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HAMAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 QUEEN CHAELOTTE & THE CHEVALIEE D'EON. 
 
 DR WILMOrS POLISH PRINCES. 
 
 Br 
 
 WILLIAM J. THOMS, RS.A. 
 
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 REPRINTED WITH SOME ADDITIONS, FROM 'NOTES AND QUERIES' 
 
 LONDON : 
 W. G. SMITH, 32 WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 
 1867. 
 
LONBON 
 
 PBIKTIBD BY SPOTTIRWOODE AKD CO. 
 
 NBW-BTRBBT 8QUARB 
 

 PKEFACE 
 
 These Notes on the story of Hannah Lightfoot have 
 been reprinted in compliance with suggestions from 
 several quarters, that the proofs which they contain of 
 the utter groundlessness of the scandal should be pre- 
 served in a more convenient form than the pages of 
 Notes and Queries^ in which they originally appeared. 
 
 A writer, who has obviously paid much attention 
 to the subject, while admitting that the evidence of 
 the want of truth in the story, which is here adduced, 
 is conclusive, thinks there are two statements respect- 
 ing it which require further canvassing. One is Mr. 
 Steinman Steinman's {N. & Q. 2nd S. i. 222) state- 
 ment that a portrait of Miss Axford, the Fair Quaker, 
 painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, exists at Knole, and 
 the other, the statement of E. D. {N. & Q. 1st S. x. 
 430) that Dr. James Dalton, of the Madras Medical 
 Service, married a daughter of Hannah Lightfoot by 
 George III. 
 
 How the portraits at Knole, said to represent ' Miss 
 Axford, the Fair Quaker,' came to be so designated I 
 know not, but I would remark that that mythic per- 
 sonage, the ' Fair Quaker,' has never been described 
 
 530 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 as a Miss Axforcl. I may add, on the authority of 
 my friend Mr. Scharf, that the picture does not 
 represent a Quakeress, for the lady is dressed in 
 white satin with pink bows ; like the portraits of La 
 Baccelli^ and the Schinderlin^ also at Knole, and 
 painted by Sir Joshua, it is believed to have been 
 added to the collection by the third Duke of Dorset ; 
 and like those portraits, is probably that of one of his 
 mistresses. 
 
 With reference to the Dalton descendants from the 
 supposed connection, I would remind the reader, that 
 another family residing at the Cape of Good Hope 
 claim the same origin (2 S. iV! & Q. 89) ; and I may add 
 that, while these papers were in course of publication 
 in Notes and Queries^ no less than three other families, 
 whose names I do not think it right to publish, have 
 been mentioned to me as the undoubted descendants 
 of the King and the Fair Quaker. But as the five 
 families which claim such descent have no connection 
 with each other, the reader will probably concur with 
 me in the conviction that they have just as little con- 
 nection with George III. and his supposed Quaker 
 mistress. Whether the King has or has not been 
 made the scapegoat for his father, 'as has been sug- 
 gested, or any of his brothers, is not the question 
 which I undertook to investigate. 
 
 40 St. George's Square, S.W. 
 May 1867. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hannah Lightfoot 1 
 
 (Reprinted from Botes and Queries of February 2, 9, 16, and 
 March 16, 1867.) 
 
 Queen Charlotte and the Chevalier D'Eon . . ,26 
 (Reprinted from Notes and Queries of March 16, 1867.) 
 
 Dr. Wilmot*s Polish Princess 32 
 
 (Reprinted from Not-es and Queries of July 7, 1866.) 
 
 Lord Chatham and the Princess Olive . . . .40 
 
 (Now first published.) 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The * Authentic Records ' and * Secret History ' . .45 
 (Reprinted from Notes and Queries of March 9, 1867.) 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT 
 
 When looking into that barefaced and impudent 
 fiction, the pretended marriage of Dr. Wilmot to the 
 Princess Poniatowski, to which I called the attention 
 of the readers of Notes and Queries in July 1866 
 (3rd S. X. p. 1), I found the name of Hannah Light- 
 foot so mixed up with the afikir that I could scarcely 
 resist the conviction that the Fair Quaker* was as 
 mythical a personage as the Polish Princess. 
 
 The publication of Mr. Jesse's amusing Memoirs 
 of the Life and Reign of George III. has brought 
 before the public once more the alleged connection 
 and marriage between George III. and Hannah 
 Lightfoot. 
 
 Mr. Jesse, however, gives to some of the authorities 
 which he uses an amount of weight and credit which 
 a little consideration will show they by no means de- 
 serve. I propose, therefore, to point out upon what 
 a mass of contradictory statements the scandal is 
 founded, in the firm conviction that if my readers do 
 not go the length of rejecting the story altogether, 
 they will pause before they even believe that George 
 
 * ^ Fair Quaker/ not Quakeress, was the name by which the young 
 lady was generally designated. 
 
 a2 
 
4 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 III. intrigued with Hannah Lightfoot; and will feel 
 thoroughly convinced that there is not a shadow of 
 truth in this alleged marriage, in which Mr. Jesse 
 seems disposed to believe. 
 
 The first thing that strikes one as remarkable with 
 regard to this piece of scandal is that no allusion to it 
 is to be found (at least as far as I am able to trace) 
 in any historical, political, or satirical work pubhshed 
 during the lifetime of George III. Walpole, whose 
 injdustry in collecting gossip equalled the delight with 
 which he disseminated it, has no allusion to a story 
 which he never could have known and kept secret ; 
 but, on the contrary, speaks of Prince George at the 
 very time when this liaison must have existed, if it 
 ever did exist, as ' bigoted, young, and chaste. '^ But 
 from the year after that in which George III. died, 
 the story has been continually reappearing in one or 
 other of the many varied forms which it has assumed. 
 
 The subject is probably of sufficient interest to 
 justify my reprinting such notices on the subject as 
 have not already appeared in the columns of Notes 
 and Queries. In the first, from The Monthly Maga- 
 zine for April 1821, it will be observed the lady is 
 spoken of as a Miss Wheeler. 
 
 All the -world is acquainted with the attachment of the late King to 
 a beautiful Quakeress of the name of Wheeler. The lady disappeared 
 on the royal marriage in a way that has always been interesting because 
 unexplained and mysterious. I have been told she is still alive, or was 
 lately. As connected with the life of the late sovereign, the subject is 
 curious ; and any information through your pages would doubtless be 
 agreeable to many of your readera. B. 
 
 Monthly Mag. April 1, 1821, vol. li. p. 523. 
 
 In the reply which this inquiry brought forth in 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 5 
 
 the July number of the magazine, the lady becomes a 
 Miss Lightfoot ; and the story is set forth with some 
 incidents which I here content myself with printing 
 in italics : — 
 
 Renimiscentia of remarkable Characters of the last Age : 
 
 Hannah Lightfoot 
 
 (The Fair Quaker). 
 
 [In consequence of the enquiry relative to this celebrated lady, in a 
 late number, we have been favoured with tlie following letter from a re- 
 spectable gentleman at Warminster, and we are promised further infor- 
 mation. On enquiring of the Axford family, who still are respectable 
 grocers on Ludgate Hill, we traced a son of the person alluded to in the 
 letter, by his second wife. Miss Bartlett, and ascertained that the infor- 
 mation of our correspondent is substantially correct. From him we 
 learn that the lady lived six weeks loith her husband, who was fondly 
 attached to her, but one evening when he happened to be from home, a 
 coach and four came to the door, when she was conveyed into it and car- 
 ried off at a gallop, no one knew whither. It appears the husband was 
 inconsolable at first, and at different times applied for infoimation about 
 his wife at Weymouth and other places^ but died after sixty years in 
 total ignorance of her fate. It has, however, been reported that she had 
 three sons by her lover, since high in the army ; that she was buried at 
 Islinffton under another name, and even that she is still alive.~\ 
 
 Your correspondent enquires (in your magazine for April) for some 
 account of the Fair Quaker who once engaged the affections of Prince 
 George. Her name was not Wheeler, but Hannah Lightfoot. She 
 lived with her father and mother at the corner of St. James' Market, who 
 kept a shop there (I believe a linendraper's). The Prince had often 
 noticed her in his way from Leicester House to St. James', and was 
 struck with her person. Miss' Chudleigh, late Duchess of Kingston, be- 
 came his agent. 
 
 The royal lover's relations took alarm, and sent to enquire out a young 
 man to marry her. Isaac Axford was shopman to Barton the grocer on 
 Ludyate Hill, and used to chat with her when she came to the shop to buy 
 yroceries. 
 
 Perryn of Knightsbridge, it was said, furnished a place of meeting for 
 the royal lover. An agent of Miss Chudleigh called on Axford, and 
 proposed that on his marrying Hannah he should have a considerable 
 sum of money. 
 
 Hannah staid a short time with her husband, when she was taken off 
 in a carriage, and Isaac never saw her more. Axford learned that she 
 was gone with Miss Chudleigh. Isaac was a poor-hearted fellow, or, by 
 making a bustle about it, he might perhaps have secured to himself a 
 
6 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 good provision. He told me, when I last saw him, that he preserved a 
 petition at St. Jame8\ which was not attended to j also that he had 
 received some money from Periyn's assignees on account of his ivife. 
 
 Isaac lived many years as a respectable grocer at Warminster, his na- 
 tive place, but retired from business before his death, which took place 
 about five years ago, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. 
 
 Many years after Hannah was taken away, her husband, believing her 
 dead, was married again to a Miss Bartlett of Keevel (N. Wilts), and by 
 her succeeded to an estate at Chevrett of about 1501 a ye^. On the 
 report reviving, a few years since, of his first wife's being still living, 
 a Mr. Bartlett (first cousin to Isaac's second wife) claimed the estate on 
 the plea of the invalidity of this second marriage. 
 
 It was said that the late Marquis of Bath, a little before his death, re- 
 ported that she was then living, and the same has been asserted by other 
 gentlemen of this neighbourhood. 
 
 Hannah was fair and pure, as far as ever I heard ; but report says 
 ^ not the purest of all pures ' in respect to the house of Mr. Perryn, who 
 left her an annuity of 40/. a year. She was indeed considered as one of 
 the beautiful women of her time, and rather disposed to embonpoint. 
 
 Warminsteriensis. 
 
 Warminster, 30 April 1821. 
 
 Monthly Mag. July 1821, vol. li. p. 532. 
 
 This statement did not appear satisfactory at least 
 to one reader of the magazine, and accordingly War- 
 MiNSTERiENSis was invited to explain the following 
 contradictions in his statement ; but no such expla- 
 nation appears to have been offered : — 
 
 You and your readers, I feel no doubt, are particularly obliged by the 
 communication of your intelligent correspondent Warminstenensisj but 
 as he has not been sufficiently explicit upon some points, I hope for my 
 curiosity he will answer the following questions : — 
 
 1. Can yom* correspondent assign any reason for the Fair Quaker 
 being sometimes called Wheeler and sometimes Lightfoot ? 
 
 2. What was the motive that induced Miss Chudleigh to offer *a 
 considerable sum of money' to Isaac Axford to marry Hannah Light- 
 foot ? 
 
 3. When and where did the marriage take place of Hannah Light- 
 
 [ foot, a Quaker, to I. Axford, and where is the evidence that she was the( 
 I same Quaker who lived at the comer of St James' Market, and was ' 
 admired by Prince George P 
 
 I 4. Where was she carried oft' from in the coach and four ? 
 h. Where and at what time was the law-suit ? 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. i 
 
 6. Did Mr. Bartlett succeed in his suit; and if not, lohy ? 
 
 7. Is Mr. Bartlett living, and where ? 
 
 Brentfordiensis. 
 Brentford, 12 July 1821. 
 
