter’s favourite sworn in, but a legal challenge ensued and for six years no legally chosen mayor was in office.

That same year, 1725, Sir Peter died at Hinton Admiral at the age of 53. He may have accidentally taken poison as a result of swallowing a concoction made from the horns and hooves of deer as medicine for fainting fits.

But Dorothy Turcotte’s story doesn’t end there.

“Whatever the reasons for the marriage, it does not seem to have worked out well,” she writes. “According to some accounts they lived apart for years and were not on amicable terms.”

Indeed, the book’s research revealed an anonymous letter was sent to a London coachman called Thomas Mews, who was Bishop Peter’s other brother’s grandson.

And that letter, describing Lady Lydia as “a mean, miserable woman of trickery”, added that “Sir Peter hated her and they had not lived together for several years”.

Was that true?

The main beneficiary of Sir Peter’s will was Lady Lydia, but it was challenged by Thomas Mews.

Allegedly, eventually Lady Lydia and Thomas Mews were reconciled and, as a gesture of kindness, she arranged for Thomas to go to sea. Where he swiftly drowned.

“It was very timely indeed,” the author mentions.

Thomas had bequeathed everything to a female friend but his will was not administered until 1774. The author asks: had he secretly survived?

Lady Lydia died in 1751, aged 74. A stone in her memory can be found in a Hertfordshire church.

Sir Peter Mews lies buried in a crypt at Christchurch Priory.

It seems he “led a life full of dark corners,” Dorothy Turcotte observes, pointing out that his resting place, too, is a dark corner.