Part 19

Upon this, the Lord Chief-Justice again interposed, saying, "The Court is, as I understand, asked solemnly to declare, on the strength of two certificates, coming I know not whence, written on two scraps of paper, that the marriage--the only marriage of George III. which the world believes to have taken place--between his Majesty and Queen Charlotte, was an invalid marriage, and consequently that all the sovereigns who have sat on the throne since his death, including her present Majesty, were not entitled to sit on the throne. That is the conclusion to which the court is asked to come upon these two rubbishy pieces of paper--one signed 'George P,' and the other 'George Guelph.' I believe them to be gross and rank forgeries. The court has no difficulty in coming to the conclusion--even assuming that the signatures had that character of genuineness which they have not--that what is asserted in these documents has not the slightest foundation in fact."

Lord Chief-Baron Pollock expressed his entire concurrence in the opinion of the Lord Chief-Justice. After explaining that it was the province of the court to decide any question of fact, on the truth or falsehood of which the admissibility of a piece of evidence was dependent, he declared that these documents did not at all satisfy him that George III. was ever married before his marriage to Queen Charlotte; that the signatures were not proved to be even like the king's handwriting; and that the addition of the word "Guelph" to one of them was satisfactory proof that the king, at that date Prince of Wales, did not write it--it being a matter of common information that the princes of the royal family only use the Christian name.

Sir James Wilde also assented, characterizing the certificates as "very foolish forgeries," but adding that he was not sorry that the occasion had arisen for bringing them into a court of justice, where their authenticity could be inquired into by evidence, as the existence of documents of this sort was calculated to set abroad a number of idle stories for which there was probably not the slightest foundation.

The evidence as to Hannah Lightfoot being thus excluded, the examination of Mrs. Ryves, the petitioner, was continued. She remembered proceeding to Brighton, in 1805, where herself and her mother were introduced to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. The prince had subsequently many conversations with them, and had bestowed many kindnesses on them. She knew the Duke of Kent from a very early age--he being a constant visitor at their house from 1805 till the time of his death. In the spring of 1815 Lord Warwick's disclosure was made, and the Duke of Kent acknowledged the relationship even before he saw the proofs which were at the time at Warwick Castle. Thither the earl went to procure them, at the expense of Mrs. Serres, he being at this time so poor that he had not the means to go; indeed, Mrs. Ryves asserted that sometimes the earl was so terribly impoverished that he had not even a sheet of note-paper to write upon.

His mission was successful; and on his return he produced three sets of papers, one of which he said he had received from Dr. Wilmot, another set from Lord Chatham, and the third set had been always in his possession. One packet was marked "Not to be opened until after the king's death," and accordingly the seal was not broken; but the others were opened, and the papers they contained were read aloud in the presence of the Duke of Kent, who expressed himself perfectly satisfied that the signatures of George III. were in his father's handwriting, and declared that, as the Earl of Warwick might die at any moment, he would thenceforward take upon himself the guardianship of Mrs. Serres and her daughter. The sealed packet was opened in the latter part of 1819, and Mrs. Ryves, when questioned as to its contents, pointed out documents for the most part relating to the marriage of Dr. Wilmot and the Polish princess. Among other documents was the following:--

"Olive, provided the royal family acknowledge you, keep secret all the papers which are connected with the king's first marriage; but should the family's desertion (be) manifested (should you outlive the king) then, and only then, make known all the state secrets which I have left in the Earl of Warwick's keeping for your knowledge. Such papers I bequeath to you for your sole and uncontrolled property, to use and act upon as you deem fit, according to expediency of things. Receive this as the sacred will of JAMES WILMOT."

"June --st, 1789. Witness, WARWICK."

Mrs. Ryves maintained that up to the moment of the opening of the sealed packet her mother had believed herself to be the daughter of Robert Wilmot and the niece of Dr. Wilmot, and she did not know of any Olive Wilmot except her aunt, who was the wife of Mr. Payne. When the first information as to her birth was given to her by Lord Warwick, she supposed herself to be the daughter of the Duke of Cumberland by the Olive Wilmot who was afterwards Mrs. Payne, and had no idea that her mother was the daughter of Dr. Wilmot, and was another person altogether. There was a great consultation as to opening the packet before the king's death; but the Duke of Kent persisted in his desire to know its contents, and the seals were broken. The Duke of Kent died on the 26th of January, 1820, and George III. in the following week, on the 30th of the same month.

Mrs. Ryves then proved the identity of certain documents which bore the signatures of the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Kent. They were chiefly written on morsels of paper, and elicited the remark from the Lord Chief-Justice, that "his royal highness seemed to have been as poor as to paper as the earl." She said that these documents were written in her own presence. Among them were these:--

"I solemnly promise to see my cousin Olive, Princess of Cumberland, reinstated in her R----l rights at my father's demise. EDWARD."

"May 3, 1816."

"I bind myself, by my heirs, executors, and assigns, to pay to my dearest coz. Olive, Princess of Cumberland, four hundred pounds yearly during her life. EDWARD." "May 3, 1818."

"I bequeath to Princess Olive of Cumberland ten thousand pounds should I depart this life before my estate of Castlehill is disposed of. EDWARD."

"June 9, 1819."

"I hereby promise to return from Devonshire early in the spring to lay before the Regent the certificates of my dearest cousin Olive's birth. EDWARD."

"Novr. 16, 1819."

"Jany. (illegible).