 Mmthly Mag. Sept. 1821, vol. lii. p. 109. 
 
 In the same number of the magazine we have, 
 however, the following additional statement : — 
 
 *^* Another correspondent ivrites to the folloicing effect : — 
 
 Isaac Axford never cohabited with her. She was taken away from the 
 church door the same day they were married, and he never heard of her 
 afterwards. 
 
 Miss Chudleigh (the late Duchess of Kingston) was the agent em- 
 ployed to get Isaac to marry her, with a promise of a small sum of 
 money. Isaac was then a shopman to Bolton the grocer on Ludgate 
 Hill, and she lived with her father and mother at the comer of 
 St. James' Market, and the King frequently saw her at the shop door as 
 he drove by in going to and from Parliament, &c. 
 
 A Mr. PerrjTi of Knightsbridge was a relation of hers, and at his 
 death left her forty pounds a year, tvhich Isaac had. 
 
 Axford presented a petition to the King himself about her in the Park 
 on his knees, as directed, but obtained but little redress. 
 
 The next account from The Monthly Magazine 
 for October deserves special attention, not only be- 
 cause it gives a precise date and a precise locality for 
 her marriage, but from its peculiarity of style, which 
 smacks of the florid, if not elegant, style of Olivia 
 Wilmot Serres; — 
 
 Further Partictdars of Hannah Lightfoot, the Fair Quaker. 
 
 Hannah Lightfoot, when residing with her father and mother, was 
 frequently seen by the King when he drove by going to and from the 
 Parliament House. She eloped in 1754, and was married to Isaac Axford 
 at Keith's Chapel, which my father discovered about three weeks after, 
 and none of her family have seen her since, though her mother had a 
 letter or two from her, but at last died of grief. There were many fabu- 
 lous stories about her, but my aunt (the mother of H. Lightfoot) could 
 never trace any to be true. 
 
 The above is a copy of a cousin of H. Lightfoot's letter to me on in- 
 quiry of particulars of this mysterious affair, and who is now living and 
 more likely to know the particulars than any one else. The general 
 
8 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 belief of her friends was that she was taken into keeping hy Prince George 
 directly after her marriage to Axford, but never lived with him. 
 
 I have lately seen a half-pay cavalry officer from India, who knew a 
 gentleman of the name of DaUon who married a daughter of this H. 
 Lightfoot by the King, but who is dead, leaving several accomplished 
 daughters, who, with the father, are coming to England ; these daughters 
 are secluded from society like nuns, but no pains spared in their education ; 
 probably on the arrival of this gentleman more light will be throvra upon 
 the subject than now exists. The person who wrote the above letter is 
 distantly related to me, and my mother (deceased some years) was re- 
 lated to H. Lightfoot and well knew her. I never heard her say any 
 more than I have described abeady, except that she was short of stature 
 and very pretty. An Inqtjirer. 
 
 Herts. 
 
 Monthly Mag. Oct. 1821, p. 197. 
 
 At the risk of trespassing somewhat heavily on the 
 patience of the reader, 1 must before I close this 
 branch of my subject call attention to a still fuller 
 and more curious statement derived from the same 
 source : — 
 
 Further details relative to the Fair Quaker. 
 
 The accounts published in your magazine relative to the Fair Quaker 
 protected by the late King, differing in some respects from that which I 
 have received from my relatives, who were her father's neighbours, I 
 here give you their account. 
 
 St. James' Market, now pulled down, and absorbed in the improved 
 state of the space between Pall Mall and Piccadilly at the end next the 
 Ilaymarket, consisted before its dilapidation of two parts — a daily flesh 
 market, and an open obloDg space, on the east side of the other, called 
 the country market for poultry and other country produce. Mr. 
 Wheeler's house was the eastern corner house, and on the south side of 
 this open part, and abutting upon Market Lane, a narrow lane which 
 ran out of Pall Mall at the back of the Opera House, the lower end of 
 which, as far as where Wheeler's house stood, is now covered over and 
 made into an arcade. I well remember the shop, which after the 
 decease of the old folks was kept by their son until the recent destruc- 
 tion. It was a linendraper's, and, as the principal part of the business 
 lay with the country market people, the proprietors were accustomed to 
 keep a cask of good ale, a glass of which was always offered to their 
 customers. 
 
 At that time tlie ravages of the small-pox, unchecked by inoculation, 
 left but few women who were not marked by its destructive powers ; and 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. U 
 
 the possessors of a fair unsullied face were followed by crowds of ad- 
 mirers. Such was the case of the Misses Gunning-, who paraded the 
 Mall in St. James' Park, guarded by a troop of admirers with drawn 
 swords, to prevent the populace from encroaching on this hallowed spot 
 sacred to gentility. The train of Mifcs W. as she passed to and from the 
 meeting in Hemming's Row, St. Martin's Lane, was as numerous. 
 
 Being before the American War, the spirit of democracy had not intro- 
 duced its levelling principles, and the royal family, the nobility, and even 
 the gentry, were beheld with a kind of awe, which rendered the presence 
 of troops or constables necessary for their protection. The royal family 
 proceeded to the theatres in chairs, preceded only by a few footmen, and 
 followed by about a dozen yeomen. When they went to the Opera they 
 entered at the back door in Market Lane, which was near the coimtry 
 market ; and therefore to avoid the length of that narrow passage, they 
 passed up St. Alban's Street, skirted half the south of the market, and 
 had then only a few paces to go down the lane. On these occasions the 
 linens were taken out of the eastern window, and Miss W. sat in a chair 
 to see the procession. The fame of her beauty attracted the notice of the 
 Prince, and there were not wanting those who were ready to fan the 
 flame and promote the connection. 
 
 One M and his wife then lived in Pall Mall ; their house was the 
 
 resort of the gay world, and the master and mistress were equally ready 
 to assist the designs of the gamester or the libertine, and to conceal the 
 gallantries of a fashionable female. To this man, familiarly known 
 
 about the court by the name of Jack M , the taking away of the 
 
 Fair Quaker was committed. 
 
 Having received his orders, he proceeded to a watchmaker's shop on 
 the east side of the country market, which commanded a good vi6w of 
 Wheeler's house, in order to reconnoitre. Repeating his visits, under 
 pretence of repairing or regulating his watch, he discovered that a 
 
 female named H frequently went to Wheeler's, and was well 
 
 acquainted with the daughter ; and the skilful intriguer was not long 
 before he discovered that this woman was precisely fitted for his 
 purpose. 
 
 Mrs. H had formerly been a servant at Wheeler's, since which 
 
 she had been in service at one Betts', a glass-cutter in Cockspur Street, a 
 large house facing Pall Mall, afterwards occupied by Collet, who mar- 
 ried his widow, and before the recent destruction divided into two or 
 three tenements— one a toolmaker's, another a watchmaker's. She had 
 then been lately discharged from Betts'. Listead of going into another 
 
 service, being a handsome woman, one of the apprentices named H 
 
 married her, and she was almost immediately afterwards laid hold of by 
 
 Jack M , and readily engaged in procuring the Fair Quaker for the 
 
 Prince, which her previous familiarity rendered easy. As the parents 
 
 allowed their daughter to go out with Mrs. H , interviews were thus 
 
 obtained between the parties j and, on the elopement, it was found that 
 
10 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 her clothes and trinkets had been clandestinely removed. Old Mis. 
 Wheeler never recovered from the shock, and it was said she descended 
 the grave with a broken heart. 
 
 A handsome reward was no doubt given to Jack M ; and, on the 
 
 arrival of the Queen, a relative was, through his interest, appointed her 
 English teacher, and another has gradually proceeded since to the bench 
 
 of bishops. Mrs. H was said to have received 500/. for her share in 
 
 the business. Whatever might be the sum, her husband was by means 
 
 of it enabled to go into partnership with a fellow-apprentice, one S , 
 
 who had then just returned from the East Indies, whither he had been 
 sent to one of the Nabobs along with some lustres to unpack and put them 
 up, and had thus accumulated a small sum. The one was a parish 
 apprentice, the other the son of a poor clergyman. They opened in oppo- 
 sition to their former master a shop at the comer of Cockspur Street and 
 Hedge Lane, afterwards called Whitcomb Street, which has also suffered 
 dilapidation, but the shop has reappeared in splendour. 
 
 Such is the history of this elopement, which I received from my 
 mother's relations, who had peculiar means of knowing the facts ; as 
 
 also from a fellow-apprentice of H 's, one Stock, who kept the 
 
 Lion and Lamb at Lewisham and whose wife (who afterwards married 
 a Mr. Peter White of that village) had also been a fellow-servant of 
 II 's wife while at Betts'. 
 
 It was generally reported that the Fair Quaker was kept at Lambeth, 
 or some other village on tlie south of the Thames ; a notion which pro- 
 bably arose from its being most customary with the Prince to ride out 
 over Westminster Bridge ; but I have heard it said that she resided at 
 Knights bridge, at a fann which supplied the royal family with asses' 
 milk. The house being retired from the road, and less than a mile from 
 the palaces, was well adapted for the purpose of private visits. 
 
 It is scarcely worth while to notice, that those who say the King saw 
 her as he passed to and from the Parliament House can have no know- 
 ledge of that part of London, and the situation of her father's shop. 
 
 Was not Mrs. H 's maiden name Lightfoot ? This might pro- 
 bably be ascertained by the register of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. As the 
 Wheelers would naturally use that name in relating the story, as being 
 that by which they could best designate her, has not some confusion 
 aiisen between the two females concerned in the elopement ? 
 
 T. G. H. 
 
 *^* We shall be glad of the anecdote of Osborne. We give ready inser- 
 tion to the above, but still rely on the communication from Warminster^ 
 which described her as Wheeler'' s niece and the wife of Axford. — Monthly 
 Mag. July 1822, vol. liii. pp. 517-8. 
 
 This letter from T. G. H. brought a farther com- 
 .muiiicatiori from W. H. of Warmmstcr, who having, 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 11 
 
 as he says, begun the debate, claimed the privilege of 
 the last word. 
 
 These are the last words which W. H. claims the 
 privilege of having; and in which the Fair Quaker 
 is no longer Wheeler or Lightfoot, but Hannah 
 Whitefoot. 
 
 It is certain that tlie Fair Quaker's name was Hannah Whitefoot, and 
 not Wheeler. I showed to Axford's own niece only yesterday the 
 account given by T. G. H. She admits all he says about the situation of 
 the shop, and the way Prince George got a sight of her in his frequent 
 visits to the Opera House. To put a stop to these visits was the reason 
 of her being married to Axford, who had paid her some attentions while 
 
 he was shopman at a grocer's on Ludgate Hill. Mrs. S , his niece, 
 
 told me yesterday, that after they married they cohabited for a fortnight 
 or three weeks, when she was one day called out from dinner, and put 
 into a chaise and four and taken off, and he never saw her afterwards. 
 
 Mrs. S says it was reported that the Prince had several children by 
 
 her, one or two of whom became generals in the army. 
 
 When Axford, many years after, married a second wife, and it was 
 reported that Hannah was still living, the late Lord Weymouth on 
 enquiiy asserted that she was not then living. 
 
 W. H. 
 
 Warminster, July 5. 
 
 Monthly Mag. Sept. 22, vol. liv. p. IIG. 
 
