John Durant Breval

Who was John Durant Breval?

John Durant Breval, was a miscellaneous writer.

Breval was descended from a French refugee protestant family, and was the son of Francis Durant de Breval, prebendary of Westminster, where he was probably born about 1680. Sir John Bramston, in his 'Autobiography,' p. 157, describes the elder Breval in 1672 as 'formerly a priest of the Romish church, and of the companie of those in Somerset House, but now a convert to the protestant religion and a preacher at the Savoy.' Bramston gives 1666 as the date of his conversion.

The younger Breval was admitted a queen's scholar of Westminster School 1693, was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, 1697, and was one of the Cambridge poets who celebrated in that year the return of William III after the peace of Ryswick. Breval proceeded B. A. 1700, and M.A. 1704. In 1702 he was made fellow of Trinity.

In 1708 he was involved in a private scandal, which led to his removal from the fellowship. He engaged in an intrigue with a married lady in Berkshire, and cudgelled her husband, who ill treated his wife.