Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton Part 13

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

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

EDWARD."

"_May_ 3, 1816."

"I bind myself, by my heirs, executors, and a.s.signs, to pay to my dearest coz. Olive, Princess of c.u.mberland, four hundred pounds yearly during her life.

EDWARD."

"_May_ 3, 1818."

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

EDWARD."

"_June_ 9, 1819."

"I hereby promise to return from Devons.h.i.+re early in the spring to lay before the Regent the certificates of my dearest cousin Olive's birth.

EDWARD."

"_Novr_. 16, 1819."

"_Jany._ (_illegible_).

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

EDWARD."

"I sign this only to say that I am very ill, but should I not get better, confide in the d.u.c.h.ess, my wife, who will, for my sake, a.s.sist you until you obtain your royal rights.

"G.o.d Almighty bless you, my beloved cousin, prays EDWARD."

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

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

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

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

The Attorney-General, on behalf of the crown, after explaining the provisions of the Act, proceeded to tear the story of the pet.i.tioners to pieces, p.r.o.nouncing its folly and absurdity equal to its audacity.

The Polish princess and her charming daughter he p.r.o.nounced pure myths--as entirely creatures of the imagination as Shakspeare's "Ferdinand and Miranda." As to the pretended marriage of George III.

and Hannah Lightfoot, the tale was even more astonis.h.i.+ng and incredible, for not only were wife and children denied by the king, and a second bigamous contract entered into, but the lady held her tongue, the children were content to live in obscurity, and Dr. Wilmot faithfully kept the secret, and preached sermons before the king and his second wife Queen Charlotte. Not that Dr. Wilmot did not feel these grave state secrets pressing him down, but the mode of revenge which he adopted was to write the "_Letters of Junius!_"

Yet Dr. Wilmot died in 1807, apparently a common-place country parson.

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

As far as the pet.i.tioner, Mrs. Ryves, was concerned, the Attorney-General said he could imagine that she had brooded on this matter so long (she being then over 70 years of age), that she had brought herself to believe things that had never happened. The mind might bring itself to believe a lie, and she might have dwelt so long upon doc.u.ments produced and fabricated by others, that, with her memory impaired by old age, the principle of veracity might have been poisoned, and the offices of imagination and memory confounded to such an extent that she really believed that things had been done and said in her presence which were entirely imaginary. He contended that Mrs.

Serres, the mother of the pet.i.tioner, was not altogether responsible for her actions, and proceeded to trace her history. Between 1807 and 1815, he said, she had the advantage of becoming personally known to some members of the royal family, and being a person of ill-regulated ambition and eccentric character, and also being in pecuniary distress, her eccentricity took the turn of making advances to different members of that family. She opened fire on the Prince of Wales in 1809, by sending a letter to his private secretary, comparing His Royal Highness to Julius Caesar, and talking in a mad way about the politics of the ill.u.s.trious personages of the day. In 1810 other letters followed in the same style, and in one of them she asked, "Why, sir, was I so humbly born?"

Scattered about these letters were mysterious allusions to secrets of state and symptoms of insane delusions. In one she imagined she had been seriously injured by the Duke of York. In another, she fancied that some one had poisoned her. In one letter she actually offered to lend the Prince of Wales, 20,000 to induce him to grant the interview of which she was so desirous, although in other letters she begged for pecuniary a.s.sistance, and represented herself to be in great distress.

The letters were also full of astrology; she spoke of her "occult studies;" and she further believed in ghosts. The manifesto to Poland also pointed to the same conclusion as to her state of mind. A person of such an erratic character, he said, was very likely to concoct such a story, and the story would naturally take the turn of trying to connect herself with the royal family.

During the interval between the death of Lord Warwick in 1816 and 1821, when it was first made public, her story pa.s.sed through no less than three distinct and irreconcilable stages. At first she stated that she was the daughter of the Duke of c.u.mberland by Mrs. Payne, the sister of Dr. Wilmot; and in 1817 she still described herself as Dr.

Wilmot's niece. It was said that she did not come into possession of the papers until after Lord Warwick's death, but this a.s.sertion was contradicted by the evidence of Mrs. Ryves, as to events which were within her own recollection, and which she represented to have pa.s.sed in her presence.

The second stage of the story was contained in a letter to Mr.

Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, in October, 1817. Having been threatened with arrest, she wrote to him for protection, and in this letter she represented herself as the natural daughter of the late Duke of c.u.mberland by a sister of the late Dr. Wilmot, whom he had seduced under promise of marriage, she being a lady of large fortune.