 In The Monthly Magazine for Dec. 1822, vol. 
 liv. p. 410, the discussion is carried on by a cor- 
 respondent signed ' Curiosus, Clapham, Sept. 5,' 
 who, after stating that he had dealt with Axford 
 the grocer at the corner of the Old Bailey for 
 nearly half a century — ' a heavy and silent man,' 
 who 'would never communicate a word on the sub- 
 ject ' — says that the marriage with Axford was a 
 matter of arrangement through the mediation of a 
 certain eminent surgeon of that day, and doubts the 
 cohabitation after the ceremony. That there were a 
 few children — one who was in the army, but never 
 
12 HANNAU LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 became a general officer, was said to have been seen 
 in company with Dr. M at Paris at the com- 
 mencement of the French Revolution, the Doctor 
 well knowing him and his history. ' Curiosus ' then 
 refers to some other Quaker lady who had a strong 
 hold on the affections of the royal Adonis, but the 
 ^ attempt was instantly and peremptorily discounte- 
 nanced by the lady.' 
 
 Thus ends the history as far as The Monthly 
 Magazine is concerned. 
 
 Our next extract — a long one — is from a pamphlet 
 published in 1824, written by some one who had 
 obviously been behind the scenes during the exciting 
 period of the Queen's trial. It is written in a better 
 style than some other pieces of secret history which 
 we shall have occasion to notice : — 
 
 The Queen at this time laboured under a very curious, and to me un- 
 accountable, species of delusion. She fancied herself in reality neither a 
 queen nor a wife. She believed his present Majesty to have been 
 actually married to Mrs. Fitzherbert ; and she as fully believed that his 
 late Majesty George the Third was married to Miss Hannah Lightfoot, 
 the beautiful Quakeress, previous to his marriage with Queen Charlotte ; 
 that a marriage was a second time solemnized at Kew (under the colour 
 of an evening's entertainment) after the death of Miss Lightfoot ; and as 
 that lady did not die till after the births of the present King and his 
 Royal Highness the Duke of York, her Majesty really considered the 
 Duke of Clarence the true heir to the throne. Her Majesty thought 
 also that the knowledge of this circumstance by the ministers was the 
 true cause of George the Fourth's retaining the Tory administration 
 when he came into power. 
 
 How the Queen came seriously to entei'tain such romantic suppositions 
 as these, it is not for me to know. It may be perhaps regarded as a 
 melancholy proof of the principles and abilities of some persons surround- 
 ing royal personages ; but that she did entertain them I know well, and 
 let any of her Majesty's friends contradict me if they can. If they do, 
 and they require me to mention my author, I will do so if called upon 
 in a proper manner and in a proper place. 
 
 Indeed I was myself requested to call upon Mrs. Hancock to make 
 
HANNAH LIGHTPOOT. 13 
 
 enquiries relative to what she might think on the subject, as she had the 
 pleasure of being intimate with Miss Lightfoot. I was also requested to 
 see the person who styles herself (whether justly or unjustly signifies 
 little to the subject) Princess of Cumberland, to know if any of her real 
 or pi'esumed documeyits cmdained reference to that subject. 
 
 Having no knowledge of Mrs. Hancock, who, I understand, is a 
 highly respectable lady, I could not presume to take so great a liberty as 
 to call upon her upon a subject so extraordinary. But knowing a friend 
 who was intimately acquainted with the latter, I requested him to ask 
 a question which I felt I could have no right to ask myself. -The answer 
 was, that ' all her documents were in her ozvn possession.^ This reply I sent 
 to the personage I have so often alluded to, and I also transmitted the 
 
 following intelligence, with which Sir "William was so obliging as 
 
 to favour me; viz. that Miss Hannah Lightfoot, when young, lived 
 with her father and mother, who, at the time of Prince George's residence 
 at Leicester House, kept a linendraper's shop at the corner of St. James's 
 Market. 
 
 "When the Prince went to St. James's, the coach always passed that 
 way, and seeing the young lady at the window occasionally, he became 
 enamoured of her, and employed Miss Chudleigh, afterwards Duchess of 
 Kingston, to concert an interview. From this time frequent meetings 
 were secured at the house of a Mr. Perrhyn of Knightsbridge, who was, 
 I believe, Miss Lightfoot's uncle. 
 
 The Court is said to have taken alarm at these circumstances ; and 
 Miss Chudleigh, seeing the danger likely to ensue, privately offered to 
 become a medium of getting the young lady married. With this view 
 she got acquainted with a person who was a friend of the Lightfoot 
 family, named Axford, and who lived at that timeonLudgate Hill. This 
 person consented to pay his addresses to Miss Lightfoot, and even nomi- 
 nally to marry her upon the assurance of receiving with her a considerable 
 dower. 
 
 Miss Lightfoot is supposed to have given in to the plan, for she was 
 msirried at Keith^s Chapel in 1754, though the marriage was never con- 
 summated ; for Miss Chudleigh, who had contrived the match (probably 
 with the sanction of all parties), took her into a coach as she came out of 
 the church door, and the husband pocketed the dower, but never saw his 
 wife afterwards. The mother indeed heard from the daughter once or 
 twice before she died, and Axford made enquiries after her at Weymouth, 
 Windsor, and Kew ; and once is even said to have presented a petition 
 to the King on his knees as his Majesty was riding one day in St. James' 
 Park, but no certain account of her was ever known from the period of 
 her marriage day. 
 
 She was taken, it is supposed, under the protection of Prince George 
 under an assumed name, and is said to have had a daughter subsequently 
 married to a gentleman of the name of Dalton or Dalston, who after- 
 wards received an appointment from the East India Company in Bengal, 
 whither he went, and where he died, leaving three daughters. 
 
14 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 Mr. Axford, in the meantime, not hearing anything of his wife, and 
 probably considering his marriage not strintly binding, since it had never 
 been consummated, married another lady, named Bai-tlett, then living at 
 Keevil, in North "Wiltshire ; and, after the expiration of fifty-eight 
 years, died without ever being able to obtain any intelligence of his first 
 bride. 
 
 Three things are very remarkable in the history of this lady — viz. that 
 she was never personally known to the public ; that her residence while 
 alive was never publicly known ; and that so strict a secrecy was ob- 
 served at her death, that it is nowhere upon known record, though it has 
 been said that she died of gi'ief in the parish of St. James, and was 
 buried under a feigned name in the parish of Islington, where probably 
 she may rest without a stone to tell the history either of her life, death, 
 guilt, innocence, splendour, or misfortune. — An Historical Fragment 
 relative to Her late Majesty Qtieen Caroline, pp. 44-50. 
 
 There are one or two points in this statement 
 which deserve notice. First, it is clear that as early 
 as 1824 Mrs. Wilmot Serres was mixed up with the 
 story ; and next, what could Mrs. Handcock, who was 
 only a friend of this mysterious Hannah Lightfoot, 
 mean by 'her documents were in her own possession?' 
 What documents could she possibly have ? Has not 
 the writer rather confounded Mrs. Wilmot and Mrs. 
 Handcock's replies, and was it not the former who 
 spoke of ' her documents?' 
 
 Eight years after this — ^namely, in 1832 — the scan- 
 dal was revived in that notorious collection of libels. 
 The Authentic Records of the Court of England for the 
 last Seventy Years^ where, after telling how the 
 Prince of Wales, when passing through St. James' 
 Street and its immediate vicinity, ' saw a most en- 
 gaging and prepossessing young lady dressed in the 
 garb usually worn by the female Quakers,' it is stated 
 that he became so enamoured of her that — 
 
 At length the passion of the Prince aniyed at such a point that he felt 
 a.«isured his happiness or misery depended upon his receiving this lady in 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 15 
 
 marriage. Up to this period the Prince had at all times exhibited and 
 expressed his high regard for all virtuous undertakings and engagements ; 
 
 but he well knew that virtue could seldom be found in a court 
 
 One individual only was the friend of the prince on this occasion, and 
 in the year 1759 the prince was legally married to this lady, Hannah 
 Lightfoot, at Curzon Street Chapel, May Fair. The only positive wit- 
 ness of royal faith was the prince's eldest brother Edward, Duke of York, 
 &c. &c., who at all times was the adviser or friend of George, and whose 
 honour the Prince knew was inviolable. — Pp. 2 and 3. 
 
 But terrible events followed, says the Authentic 
 Recorder — 
 
 The ministry soon became aware that some alliance bad been formed, 
 and their irntation was soon folloived hy exclamation ! 
 
 Nay, not only did they cry, ' Oh, fie, you naughty 
 boy ! ' which is, I suppose, what the writer means by 
 ' followed by exclamation,' but they made him 
 marry another wife, and 
 
 Miss Lightfoot was disposed of during a temporary absence of his 
 brother Edward, and from that time not any satisfactory tidings have 
 reached those most interested in her welfare. One thing only transpired, 
 which was, that a yminy gentleman named Axford was offered a large 
 amount, to be paid upon the consummation of his marriage with Miss 
 Lightfoot, which offer he accepted. . . . The king was greatly distressed 
 to ascertain the fate of his much-loved and legally-maYned wife, the 
 Quakeress ; and he entrusted Lord Chatham to go in disguise and endea- 
 vour to trace her abode ; but the search was fruitless, and again the King 
 was almost distracted. — Pp. 6-7. 
 
 But according to this Authentic Recorder^ not only 
 was the King distracted, but the Queen, who knew 
 his secret, was no less so; and, in 1765, insisted upon 
 being again married, and ' Dr. Wilmot ! ! by his 
 Majesty's appointment, performed the ceremony at 
 their palace at Kew. The King's brother Edward 
 was present upon this occasion, as he had been on the 
 two former ones ! ' 
 
 The book we have here quoted contains many other 
 
16 'HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 passages equally clear and consistent, but it detracts 
 perhaps from its value as an authority, that the 
 publisher of it was indicted for a libel of a revolting 
 character upon the Duke of Cumberland, contained 
 in a ' deposition ' which a certain individual ' was in- 
 clined to give.' The very individual on whose pre- 
 tended deposition the libel was founded was, however, 
 produced in court and utterly denounced it, and the 
 publisher was consequently convicted. The book is 
 then said to have been suppressed. 
 
 But the stoiy we have just told from the Au- 
 thentic Records is repeated in another work of similar 
 character, which also bears the date of 1832 ; though, 
 as it will presently be seen, there is reason to believe 
 it was not circulated., for it can scarcely be said to 
 have been published, till a year or two after. This is 
 The Secret History of the Court of England., Sfc, By 
 the Right Honorable Lady Anne Hamilton., Sister of 
 his Grace the present Duke of Hamilton and Brandon., 
 and of the Countess of Dunmore. 
 
 Mr. Jesse speaks of these two literary productions 
 as being composed by persons not ill-informed in the 
 secret history of the court — a point on which we by no 
 means agree with Mr. Jesse; and we are surprised 
 that, as he seems to have especially consulted them, 
 it never struck him that, as Puff says in The Critic, 
 ' when these ' writers, not ill-informed in the secret 
 history of the court ' do agree their unanimity is 
 wonderful,' and that having the books before him he 
 should not have discovered that The Secret History 
 (with which the lady whose name appears on the 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 17 
 
 title-page had no more to do than Hannah Lightfoot 
 herself) is only The Authentic Records newly revised. 
 This the Quarterly Review^ in reviewing the latter, 
 showed as long since as April 1838 (vol. Ixi. 
 p. 406) : where the Keviewer, after expressing his 
 belief that the publication of the Authentic Records 
 and Secret History was not * instigated so much by 
 individual malice as by a reckless and shameless 
 desire o^ gain acting upon low, brutal, and malignant 
 natures,' tells us how the books were circulated^ not 
 published : — 
 
 The former publication, which is about the size usually sold for seven 
 or eight shillings, was circulated, under the cloak, at the modest price of 
 1/. Is., and the extravagance of the sum was a decoy to make the credu- 
 lous suppose that there must be something very piquant in so dear a 
 volume. The present work is — on the same principle— retailed by a 
 woman, who in the dusk comes to the door and offers Lady Anne 
 Hamilton's Jownal at the same modest price of one guinea per volume.* 
 
 We presume the game was not very profitable ; for 
 some years afterwards the remainder of the book was 
 offered by, probably, the very same woman to a well- 
 known bookseller, who declined the purchase, and 
 copies were to be procured a few years since at a very 
 trifling price. 
 