"If this paper meets my dear Alexandria's eye, my dear cousin Olive will present it, whom my daughter will, for my sake, I hope, love and serve should I depart this life. EDWARD."

"I sign this only to say that I am very ill, but should I not get better, confide in the duchess, my wife, who will, for my sake, assist you until you obtain your royal rights.

"God Almighty bless you, my beloved cousin, prays EDWARD."

"To Olive my cousin, and blessing to Lavinia."

Mrs. Ryves then went on to state that, after the death of the Duke of Kent and his father, the Duke of Sussex paid a visit to herself and her mother. On that occasion, and subsequently, he examined the papers, and declared himself satisfied that they were genuine.

In her cross-examination, and in answer to questions put by the court, Mrs. Ryves stated that her mother, Mrs. Serres, was both a clever painter and an authoress, and was appointed landscape painter to the court. She had been in the habit of writing letters to members of the royal family before 1815, when she had no idea of her relationship to them. Her mother might have practised astrology as an amusement. A letter which was produced, and described the appearance of the ghost of Lord Warwick's father, was in her mother's handwriting--as was also a manifesto calling upon "the Great Powers, Principalities, and Potentates of the brave Polish nation to rally round their Princess Olive, grand-daughter of Stanislaus," and informing them that her legitimacy as Princess of Cumberland had been proved. Her mother had written a "Life of Dr. Wilmot," and had ascribed the "Letters of Junius" to him, after a careful comparison of his MS. with those in the possession of Woodfall, Junius's publisher. She had also issued a letter to the English nation in 1817, in which she spoke of Dr. Wilmot as having died unmarried; and Mrs. Ryves could not account for that, as her mother had heard of his marriage two years previously.

A document was then produced in which the Duke of Kent acknowledged the marriage of his father with Hannah Lightfoot, and the legitimacy of Olive, praying the latter to maintain secrecy during the life of the king, and constituting her the guardian of his daughter Alexandrina, and directress of her education on account of her relationship, and also because the Duchess of Kent was not familiar with English modes of education. Mrs. Ryves explained that her mother refrained from acting on that document out of respect for the Duchess of Kent, who, she thought, had the best right to direct the education of her own daughter (the present queen). She also stated that her mother had received a present of a case of diamonds from the Duke of Cumberland, but she did not know what became of them.

The Attorney-General, on behalf of the crown, after explaining the provisions of the Act, proceeded to tear the story of the petitioners to pieces, pronouncing its folly and absurdity equal to its audacity. The Polish princess and her charming daughter he pronounced pure myths--as entirely creatures of the imagination as Shakspeare's "Ferdinand and Miranda." As to the pretended marriage of George III. and Hannah Lightfoot, the tale was even more astonishing and incredible, for not only were wife and children denied by the king, and a second bigamous contract entered into, but the lady held her tongue, the children were content to live in obscurity, and Dr. Wilmot faithfully kept the secret, and preached sermons before the king and his second wife Queen Charlotte. Not that Dr. Wilmot did not feel these grave state secrets pressing him down, but the mode of revenge which he adopted was to write the "Letters of Junius!"

Yet Dr. Wilmot died in 1807, apparently a common-place country parson. Surely there never was a more wonderful example of the possibility of keeping secrets. One would have imagined that the very walls would have spoken of such events; but although at least seven men and one woman (the wife of Robert Wilmot) must have been acquainted with them, the secret was kept as close as the grave for forty-three years, and was never even suspected before 1815, although all the actors in these extraordinary scenes seemed to have been occupied day and night in writing on little bits of paper, and telling the whole story. In 1815 the facts first came to the knowledge of Mrs. Serres; but, even then, they were not revealed, until the grave had closed over every individual who could vouch as to the handwriting.

As far as the petitioner, Mrs. Ryves, was concerned, the Attorney-General said he could imagine that she had brooded on this matter so long (she being then over 70 years of age), that she had brought herself to believe things that had never happened. The mind might bring itself to believe a lie, and she might have dwelt so long upon documents produced and fabricated by others, that, with her memory impaired by old age, the principle of veracity might have been poisoned, and the offices of imagination and memory confounded to such an extent that she really believed that things had been done and said in her presence which were entirely imaginary. He contended that Mrs. Serres, the mother of the petitioner, was not altogether responsible for her actions, and proceeded to trace her history. Between 1807 and 1815, he said, she had the advantage of becoming personally known to some members of the royal family, and being a person of ill-regulated ambition and eccentric character, and also being in pecuniary distress, her eccentricity took the turn of making advances to different members of that family. She opened fire on the Prince of Wales in 1809, by sending a letter to his private secretary, comparing His Royal Highness to Julius Caesar, and talking in a mad way about the politics of the illustrious personages of the day. In 1810 other letters followed in the same style, and in one of them she asked, "Why, sir, was I so humbly born?"

Scattered about these letters were mysterious allusions to secrets of state and symptoms of insane delusions. In one she imagined she had been seriously injured by the Duke of York. In another, she fancied that some one had poisoned her. In one letter she actually offered to lend the Prince of Wales, L20,000 to induce him to grant the interview of which she was so desirous, although in other letters she begged for pecuniary assistance, and represented herself to be in great distress. The letters were also full of astrology; she spoke of her "occult studies;" and she further believed in ghosts. The manifesto to Poland also pointed to the same conclusion as to her state of mind. A person of such an erratic character, he said, was very likely to concoct such a story, and the story would naturally take the turn of trying to connect herself with the royal family.