In connection with this stage of the story, he referred to another letter which she wrote to the Prince-Regent in July, 1818, in which she stated that Lord Warwick had told her the story of her birth in his lifetime, but without showing her any doc.u.ments; that he excused himself for not having made the disclosure before by saying that he was unable to repay a sum of 2000 which had been confided to him by the Duke of c.u.mberland for her benefit; and then she actually went on to say that when Lord Warwick died she thought all evidence was lost until she opened a sealed packet which contained the doc.u.ments. This was quite inconsistent with the extraordinary story of Mrs. Ryves as to the communication of the papers to her and her mother in 1815.

The claim of legitimate royal birth was first brought forward at a time of great excitement and agitation, when the case of Queen Caroline was before the public; and it was brought forward in a tone of intimidation--a revolution being threatened if the claim were not recognised within a few hours. The doc.u.ments were changed at times to suit the changing story, and there was every reason to believe that they were concocted by Mrs. Serres herself, who was a careful student of the _Junius_ MSS., who was an artist and practised caligraphist, and who had gone through such a course of study as well prepared her for the fabrication of forged doc.u.ments. The internal evidence of the papers themselves proved that they were the most ridiculous, absurd, preposterous series of forgeries that perverted ingenuity ever invented. If every expert that ever lived in the world swore to the genuineness of these doc.u.ments, they could not possibly believe them to be genuine. They were all written on little sc.r.a.ps and slips of paper such as no human being ever would have used for the purpose of recording transactions of this kind, and in everyone of these pieces of paper the watermark of date was wanting.

At this stage of his address the Attorney-General was interrupted by the foreman of the jury, who stated that himself and his colleagues were unanimously of opinion that the signatures to the doc.u.ments were not genuine.

The Lord Chief-Justice, thereupon, immediately remarked that they shared the opinion which his learned brethren and himself had entertained for a long time--that everyone of the doc.u.ments was spurious.

After some observations by the counsel for the pet.i.tioner, who persisted that the papers produced were genuine, the Lord Chief-Justice proceeded to sum up the facts of the case. He said it was a question whether the internal evidence in the doc.u.ments of spuriousness and forgery was not quite as strong as the evidence resulting from the examination of their handwriting. Two or three of them appeared to be such outrages on all probability, that even if there had been strong evidence of the genuineness of their handwriting, no man of common sense could come to the conclusion that they were genuine. Some of them were produced to prove that King George III. had ordered the fraud to be committed of rebaptising an infant child under a false name as the daughter of persons whose daughter she was not; another showed that the king had divested the crown of one of its n.o.blest appendages--the Duchy of Lancaster--by a doc.u.ment he was not competent by law to execute, written upon a loose piece of paper, and countersigned by W. Pitt and Dunning; by another doc.u.ment, also written upon a loose piece of paper, he expressed his royal will to the Lords and Commons, that when he should be dead they should recognise this lady as d.u.c.h.ess of c.u.mberland. These papers bore the strongest internal evidence of their spuriousness. The evidence as to the marriage of the Duke of c.u.mberland with Olive Wilmot could not be separated from that part of the evidence which struck at the legitimacy of the Royal Family, by purporting to establish the marriage of George III. to a person named Hannah Lightfoot. Could any one believe that the doc.u.ments on which that marriage was attested by W. Pitt and Dunning were genuine? But the pet.i.tioner could not help putting forward the certificates of that marriage, because two of them were written on the back of the certificate of the marriage of the Duke of c.u.mberland with Olive Wilmot. Men of intelligence could not fail to see the motive for writing the certificates of those two marriages on the same piece of paper. The first claim to the consideration of the royal family put forward by Mrs. Serres was, that she was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of c.u.mberland by Mrs.

Payne--a married woman. Her next claim was, that she was his daughter by an unmarried sister of Dr. Wilmot. She lastly put forward her present claim, that she was the offspring of a lawful marriage between the duke and Olive, the daughter of Dr. Wilmot. At the time when the claim was put forward in its last shape, it was accompanied by an attempt at intimidation, not only on the score of the injustice that would be done if George IV. refused to recognise the claim, but also on the score that she was in possession of doc.u.ments showing that George III., at the time he was married to Queen Charlotte, had a wife living, and had issue by her; and consequently that George IV., who had just then ascended the throne, was illegitimate, and was not the lawful sovereign of the realm. And the doc.u.ments having reference to George III.'s first marriage were inseparably attached to the doc.u.ments by which the legitimacy of Mrs. Serres was supposed to be established, with the view, no doubt, of impressing on the king's mind the fact that she could not put forward her claims, as she intended to do, without at the same time making public the fact that the marriage between George III. and Queen Charlotte was invalid. Could any one believe in the authenticity of certificates like these; or was it possible to imagine that, even if Hannah Lightfoot had existed, and a.s.serted her claim, great officers of state like Chatham and Dunning should have recognised her as "Hannah Regina," as they were said to have done?