 But, says Mr. Jesse, * singularly enough, we find 
 more than one of the statements contained in The 
 Authentic Records and in The Secret History endorsed 
 by the respectable authority of a no less well- 
 informed person than William Beckford;' adding, 
 
 * The identity of the books was very clearly shown in Notes and 
 Queries of the 9th March 1867, by a gentleman who has kindly permitted'- 
 me to print it in the Appendix. (See Appendix A.) 
 
 B 
 
18 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 ' His account, it is true, differs in detail from some 
 others.' And this opens up two curious questions — 
 first, what degree of reliance can be placed upon the 
 ' Conversations ' in question ? secondly, where did 
 Beckford pick up the information with which, in the 
 present case, he mystified the reporter of them ? 
 
 A correspondent of Notes and Queries^ ' Calcut- 
 tensis,' asked lately upon what authority do the 
 Conversations rest? The answer is simple — upon 
 that of Mr. Cyrus Kedding, a gentleman upon whose 
 good faith every reliance may be placed. But, in 
 spite of that, I do not believe they are to be de- 
 pended upon as evidences of Mr. Beckford' s real 
 opinions. Having heard this often stated, I have 
 applied to a gentleman who knew Mr. Beckford 
 extremely well, for information upon the subject. 
 After saying that he agreed with me in my estimate 
 of the value of the Conversations^ and stating that 
 for the last ten years of Mr. Beckford's life not a day 
 between the months of January and July passed 
 without his being two or three hours in his company, 
 he adds : — 
 
 I have no recollection of his having mentioned Hannah Lightfoot, but 
 I do remember distinctly talking with him frequently about Junius, and 
 believe that he attributed the authorship to Francis. As to Dr. Wilmot, 
 he used to make facetious observations about him in connexion with 
 Olivia Wilmot Serres. But Mr. Beckford delighted in mystification^ and 
 would often tell me hilariously how he had humbugged people. 
 
 And then proceeds to express his belief that Beckford 
 
 often exercised this perverse humour on the reporter. 
 
 Now, what did Mr. Beckford profess to believe? 
 
 His story, as reported in the New Monthly Magazine^ 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 1? 
 
 vol. Ixxii. p. 216 (see Notes and Queries^ 1st S. 
 X. 228), was that the parties were ' married by Dr, 
 Wilmot, the author of Junius ! at Eew Chapel, in 
 1759, Wilham Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham) 
 and Ann Taylor being the witnesses, and for aught I 
 know the document is still in existence ! ' 
 
 It certainly is. It is one of several produced at 
 the late memorable trial, and pronounced by the 
 Lord Chief Baron 'gross and rank forgeries,' and 
 which are, we believe, impounded in Sir James 
 Wilde's Court at the present moment. 
 
 Is there any sane man in England who believes 
 that Wilmot Avas Junius ; or that a man of Mr. Beck- 
 ford's sagacity and intelligence gave credence to such 
 an absurdity? This statement alone is sufficient to 
 show that the Conversations^ however faithfully they 
 may have been reported, are of no value as historical 
 evidence. 
 
 The allusion to the certificate proves clearly that 
 Mrs. Olivia Wilmot Serres was the authority which 
 suggested to Beckford this figment: though in which 
 of her many pamphlets she first introduced Dr. 
 Wilmot as the party who performed the marriage 
 ceremony between the Prince and Hannah Lightfoot 
 I have not yet been able to ascertain. 
 
 Dr. Wilmot's name was, as far as I have traced, 
 first introduced into connection with the subject 
 before us in the Authentic Record and Secret 
 History, and this will probably suggest to my 
 readers, as it has done to myself, the probability that 
 Mrs. Serres was mixed up with these disreputable 
 
 B 2 
 
20 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 books. True, that Dr. Wilmot is in these books 
 merely stated to have re-married the royal pair, and 
 is not represented as having anything to do with the 
 marriage of the fair Quaker. The latter was more 
 likely an after-thought, suggested, as the lady would 
 probably have said, by the discovery of the certificates ! 
 I do not know when these documents were first 
 given to the world ; but in 1858 they were printed 
 in The Appeal for Royalty^ and reprinted in the same 
 work last year, and as literary curiosities, and giving 
 completeness to the materials for a full history of 
 the scandal, are here printed in full : — 
 
 April 17tli, 1769. 
 The marriage of these parties was this day duly solemnised at Kew 
 Chapel, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, 
 by myself, 
 
 J. Wilmot. 
 George P. 
 Hannah. 
 
 Witnesses to this marriage — 
 W. Pitt. 
 Anne Taylor. 
 
 May 27th, 1759. 
 This is to certify that the marriage of these parties, George Prince of 
 Wales to Hannah Lightfoot, was duly solemnised this day according to 
 the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, at their residence at 
 Peckham, by myself, 
 
 J. Wilmot. 
 George Guelph. 
 Hannah Lightfoot. 
 
 Witnesses to the marriage 
 of these parties — 
 William Pitt. 
 Anne Taylor. 
 
 George R- . Whereas it is our Royal command that the birth of 
 
 Olive, the Duke of Cumberland's daughter, is never made known to the 
 nation during our reign ; but from a sense of religious duty, we will that 
 she be acknowledged by the Royal Family after our death, should she 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 21 
 
 survive ourselves, in return for confidential service rendered ourselves by 
 Dr. Wilmot in the year 1759. 
 
 Kew Palace, 
 May 2nd, 1773. 
 (Signed) Chatham. 
 Warwick. 
 Indorsed, London, 
 
 June 1815. 
 Delivered to Mrs. Olive Serres 
 by Warwick. 
 
 Witness, Edward.* 
 
 Hampstead, July 7th, 1768. 
 Provided I depart this life, I recommend my two sons and my daughter 
 to the kind protection of their Royal Father, my husband, his Majesty 
 George III., bequeathing whatever property I may die possessed of to such 
 dear offspring of my ill-fated marriage. In case of the death of each of 
 my children, I give and bequeath to Olive Wilmot, the daughter of my 
 best friend. Dr. Wilmot, whatever property I am entitled to or possessed 
 of at the time of my death. — Amen. 
 
 (Signed) * Hannah' Regina. 
 Witnesses — 
 
 J. Dunning. 
 William Pitt. 
 
 I will not occupy space and weary the reader 
 by here recapitulating what various correspondents 
 in Notes and Queries have related about Hannah 
 Lightfootjf but will endeavour to tell the story 
 according to the evidence which has been produced 
 by the various authorities for it. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a fair Quaker, whose 
 name was Hannah Lightfoot. No, Anna Eleanor 
 Lightfoot. No, Whitefoot. No, Wheeler. 
 
 Well, never mind what her name was ; her father 
 was a shoemaker, who lived near Execution Dock, 
 
 * This is the signature of the late Duke of Kent, 
 t They will be found in 1^* S. viii. 87, 281 ; ix. 233 ; x. 228, 328, 
 430, 532 J xi. 454 j 2^^ S. i. 121, 322; x. 89; xi. 117, 156; 3'-'^ S. iii. 
 
22 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 Wapping. No, he was a linendraper, and lived at 
 St. Jameses Market. No, that was her uncle. 
 
 But these are mere trifles. She no doubt had a 
 name, and lived somewhere. 
 
 Well, the Prince saw her as he went from Leicester 
 House to St. James's. No, that's wrong ; it was as he 
 went to the Opera. No, you are both wrong ; it was 
 as he went to the Parliament House ! 
 
 Never mind where he saw her : he did see her, and 
 fell in love with her ; and, as neither his mother the 
 Princess Dowager nor Lord Bute looked after him, 
 and he was then nearly sixteen years old, he married 
 her in 1754 ! No, that's not right; it was in 1759. 
 
 But it does not matter when he married ; he did 
 marry her at Keith's Chapel in May Fair. No, it 
 was at Peckham. No, it was at Kew. 
 
 No, that is all a mistake. Her royal lover never 
 married her. Isaac Axford married her and left her 
 at the chapel door, and never saw her after that. 
 Yes, he did; they lived together for three or four 
 weeks, and then she was carried away secretly ' in a 
 carriage and four,' and he never saw her after that. 
 
 Wrong again. It was the King from whom she 
 was so strangely spirited away, and he was distracted ; 
 and sent Lord Chatham in disguise to hunt for her, 
 yet he could never find her. 
 
 No, that's all wrong. It was Axford who could 
 not find her, who petitioned the King to give him 
 back his wife at St. James's. No, that was at Wey- 
 mouth. No, it was on his knees in St, James'' s Park^ 
 as directed. 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 23 
 
 But would it not be a sheer waste of time to con- 
 tinue this list of contradictions? No two blacks 
 will ever make a white. However large a mass of 
 contradictions may be, the formula which shall con- 
 vert it into one small historical truth has yet to be 
 discovered. Until that time arrives, I shall rest 
 convinced, and trust the readers of these hasty notes 
 will share my conviction, that the story of Hannah 
 Lightfoot is a fiction, and nothing but a fiction, from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 Fortunately for the cause of truth, the law of evi- 
 dence which regulates Sir James Wilde's court does 
 not govern the court of historical enquiry. In this 
 latter, principals may be examined ; and being enabled, 
 therefore, without the assistance of Mr. Hume, to call 
 George III. as a witness, I venture to think that his 
 Majesty will prove distinctly the utter groundlessness 
 of the Lightfoot scandal. Of course, the evidence is 
 not direct, for in all probability the King had never 
 heard of Hannah Lightfoot. But it is scarcely less im- 
 portant, showing as it does his opinion on such mat- 
 ters, and the improbability of his having been engaged 
 in anything of the kind. 
 
 In the valuable collection of Letters of George III. 
 to Lord Norths lately published by Mr. Murray, we 
 find the King writing to his friend and minister with 
 reference to the Duke of Cumberland's intrigue with 
 Lady Grosvenor (Letter 45, Nov. 5, 1770): — 
 
 I cannot enough, express how much I feel at being in the lea^t con- 
 cerned in an affair that my way of thinking has ever taught me to behold 
 as highly improper. 
 
24 HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 
 
 This is language perfectly consistent, not only with 
 what Waldegrave and Walpole have told us, but with 
 all we know of George III. ; but utterly inconsistent 
 with the truth of the Lightfoot story. 
 
 Again, in a letter to Lord North (No. 654, Dec. 10, 
 1780), consulting him, as he expressly says, ' as a 
 friend, not a minister,' about the establishment which 
 was then to be formed for the Prince of Wales, the 
 King says : — 
 
 I thank Heaven, my morals and course of life have but little resembled 
 those too prevalent in the present age ; and certainly of all the objects of 
 this life, the one I have most at heart is to form my children that they 
 may be useful examples and worthy of imitation. 
 
 This is not the language of a man who had been 
 engaged in a disreputable intrigue with the fair 
 Quaker. 
 
 But a still more remarkable declaration on the 
 part of the King (with reference to this question) is 
 contained in his letter to Lord North on the subject of 
 the Prince of Wales's connection with Mrs. Robinson. 
 The letter is so striking that I give it without abridge- 
 ment : — 
 
 (No. 689.) 
 
 Windsor, Aug. 28, 1781, 
 40 miu. pt. 9 A.M. 
 I am sorry to be obliged to open a subject to Lord North that has 
 long given me much pain, but I can rather do it on paper than in con- 
 versation ; it is a subject of which I know he is not ignorant. My eldest 
 son got last year into a very improper connection with an actress, and a 
 woman of indiiferent character, through the friendly assistance of Lord 
 Maldon; a multitude of letters passed, which she has threatened to 
 publish unless he, in short, bought them of her. He had made her very 
 foolish promisses {sic) which, undoubtedly, by her conduct to him, she 
 entirely cancelled. I have thought it right to authorise the getting of 
 them from her, and have employed Lieut.-Col. Hotham, on whose dis- 
 cression {sic) I could depend, to manage this business. He has now 
 
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT. 25 
 
 brought it to a conclusion, and has her consent to get the letters on her 
 receiving 5,000/.— undoubtedly an enormous sum; but I wish to get my 
 son out of this shameful scrape. I desire you will therefore see Lieut.- 
 Col. Hotham, and settle this with him. I am happy at being able 
 
 TO SAT THAT I NEVER WAS PERSONALLY ENGAGED IN SUCH A TRANS- 
 ACTION, WHICH PERHAPS MAKES ME FEEL THIS THE STRONGER ! 
 
 Is it to be believed that had there been one atom of 
 foundation for the Lightfoot sca.ndal Lord North 
 would have been ignorant of it; or that the King 
 would have given utterance to the important decla- 
 ration — ' I am happy at being able to say that I 
 never was personally engaged in such a transaction ? ' 
 
 Having been most positively assured that Mr. 
 Burn had, in the course of those researches to which 
 we are indebted for his valuable publications on the 
 subject of ' Parish Registers/ actually found a cer- 
 tificate of the marriage of the Prince and Hannah 
 Lightfoot, I ventured to write to Mr. Bum on the 
 subject. He informs me that he never saw any such 
 certificate ; that he does not believe that any such 
 marriage took place ; that if it was at Keith's Chapel, 
 it must have been before March 25, 1754, when 
 marriages ceased there; and reminds me that after 
 that date any such marriage would be void. 
 
26 QUEEN CHABLOTTE 
 
 QUEEN CHARLOTTE AND THE CHEVALIER 
 
 D'EON. 
 
 Having, as I trust, successfully vindicated 
 Oeorge III. from the slander which connected his 
 name with that of Hannah Lightfoot, I venture to 
 attempt a similar act of justice to his exemplary 
 wife. 
 
 Scandal against Queen Elizabeth is as old as the 
 hills, but scandal against Queen Charlotte, except in 
 the libellous pages of The Authentic Record or 
 The Secret History was, to me at least, a thing 
 unheard of until some months since, when my atten- 
 tion was called to a libellous calumny in which her 
 Majesty^s name was mixed up with that of no less 
 notorious a person than the Chevalier D'Eon. This 
 disgusting stuif was to be found in the Memoire of 
 that celebrated diplomatist, by M. Gaillardet, pub- 
 lished in two octavo volumes as long since as 1836. 
 
 All the endeavours I then made to obtain a copy 
 of that book, for the purpose of seeing on what 
 authority M. Gaillardet made such an extraordinary 
 charge, having failed, I was compelled, like Mr. 
 Micawber, to ' wait till something turned up.' 
 
 That something has turned up very unexpectedly 
 in the shape of a new edition of M. Gaillardet's 
 Mimoire^ which its preface has rendered one of the 
 
AND THE CHEVALIER d'EON. 27 
 
 most extraordinary books which I have ever met 
 with. 
 
 In this preface, which is headed ' Un Acte de 
 Contrition et un Acte d' Accusation,' M. Gaillardet 
 tells us that in 1835 he obtained from some members 
 of the Chevalier's family many papers and documents 
 calculated to throw new light upon his history ; and 
 at the same time from the Due de Broglie, then 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Mignet, Directeur 
 des Chancelleries, permission to ransack the Archives 
 for the whole period of the Chevalier's political 
 career. One would have thought any biographer 
 might have been satisfied with such an accumulation 
 of new materials. 
 
 It was not so, however, with M. Gaillardet. But 
 he shall tell how he set to work in his own words : — 
 
 Mais j'eus alors un tort qu'expliquent ma jeunesse et le genre de lit- 
 t^rature dans lequel je m'^tais essay^. J'avais vingt-cinq ans, et je 
 venais de faire jouer le drame de la Tour Nesle, avec Alexandre Dumas ; 
 je ne revais que perip^ties compliqu^es, amours tragiques, et secrets 
 t^nebreux. La vie du Chevalier d'Eon, telle que je venais de la par- 
 courir, si accidentee qu'elle fut, me parut encore trop simple pour n'avoir 
 pas une partie cachee, qui (^chappait a toutes les recherches, et qui devait 
 etre d'autant plus graves qu'on en avait aneanti les traces avec plus de 
 soin. Je me disais qu'un liomme, — car c'etait bien un bomme, — qui 
 avait rempli des missions secretes sous le costume de femme, avant de 
 prendre officiellement ce costume, avait du necessairement avoir des 
 aventures, ou piquantes, ou terribles, ayant un rapport forc4 avec le 
 denoument de sa carriere. Je crus, meme de bonne foi, avoir trouve la 
 piste de la plus grave de ces aventures amotireses dans les lettres d' audiences 
 nocturnes accordees par la jeune reine d'Angleterre au Chevaliere d'Eon, 
 apres la paix de 1763, paix aussi necessaire que bonteuse pour la France, 
 au sujet de laquelle la presse anglaise accusa le ministere et la cour de 
 s'etre laisses corrompre ou s^duire, par la diplomatic fran9aise, 
 
 Mon imagination travailla done, et il resulta de ce travail que mon 
 livre se composd d'une partie autlientique et d'une partie romanesque. 
 Malgre cela, ou peut-etre a cause de cela, il se vendit beaucoup ; a tel 
 
28 QUEEN CHARLOTTE 
 
 point que, depuis longtemps, on n'en trouve plus un exemplaire en 
 librairie. 
 
 The italics are mine. M. Gaillardet tells us he 
 was often requested to reproduce a new edition — 
 ' reduite k la partie purement historique et s^rieuse/ 
 but for various reasons felt disinclined to the task. 
 Some years afterwards he saw the announcement of a 
 volume on the subject of the Chevalier D'Eon by M. 
 Louis Jourdan, r^dacteur du Steele^ but the title, 
 Un Hermaphrodite* led him to pay no attention to it 
 till he met M. Jourdan one day at the office of the 
 Siecle, when he asked him to send it to him; This 
 M. Jourdan promised to do — a promise which, how- 
 ever, was never fulfilled. Some time afterwards 
 accident brought Un Hermaphrodite under the notice 
 of M. Gaillardet, who found the author in his preface 
 boasting of the numerous masses ' de documents a 
 peine soupqonnes^^ which he had had to wade through 
 in the preparation of his book, while he passed over 
 without notice M. Gaillardet's previous labours in the 
 same direction. But let M. Gaillardet now tell his 
 own story : — 
 
 Or, quelles ne furent ma surprise et ma stupefaction, lorsque je re- 
 trouvai le production la plus complete de mes M^moires, non seulement 
 dans la fond, mais aussi dans la forme, non seulement dans leur partie 
 authentique, mais encore et surtout dans leur partie fictiye. En effet, 
 e'est surtout ce que j'ai invents, ce qui est faux Mstoriquement parlant 
 qui a s^duit I'auteur de V Hermaphrodite et lui a paru constituer la r6aUte 
 la moins contestable. 
 
 * M. Gaillardet knew that the Chevalier was a man, but the mistake 
 in his first edition was his supposing him to be ' le type do Faublas.' In 
 his second edition, which is a very interesting book, and we presume one 
 which may be depended upon, he explains the strange conduct of the 
 Chevalier in certain matters to have arisen from his love of notoriety, 
 and the fact that ^ il ^tait a peu pr§8, sinon tout a fait vierge.^ 
 
AND THE CHEVALIER D'eON. 29 ' 
 
 Here the italics are M. Gaillardet^s. 
 
 Of the 301 pages which constitute Un Herraaphro- 
 dite^ 222 are taken word for word from the Memoir e 
 of M. Gaillardet (whose name is never once men- 
 tioned), the few remaining pages being an abridgment 
 of his historical introductions. 
 
 We will not follow M. Gaillardet through his 
 curious list of pure fictions, the creation of his own 
 imagination, which prove the grossness of the pla- 
 giarism, but we will give his account of one of these 
 in his own words and with his own moral : — 
 
 La meme benignity d'esprit a fait adopter a mon plagiarie, comme 
 articles de foi, tout ce j'avais cku et dit des amours dtj Chevalier 
 D'EoN AVEC Sophie-Charlotte, dtjchesse de Mecklembotjrg devenue 
 reine d'Angleterre. II reproduit toujours textuellement pages 81 
 et 83 les reflexions que je mets dans la bouche de mon h^ros sur ce sujet. 
 
 UnE reine a DEVORRER ETAIT, a ce QU'IL PARAIT, UN MORCEAU TROP 
 APPilTISSANT POUR QU'lL Y REGARDIT DE PRES. 
 
 I have called the reader's special attention by small 
 capitals to the more striking parts of this unblushing 
 announcement. When I say that in Un Herma- 
 phrodite^ which M. Gaillardet assures us is taken 
 almost word for word from his book, this atrocious 
 fiction of the intrigue between Queen Charlotte and 
 D'Eon is referred to over and over again ; that we 
 have in it minute accounts of their stolen interviews ; 
 that George lY. is again and again spoken of as the 
 son of the Chevalier, and not of George III.; that 
 the King's jealousy is dwelt upon; that we have 
 minute details of his discovering D'Eon and the 
 Queen together at two o'clock in the morning at an 
 assignation ; that all the love passages and the recri- 
 
30 QUEEN CHARLOTTE 
 
 minations are fully detailed as part of the fictions 
 which M. Gaillardet describes himself as having ' cru 
 et dit * — with what overwhelming force do his own 
 words apply to himself, ' Une reine a devorer etait 
 
 A CE QU'lL PARaIt UN MORCEAU TROP APPETISSANT 
 POUR QU'lL Y REGARD AT DE PRES.' 
 
 Here then we have this atrocious scandal dis- 
 avowed by its originator, who, in the new edition of 
 his book, which has for its running title Le Verite sur 
 la Chevaliere dJEon^ of course omits all allusion to it. 
 
 But it may be said, the story is so absurd, the book 
 in which it is propagated so little known, that it is 
 surely never worth taking notice of it. My answer 
 is, that a calumny such as this should always be de- 
 nounced and exposed; and more especially as it has 
 been put into print, and that, too, in a book which 
 professes to be founded on historical materials. In 
 the latter case the wrong is indefinitely increased ; for 
 it is liable to be quoted without suspicion, and re- 
 ceived as true without question. This very scandal 
 has been referred to as recently as 1858, not in any 
 obscure publication little likely to be referred to, but 
 in no less popular, well-known, and frequently con- 
 sulted book than the Nouvelle Biographie Generate^ 
 tome xvi. p. 103, n. 1. It is true that the editor of 
 the Biographie doubts the truth of the story; but 
 nevertheless in this work of recognised authority M. 
 Gaillardet's figment is treated, not as the gross libel 
 which it is, but as the deliberate statement of one 
 who had made the life of the alleged partner of the 
 Queen's misconduct his special study. 
 
31 
 
 I trust I may be permitted, by way of postscript, 
 to give a curious picture of bookmaking in Paris as 
 detailed in the preface and epilogue of the book before 
 us. When M. Gaillardet discovered the daring piracy 
 of which he had been the victim, he commenced pro- 
 ceedings to recover damages against M. Dentu, the 
 publisher, and M. Louis Jourdan, the author of Un 
 Herma'plirodite, M. Jourdan pleads as an excuse, 
 But I did not write the book. It was written by a 
 young friend of mine, then unknown, 'aujourd'hui 
 honorablement place dans le journalisme,' who, being 
 in want of money, at my suggestion that he should 
 examine into and write the Life of the Chevalier 
 d'Eon, undertook the task, and after some time 
 brought me a large MS. which I read, revised, and 
 signed. The journalist E. D., who really appropriated 
 M. Gaillardet's fictions, pleads as his excuse his youth 
 and his belief that they were historical facts, and, as 
 such, common property. Sterne would, we think, 
 scarcely have applied to the bookmaking world of 
 Paris his well-worn saying — ' They manage these 
 things better in France.' 
 
32 DR. wilmot's 
 
 DR. WILMOT'S POLISH PEINCESS. 
 
 There is one chapter in the Wilmot-Serres romance 
 which, though slightly touched upon by the Attorney- 
 General in the late cause celebre^ deserves a few re- 
 marks ; one personage who every now and then comes 
 on the scene, 4ike a shadow and so departs,' of 
 whose presence, however, for reasons which will 
 appear hereafter, it is desirable some record should 
 be preserved. I allude to the Princess Poniatowski, 
 whom Dr. Wilmot is alleged to have married, and by 
 whom he is said to have become the father of the sup- 
 posed Duchess of Cumberland. 
 
 This Princess is like Dame Quickly — one 'don't 
 know where to have her.' We first get a glimpse of 
 her in 1813, in Mrs. Serres' Life of Dr. James Wilmot 
 (an impudent and foolish attempt to prove him the 
 writer of The Letters of Junius)^ where, in a note at 
 p. 116, we read — 
 
 When the Princess of Poland visited England, Dr. Wilmot attended 
 her to the university. She valued our author exceedingly during her 
 residence in England, and invited him to the Court of Poland; she fre- 
 quently corresponded with him after her departure from this kingdom. 
 
 In 1815 Lord Warwick communicated to Mrs. 
 Serres the startling and agreeable fact that she was 
 the daughter of the Duchess of Cumberland — and not 
 only to Mrs. Serres, but also to the Duke of Kent, 
 
POLISH PRINCESS. 33 
 
 who seems to have been no sooner let into this grave 
 secret than he was seized with the same mania for 
 writing certificates and declarations for which all the 
 parties to it are so remarkable ;* a mania which mani- 
 fested itself in making its victims forget their grammar 
 and orthography, spell ' ofi'spring ' orf spring ; and all 
 alike endeavour to hide the mysteries with which they 
 were familiar under the most transparent veil. Thus 
 we find Dr. Wilmot cautiously concealing the names 
 of Junius, Lord Shelburne, and Wilkes, under the 
 
 occult symbols of Ju s, L d S ne, J. 
 
 W ; while Lord Chatham, in a document in 
 
 which he pledges himself not to betray the Duke of 
 Cumberland's second marriage, writes about 'the 
 
 laws against b y,' and the Duke of Kent in like 
 
 manner writes, ' F 1 M ge ' and ' R 1 
 
 birthright,' for fear anybody should guess he meant 
 ' first marriage ' and ' royal birthright.' • 
 
 But though, in 1815, Lord Warwick announced to 
 Mrs. Serres that she was the daughter of the Duchess 
 of Cumberland, he seems very unaccountably to have 
 omitted the additional interesting fact that she was 
 the granddaughter of a Princess. Strange omission 
 this of Lord Warwick; but still the fact must have 
 been forgotten, for two years after Mrs. Serres had 
 ascertained her descent from the Duchess of Cumber- 
 
 * Dr. Smith, the counsel of Mrs. Ryves, is reported in The Times of 
 June 2 to have stated that about seventy documents would be produced, 
 containing forty- three signatures of Dr. Wilmot, sixteen of Lord Cha- 
 tham, twelve of Dunning, twelve of George III., thirty-two of Lord 
 Warwick, and eighteen of the Duke of Kent. What an ingenious mode 
 of keeping State secrets ! 
 
34 DOCTOR wilmot's 
 
 land, we find her, in a pamphlet published in 1817, 
 entitled Junius^ Sir Philip Francis Denied^ asserting, 
 at p. 6 — ' Dr. Wilmot was never married,' and 
 drawing from that circumstance additional arguments 
 in favour of his identity with Junius. 
 
 As far as we have been able to ascertain, Mrs. 
 Serres did not put forth any claim to be a descendant 
 from a Polish Princess until 1821, when she made 
 the following announcement in The British Luminary^ 
 which was understood to be the Princess of Cumber- 
 land's official organ ; at which time also she declared 
 her right to the throne of Poland : — 
 
 Dr. Wilmot, in early life, was a Fellow of Trinity College ; he was a 
 liigli-spirited, independent character, of great talent, and the friend and 
 favourite of many of the young nobility then at Oxford. Stanislaus, 
 afterwards King of Poland, was at that time studying at Oxford, and 
 Dr. Wilmot became intimate with him. Stanislaus had a sister living 
 with him (Princess Poniatouski), a very beautiful young creature ; and 
 from the intimacy which subsisted between the prince and the doctor, 
 he was frequently in company with the young princess; a mutual 
 attachment took place between them; but the princess was not rich; 
 and they were at length privately married. Only a few confidential 
 friends were acquainted with the transaction, for had it been generally 
 known, the doctor would have lost his fellowship and his other high 
 pretensions. 
 
 In due time the princess presented Dr. Wilmot with a daughter. 
 Some family and political matters separated the parties for a while. lie 
 doated upon his lovely child, who, we believe, was placed imder the 
 care of Mrs. Payne, the sister of the doctor and the wife of Captain 
 Payne. 
 
 All the time the doctor could spare from his studies and different oc- 
 cupations he devoted to his beloved and interesting child, who grew up 
 the beautiful image of her royal mother, with a mind as superior as her 
 person, and at the age of eighteen the Duke of Cumberland and tlie Earl 
 of Warwick became her admirers ; at length the earl gavfe way to the 
 duke, and on March 4, 1767, they were married by Dr. Wilmot at the 
 house of hia friend, Lord Archer, in tlie presence of Lord Brook (after- 
 wards Lord Warwick) and Mr. Addez, which was only known to a few 
 persons about the Court. 
 
POLISH PRINCESS. 35 
 
 The apparently bappy duke and his lovely bride lived in hopes that 
 they should soon he allowed to make their marriage public ; but in the 
 year 1771 a transaction took place which proved a cruel deathblow to 
 the young duchess, for she never recovered the effect. ...!!! 
 
 Young, amiable, and beautiful, and tenderly attached to the duke, she 
 took leave of him and went to Warwick in a state of misery not to be 
 described. A premature birth at seven months was the consequence. On 
 Tuesday, April 3, 1772, she gave birth to the Princess Olive at the house 
 of Mrs. Wilmot, in Jury Street, in the town of Warwick. The Earl of 
 Warwick and Dr. Wilmot were both present, which fact is confirmed by 
 their separate affidavits. 
 
 The unfortunate duchess was conveyed to France in a state scarcely 
 to be described, where she afterwards died in a convent of a broken 
 heart. — Genfs Mag., July 1822, vol. xcii. Part ii. pp. 35-6 (quoted from 
 The British Luminary of Dec. 16th, 1821). 
 
 But the mystery is at length cleared up. We arc 
 now told that Lord Warwick did not reveal the whole 
 story of her birth and connection in 1815, but deli- 
 vered to her a sealed packet, which was not to be 
 opened until after the death of the King ; but which, 
 with strange disregard to so solemn an injunction, 
 was opened in 1819, though the King did not die till 
 1820; and that packet for the most part related to 
 the marriage of Dr. Wilmot with the Princess Ponia- 
 towski. 
 
 However, as Mrs. Serres' grandmother, the Princess 
 Poniatowski, gave birth to a daughter on June 17, 
 1750, we are very glad to find for the lady's sake that 
 she was married. We presume this event took place 
 in 1749; but, unfortunately. Dr. Wilmot, fond as he 
 seems to have been of writing down all the great 
 secrets with which he was entrusted, seems never to 
 have taken sufiicient care of the Polish interest of his 
 descendants, and has not certified where^ when^ or 
 lohom he married. 
 
 c 2 
 
36 DOCTOR wilmot's 
 
 In the Appeal for Royalty^ it is said (p. 7) Dr. 
 Wilmot ' contracted a private but legal marriage mth 
 the Princess of Poland, daughter of Stanislaus, last 
 King of that country.' As the author of the Appeal 
 had access to all the documents, how comes it that, 
 while Mrs. Serres in 1821 declared the lady to have 
 been a sister of Stanislaus, the Appeal^ published in 
 1858 and republished in 1866, declares her to have 
 been his daughter? Dr. Smith, Mrs. Ryves's counsel, 
 who ought to know, having doubtless studied the case 
 very closely, returns to the original version, and says 
 the lady was the Princess Poniatowski, sister of the 
 King of Poland. 
 
 On the 2nd June, Dr. Smith produced to the Court 
 an article in the Biographie Universelle^ for the pur- 
 pose of proving the biography of Dominic Serres. 
 Had the learned Doctor, in turning over the leaves of 
 that useful book, glanced his eye at the Life of Stanis- 
 laus, and been startled by the announcement — 
 
 ' Ce prince rCavait pas 6te marie f ' 
 
 There the statement is, at any rate ; and the fact is 
 so. Stanislaus never was married. But this is not 
 all. The favourite of Catherine was, no doubt, a re- 
 markable man ; but he would have been a very 
 remarkable man indeed if, born in 1732, he was the 
 father of a marriageable daughter in 1749. 
 
 So much for Dr. Wilmot's marriage with a daugh- 
 ter of Stanislaus. 
 
 Let us now see whether the story which Dr. Smith 
 adopted — namely, that this supposititious Princess was 
 
POLISH PEINCESS. 37 
 
 the SISTER and not the daughter of Poniatowski — is a 
 bit more consistent than the one which he rejected. 
 
 If the reader will refer to Niesiecki's Ilerharz Polski 
 (article ^ Poniatowski/ vol. vii. pp. 376-378, edit. 
 1839-46), the best authority, we believe, on the sub- 
 ject, he will find that Count Poniatowski, afterwards 
 King of Poland, had four brothers and only two sisters. 
 Of these, the eldest, Louisa, born in 172^, married one 
 of the Zamoyski family, and left a daughter married 
 to a Count Mniszech. The younger, Isabella, born 
 in 1730, married Clement Branicki, and died without 
 issue. 
 
 So much for the assertion that Dr. Wilmot married 
 a SISTER of the King of Poland. 
 
 We have thus shown that the whole story of this 
 pretended marriage is clearly a pure invention, by 
 proving that in 1813, Mrs. Serres knew nothing of it ; 
 that in 1815, according to the Appeal^ she was in- 
 formed of ' all the particulars of her birth and connec- 
 tions;' that in spite of this, in 1817, she declared 
 that ' Dr. Wilmot was never married;' that in 1821, 
 she announced his marriage to a sister of Poniatowski; 
 that in 1858 and 1866, this sister was in the Appeal 
 transformed into a daughter ; who in the Kyves case 
 was again transformed into a sister ; that Poniatowski 
 was never married, and consequently had no daugh- 
 ter; that neither of his sisters could have been 
 married to Dr. Wilmot. It would therefore be waste 
 of time and space to touch upon the absurdity of 
 converting this mythic daughter or sister of Count 
 Poniatowski — who was not elected Kinf? of Poland till 
 
38 DOCTOR WILMOT'S 
 
 1764 — into a Princess of Poland in 1749 ; or to show 
 where Poniatowski was when the pretended marriage 
 took place ; or to prove that his visit to England did 
 not occur till five years after the date which Mrs. 
 Serres assigned to it. 
 
 Parodying what the Lord Chief Justice said of the 
 certificates of the pretended Lightfoot marriage, that 
 they were ' gross and rank forgeries/ it may safely be 
 declared of the two versions of the Wilmot- Poniatow- 
 ski marriage — they are ' gross and rank fabrications ; ' 
 and Mrs. Serres^ statement in 1817, that 'Dr. Wilmot 
 was never married,' remains one of the few statements 
 made by her entitled to credit. 
 
 Whilst hurriedly penning these lines, our attention 
 was attracted to the date mentioned above as that of 
 the birth of the Princess Olive — ' Tuesday, April 3, 
 1772.' It is very seldom, in connection with this 
 case, that one gets anything quite so precise and defi- 
 nite. The importance of a royal birth of course justi- 
 fies and accounts for the minute and unwonted par- 
 ticularity. Happening to have at hand Mr. Bond's 
 excellent Perpetual Calendar, we thought we would 
 test this Tuesday, the third of April. No sooner said 
 than done. For 1772, Mr. Bond's contrivance at 
 once informed us that D was the Dominical Letter, 
 and that the 1st April was on a Wednesday; the 3rd 
 was therefore a Friday, and not a Tuesday. Could 
 it be Tuesday, the 13th? No, the 13th was on a 
 Monday. Or Tuesday the 23rd? No, the 23rd was 
 
POLISH PRINCESS. 39 
 
 on a Friday. How was it to be accounted for? We 
 soon discovered. The person who endeavoured to 
 ascertain the day of the week, not having Mr. Bond's 
 little chronological machine at hand, and not being a 
 very profound chronologer, calculated the date accord 
 ing to the old style, under which the 3rd of April 
 1772 would have been a Tuesday, but, unfortunately 
 for him or her, the style was changed in 1752, twenty 
 years before the date assigned to this illustrious birth. 
 
40 LORD CHATHAM AND 
 
 LORD CHATHAM AND THE PRINCESS 
 OLIVE. 
 
 I have lately been reminded of an interesting con- 
 versation I once had with the late Mr. J. Wilson 
 Croker, in which he maintained and illustrated one of 
 his favourite canons, that there are no tests of truth 
 so severe and so much to be depended upon as dates; 
 and I propose, as a supplement to what has just been 
 read, to apply this test to a few of the documents 
 produced in support of the remarkable claim of Olive 
 Wilmot to the title of Princess of Cumberland. I 
 select for the purpose of being submitted to such 
 test those Papers which Lord Chatham is represented 
 to have witnessed or countersigned, so far as the collec- 
 tions of Chatham^ GrenviUe, and other correspondence, 
 published since Mrs. Serres put forth her absurd 
 claims, furnish the means of testing the dates of these 
 Documents by genuine Papers. 
 
 Lord Chatham's signature as William Pitt is affixed 
 to the certificates of the pretended marriage of the 
 Prince of Wales with Hannah Lightfoot, first cele- 
 brated, as it is alleged, at Kew, on 17th April 1759, 
 and afterwards, on the 27th May, at Peckham. Now, 
 the 27th May was Sunday, — a day, one would think, 
 rather unlikely (though I speak in great ignorance of 
 the domestic arrangements of Royal households) for a 
 young Prince to select for absenting himself from his 
 
THi; PRINCESS OLIVE. $1 
 
 family for the purpose of getting married. Sunday, 
 27th May 1759, was, moreover, a day one would believe 
 especially inconvenient for the Great Commoner to be 
 engaged in such a transaction; as we find in the 
 Grenville Correspondence^ Vol. i. p. 301, a letter from 
 him to Mr. Grenville, dated ' Hayes, Monday, May 
 28, J 759,' announcing ' Lady Hester's safe delivery 
 that morning of a son.' * I do not much depend 
 upon this, but taken in connection with what follows, 
 it deserves, I think, the reader's attention. 
 
 The celebrated statesman, Mr. Pitt, having twice 
 witnessed the Lightfoot marriage, was obviously the 
 fittest person in the world to witness that of the Duke 
 of Cumberland and Olive Wilmot, which took place, 
 according to the certificate, on the 4th March 1767, 
 in the presence of ' George R. ; Chatham; and War- 
 wick.' Lord Chatham must have made great exertions 
 to have afiixed his signature to this interesting docu- 
 ment, for on the preceding day — 3rd March 1767 — as 
 we learn from Chatham Correspondence^ Vol. iii. p. 228, 
 that having occasion to write to the King (I pre- 
 sume not expecting to have the pleasure of meeting 
 him on the following evening at Lord Archer's, where 
 the marriage was solemnised), he employs Lady Chat- 
 ham to write for him and tell his sovereign that, ' He 
 is most unhappy to continue out of a condition to 
 attend his Majesty's most gracious presence ;' while 
 on the 7th, the King writes to him (obviously keeping 
 very secret their pleasant meeting on the 4th), ' I can- 
 
 * ' William Pitt .... was born/ remarks Lord Stanhope, ' on the 
 28th May 1759, at Hayes, near Bromley, in Kent.' — Life of PiU, i. 1. 
 
42 LORD CHATHAM AND 
 
 not conclude without desiring to learn how you 
 continue, and insisting on, your not coming out till 
 you can do it with safety ' {Chatham Correspondence^ 
 iii. 229). 
 
 Though the marriage took place at Lord Archer's, 
 by some unaccountable oversight that nobleman 
 omitted to sign the certificate, or, to use the word 
 of the Appeal for Royalty: — 
 
 Still there was wanting the signature of one witness of the marriage ; 
 and in order, therefore, to put the fact beyond the reach of cavil, a third 
 certificate * was drawn up and signed in the following terms : — 
 
 * Lords Chatham and Archer solemnly protest that the marriage of 
 Henry Frederick Duke of Cumberland and Olive my daughter, the said 
 Duke's present Duchess, was solemnised legally, at the latter nobleman's 
 residence, Grosvenor Square, London, by myself, March 4th, 1767. 
 
 (Signed) 'J. Wilmot. 
 (Signed) ' Chatham. 
 * Archer. 
 
 * 3 Nov. 1767.' 
 
 Unfortunately, the place where this document was 
 dated is not stated. We will supply the omission. 
 In a letter from Mr. Augustus Hervey to Mr. 
 Grenville, dated at * Bath,' that very day, ' Nov. 3, 
 1767,' we read, 'Here Lord Chatham is, and goes 
 out every day on horseback when the weather lets 
 him.' So that Lord Archer and Dr. Wilmot jogged 
 together do^vn to Bath to get Lord Chatham's signa- 
 ture to a third certificate of Olive Wilmot's marriage ! 
 Well may the author of the Appeal to Royalty 
 exclaim : — 
 
 That man must be a more than usually intrepid infidel who, in the 
 face of such documents as these, will venture to disbelieve that the Duke 
 of Cumberland was lawfully married to Miss Wilmot on the 4th March 
 17G7. 
 
 ♦ The first certificate was signed ^ J. Wilmot ' only. 
 
THE PRINCESS OLIVE. 43 
 
 I am afraid a good many readers must by this time 
 be included in the class of ' more than usually in- 
 trepid infidels/ 
 
 Mr. Pitt having witnessed Queen Hannah^s mar- 
 riage, it was natural that she should select him as a 
 witness of her will. It was executed at Hampstead, 
 July 7th, 1768, and was witnessed by Dunning and 
 Pitt. The great Commoner must have shown extreme 
 devotion to this one of his royal mistresses, and must 
 have put himself to serious inconvenience to sign 'this 
 touching paper,' as it is styled by the writer of the 
 Appeal (iii. 32), for it appears from the Chatham 
 Correspondence^ that on the 16th June he was at 
 Hayes, ' so much indisposed as to be quite unable to 
 write;' and on the 16th July (Ibid. 331), Lady 
 Chatham writes to Lord Radnor on account of ' Lord 
 Chatham continuing much indisposed and unable to 
 write.' How severely Queen Hannah must have re- 
 proached herself when she saw the sick and suffering 
 Earl enter her presence in obedience to her mandate 1 
 
 The next documents printed in the Appeal^ which 
 are signed by Chatham, are dated on the 1st May and 
 2nd May 1773 respectively. The first is a declaration 
 by which Lord Chatham binds himself to pay £500 
 yearly to the Duke of Cumberland's infant daughter. 
 This paper bears the signatures of the King, J. Wilmot, 
 Robert Wilmot, and Lord Chatham, and is dated, as 
 I have said, ' this first day of May 1773,' but where 
 executed does not appear. The document of the 
 following day, dated 'Kew Palace, May 2nd, 1773,' 
 is the State paper by which the King commanded 
 
44 LORD CHATHAM AND THE PRINCESS OLIVE. 
 
 that, ' in return for confidential services rendered our- 
 selves by Doctor Wilmot in the year 1759,' Olive's 
 birth should be kept secret during his reign, but be 
 acknowledged by the Royal family after his death. 
 This paper is countersigned by Lord Chatham and 
 Lord Warwick. 
 
 As it appears, by the recently -published Letters of 
 George the Third to Loi^d North^ that the King was at 
 this time residing, not at Kew^ but at the Queen's 
 house, one wonders that the document should have been 
 dated at Kew ; but we will not stop to enquire into 
 that, or why the next document, of the 21st of the 
 same month, which created Olive Duchess of Lan- 
 caster, and which also is witnessed by Lord Chatham, 
 should be dated from St. James's. Our present ques- 
 tion is with Lord Chatham, who, writing from Burton 
 Pynsent to Lord Shelburne, on the 24th May 1773 
 [Chatham Correspondence^ iv. 264), makes mention of 
 ' our most welcome guest. Lord Stanhope, who left us 
 on Friday last.' Now, the 24th May in 1773 was a 
 Monday ; the ' Friday last ' was consequently the very 
 21st May on which day Lord Chatham was at Burton 
 Pynsent, and could not have countersigned the Royal 
 warrant at St. James's. It is also evident, from the 
 preceding letters, that he had been there for a consi- 
 derable time, and could not have countersigned the 
 documents of the 1st and 2nd of May. 
 
 Are my readers surprised if I confess that my infi- 
 delity becomes more and more ' intrepid,' and that I 
 feel assured that, after what I have sliown tliem, they 
 will attach just as nuich value to these certificates as 
 1 do, — and no more ? 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 THE ' AUTHENTIC BE COEDS ' AND ' SECRET HISTORY. 
 
 » * 
 
 Every historical reader must feel grateful to Mr. 
 Thorns for his able commentary upon the myth of 
 Prince George's marriage with ' Hannah Regina/ It 
 adds strong confirmation to my own belief that the 
 entire fiction was wrought out, with some ingenuity 
 and with great pertinacity, by Olivia Wilmot Serres ; 
 her groundwork having probably been, as your cor- 
 respondent Mr. Hyde Clarke suggests at p. 156 of this 
 volume, some exploded vulgar rumour or street ballad 
 which appears to have been popular at the end of last 
 century, when Mrs. Serres was thirty years old, and 
 was probably an active penwoman, her first acknow- 
 ledged biographical work. The Life of the A uthor of the 
 Letters of Junius^ having been published in 181 3. f 
 I think that a copy of What ! what ! d'ye call him, 
 Sir, and the Button-maker^ s .Daughter, would interest 
 many readers of ' N. &; Q.' One of two conclusions 
 must, I think, be clear in the minds of all who have 
 
 * Keprinted by permission of tlie author from Notes and Queries, 3 S. 
 xi. 196. 
 
 t She published Flights of Fancy in 1805. 
 
46 APPENDIX. 
 
 investigated the subject — either (1) that Mrs. Serres 
 wrote the accounts of Hannah Lightfoot, which ap- 
 peared most opportunely in the Monthly Magazine in 
 1821 and 1822 ; her acknowledged petition to the 
 Crown, with a view to establish her legitimacy as 
 daughter of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, 
 having been presented in 1819; and her Statement 
 to the English Nation^ including certificates and con- 
 firmations of the Princess Olive's royal parents' 
 7narriage, and her birth^ having been published in 
 1822. Further, that she was the author of A7i 
 Historical Fragment relative to her late Majesty Queen 
 Caroline, which appeared in 1824; and that the two 
 works (or rather the two editions of the same work), 
 the Authentic Records of the Court of England, and 
 the Secret History of the Court of England, came from 
 the same active and unscrupulous pen ; or that (2) 
 Mrs. Serres was in direct communication with the 
 writers of all these works, who reproduced her state- 
 ments in her own words. 
 
 Let us compare the following quotations : — 
 
 The Life of the Author of the Letters of Junius, the Rev. James 
 Wilmot, D.D., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford ; Rector of Barton- 
 on-the-Heath and Aulcester, Warwickshire, and one of his Majesty's 
 justices of the peace for the county .... By his Niece, Olivia Wilmot 
 Serres. 
 
 Dr. Wilmot lived in habits of friendship and confidence with some of 
 the most distinguished characters of the age. Among them were Mr. 
 Grenville, Lords Northington, Shelburne, and Sackville, together with 
 the celebrated Mr. Wilkes, Mr. Thurlow, and Mr. Dunning. The late 
 Bishop of Worcester, Lords Plymouth, Archer, Sondes, Bathurst, Gros- 
 venor, Craven, and Abington were on terms of intimacy with him, more 
 .particularly the three first-named noblemen. He was well acquainted 
 with many members of the Administration from 1766 to 1773 ; and there 
 is no question but his political information wa.s derived from these sources. 
 
APPENDIX. 47 
 
 Then take the expressions used in the Secret His- 
 tory of the Court of England^ published nineteen 
 years later (page 48) : — 
 
 Numerous disquisitions have been written to prove the identity of 
 Jimius ; but, in spite of many arguments to the contrary, we recognise 
 him in the person of the Rev. James Wilmot, D.D., Rector of Barton- 
 on-the-Heath, and Aulcester, Warwickshire, and one of his Majesty's 
 justices of the peace for that county. 
 
 Dr. Wilmot was bom in 1720, and during his stay at the university 
 became intimately acquainted with Dr. Johnson, Lord Archer, and Lord 
 Plymouth, as well as Lord North, who was then entered at Trinity 
 College. From these gentlemen the doctor imbibed his political opi- 
 nions, and was introduced to the first society in the kingdom. 
 
 We have, then, a facsimile of what most readers 
 will accept as a genuine Serres document : — 
 
 * I have this day completed my last letter of Ju — s, and sent the same 
 toL— dS— ne. J. W— . March 17, 1772.' 
 
 I regard it as almost a matter of certainty that 
 these two sets of passages were written by the same 
 person ; and who but Mrs. Serres would describe Dr. 
 Wilmot in the terms made use of in the second 
 quotation ? 
 
 I have just finished a very careful perusal of the 
 Secret History of the Court of England^ published in 
 1832. The Lightfoot scandal forms an integral part 
 of the whole scheme of the work, which is evidently 
 written from beginning to end by the same hand. 
 It may be well to mention that the correctness of Mr. 
 Jesse's impression, that the Authentic Records and the 
 Secret History were written by different persons, is 
 positively disproved by more than one statement in 
 the latter work. We are told at page 15 G that — 
 
 In a former work of ours, called the Authentic Records of the Court of 
 
48 APPENDIX. 
 
 JEnglandf we gave an account of the extraordinary and mysterious murder 
 of one Sellis, a servant of the Duke of Cumberland, which occurred this 
 year. In that account we did what we conceived to be our duty as 
 historians — we spoke the truth ! The truth, however, it appears, is not 
 always to be spoken, for his Royal Highness instantly commenced a 
 persectdion against us for a * malicious libel.' 
 
 Again, at page 196 : — 
 
 In this character only did we publish what we believed, and still be- 
 lieve, to be the t7'uth, in our former work of the Authentic Records, and 
 which we have considerably enlarged upon in our present undertaking. 
 
 The Historical Fragment quoted by Mr. Thorns at 
 p. 110, and the Secret History^ are, I believe, our 
 only ' authorities ' for the statement that Queen Caro- 
 line was acquainted with the 'fact^ of George the 
 Third's marriage with the fair Quaker. 
 
 The statements stand as follows in the two works. 
 In the Historical Fragment we are told — 
 
 The Queen [Caroline] at this time laboured under a very curious, and 
 to me unaccountable, species of delusion. She fancied herself in reality 
 neither a queen nor a wife. She believed his present Majesty to have 
 been actually mamed to Mrs. Fitzherbert ; and she as fully believed that 
 his late Majesty George the Third was mamed to Miss Hannah Light- 
 foot, the beautiful Quakeress, previous to his marriage with Queen 
 Charlotte J that a marriage was, a second time, solemnised at Kew 
 (under the colour of an evening entertainment) after the death of Miss 
 Lightfoot ; and as that lady did not die till after the births of the present 
 King and his Royal Highness the Duke of York, her Majesty really con- 
 sidered the Duke of Clarence the true heir to the throne. 
 
 All this may be gathered, piecemeal, from the 
 Secret History. 
 
 In a letter, stated by this slanderer, at page 228, to 
 have been addressed by Queen Caroline to her hus- 
 band, we have the words — 
 
 To you it is well known that the good King, your father, has inva- 
 riably treated me with the most profound respect and proper attention ] 
 
APPENDIX. 49 
 
 and his Majesty would have done me more essential service long since, 
 had it not been for the oath he gave to Lord Chatham, to preserve 
 from all public investigation the connexion formed in 1759 with the 
 Quakeress. 
 
 At p. 83 :— 
 
 In the early part of this year [1786], the Prince was married to IVIrs. 
 Fitzherhert. 
 
 The Queen insisted on being told if the news of his marriage were 
 correct. ' Yes, madam,' replied he j ^and not any force under heaven 
 shall separate us. If his Majesty had been asjirm in acknowledging his 
 ma/riage, he might ?ioiu have enjoyed life, instead of being a misanthrope 
 as he is.' 
 
 At page 107 we have, in a copy of a letter alleged 
 to have been written to the Princess Caroline of 
 Brunswick, by George Prince of Wales, 1794, the 
 following words : — 
 
 Learn, then, the seci-et and unhappy situation of the prince whom they 
 wish you to espouse. I cannot love you ; I cannot make you happy ; 
 my heart has long ceased to be free. She who possesses it is the only 
 woman to whom I could unite myself agreeably to my inclinations, &c. 
 
 It is pretended that George the Third wrote at the 
 same time to the Princess Caroline, and to her mo- 
 ther the Duchess of Brunswick. In the former 
 forgery he is made to say — 
 
 I have explained to my sister the probable difficidties which my son 
 George may mention ; but they must not have any weight in your mind 
 and conclusions. 
 
 In the latter — 
 
 He may please to plead that he is already mariied ; and I fear he will 
 resort to any measure rather than an honourable marriage. 
 
 At page 37 we read — 
 
 Early in the year 1765 the Queen was pressingly anxious that her 
 marriage with the King should again be solemnised^ and, as the Queen 
 was then pregnant, his Majesty readily acquiesced in her wishes. Dr. 
 Wilmot, by his Majesty's appointment, performed the ceremony at their 
 palace at Kew. The King's brother, Edward, was present upon this 
 occasion also, as he had been on the two former ones. 
 
 D 
 
50 APPENDIX. 
 
 I believe that, henceforward, the name of Hannah 
 Lightfoot will cease to have any place in the secret 
 history of England; but I trust that the editor of 
 ' Notes and Queries ' will not allow the enquiry to be 
 closed until every statement regarding this mythical 
 personage shall have been thoroughly sifted. I have 
 again gone over the statements which appeared in the 
 First and Second Series of ' Notes and Queries.' The 
 only assertions which still appear to need canvassing 
 are those made by, E. D. (1st S. x. 430), and by Mr. 
 G. Steinman Steinman (2nd S. i. 322). These are 
 confirmatory of the statement made in the letter 
 signed 'An Inquirer^' Monthly Magazine^ Oct. 1821, 
 cited by Mr. Thorns at pages 90, 91 of your current; 
 volume, to the effect that Dr. James Dalton, of the 
 Madras Medical Service, married a daughter of 
 Hannah Lightfoot by the King, and had by her a 
 daughter, Caroline Augusta, who was, in 1854, the 
 wife of Daniel Piytherch, Esq., of Abergoh, Caer- 
 marthen, who has had by her no less than fourteen 
 children. After the manner of all these evidences, 
 'Inquirer' of 1821 and E. D. of 1854 are quite ir- 
 reconcileable on the subject of Dr. Dalton's family. 
 The former tells us that he had ' several accomplished 
 daughters, who, with the father, are coming to Eng- 
 land ; these daughters are secluded from society like 
 nuns, but no pains spared in their education.' It 
 is distinctly stated that the mother was then dead. 
 
 The other authority states that Dr. Dalton left ' by 
 this lady four children — Henry Augustus, of the 
 Royals, or 1st Foot Regiment; Hawkins Augustus, 
 
APPENDIX. 51 
 
 of the Royal Navy ; Charlotte Augusta (all three of 
 whom died a few years afterwards); and Caroline 
 Augusta.' It rather singularly occurred that, a few 
 weeks since, I sent a paper relating to Hannah Light- 
 foot to the late venerable John D'Alton of Dublin. 
 Writing to me on the 10th of January last, only ten 
 daj^s previous to his decease, he used the following 
 striking expressions : — 
 
 I may say briefly, for indeed I have not strength to meander far over a 
 sheet of paper, that concerning the Princess Olive of Cumberland has 
 been for years by-gone, put forth to the public on vouchers and stilts that 
 have broken down in the sand, and I would say it was well such a 
 superstructure failed. I confess that I have little regard for romantic 
 schemes that seek to set aside the succession of such sovereigns as the 
 late William the Fourth, and our own best Queen that ever wielded the 
 sceptre of England. 
 
 I had then forgotten the name of Dr. Dalton ; but 
 I think that, had the above story not also been a 
 myth, the great genealogist of his own name would 
 not thus have noticed a pamphlet entitled. The 
 Princess Olive of Cumberland^ Hannah Lightfoot^ 
 and the Author 'of the Letters of Junius, 
 
 Calcuttensis. 
 
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