In another doc.u.ment the Duke of Kent gave the guardians.h.i.+p of his daughter to the Princess Olive. Remembering the way in which that lady had been brought up, and the society in which she had moved, could the Duke of Kent ever have dreamed of superseding his own wife, the mother of the infant princess, and pa.s.sing by all the other distinguished members of his family, and conferring on Mrs. Serres, the landscape painter, the sole guardians.h.i.+p of the future Queen of England? They must also bear in mind the way in which the claim had been brought forward. The irresistible inference from the different tales told was, that the doc.u.ments were from time to time prepared to meet the form which her claims from time to time a.s.sumed. A great deal had been said about different members of the royal family having countenanced and supported this lady. He could quite understand, if an appeal was made on her behalf as an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of c.u.mberland, that a generous-minded prince might say, "As you have our blood flowing in your veins, you shall not be left in want;" and, very likely, papers might have been shown to some members of the royal family in support of that claim which they believed to be genuine. It was just as easy to fabricate papers showing her illegitimacy as to fabricate those produced; and probably such papers would not be very rigorously scrutinized. But it was not possible to believe that the doc.u.ments now produced (including the Hannah Lightfoot certificates) had been shown to members of the royal family, and p.r.o.nounced by them to be genuine. He could not understand why the secret was to be kept after the Duke of c.u.mberland's death, when there was no longer any danger that he would incur the risk of punishment for bigamy; and why the death of George III. should be fixed upon as the time for disclosing it. The death of George III. was the very time when it would become important to keep the secret, for if it had been then disclosed, it would have shown that neither George IV. nor the Duke of Kent were ent.i.tled to succeed to the throne. Why then should the Duke of Kent stipulate for the keeping of the secret until George III.

died? They must look at all the circ.u.mstances of the case, and say whether they believed the doc.u.ments produced by the pet.i.tioner to be genuine.

The jury at once found that they were _not_ satisfied that Olive Serres, the mother of Mrs. Ryves, was the legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick Duke of c.u.mberland, and Olive his wife; that they were _not_ satisfied that Henry Frederick Duke of c.u.mberland was lawfully married to Olive Wilmot on the 4th of March, 1767. On the other issues--that Mrs. Ryves was the legitimate daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Serres, and that the younger pet.i.tioner, W.H. Ryves, was the legitimate son of Mr. and Mrs. Ryves--they found for the pet.i.tioner.

On the motion of the Attorney-General, the judges ordered the doc.u.ments produced by the pet.i.tioners to be impounded.

It may be noted, in conclusion, that if Mrs. Ryves had succeeded in proving that her mother was a princess of the blood royal, she would at the same time have established her own illegitimacy. The alleged marriage of the Duke of c.u.mberland took place before the pa.s.sing of the Royal Marriage Act; and, therefore, if Mrs. Serres had been the duke's daughter, she would have been a princess of the blood royal.

But that Act had been pa.s.sed before the marriage of Mrs. Serres to her husband, and would have rendered it invalid, and consequently her issue would have been illegitimate. As it was, Mrs. Ryves obtained a declaration of her legitimacy; but in so doing she sacrificed all her pretensions to royal descent.

WILLIAM GEORGE HOWARD--THE PRETENDED EARL OF WICKLOW.

On the 22d of March, 1869, William, the fourth Earl of Wicklow, died, without male issue. His next brother, the Hon. and Rev. Francis Howard, had died during the late earl's lifetime, after being twice married. By his first marriage he had had three sons, none of whom had survived; but one son blessed his second nuptials, and he claimed the peerage at his uncle's death. A rival, however, appeared to contest his right in the person of William George Howard, an infant, who was represented by his guardians as the issue of William George Howard, the eldest son of the Hon. and Rev. Francis Howard by his first marriage, and a certain Miss Ellen Richardson. As to the birth of the former claimant there could be no doubt, and it was not denied that his eldest half-brother had been married as stated; but the birth of the infant was disputed, and the matter was left for the decision of the House of Lords.

The case for the infant was briefly as follows:--Mr. W.G. Howard, his reputed father, was married to Miss Richardson, in February, 1863.

Four months after their marriage the couple went to lodge with Mr.

Bloor, an out-door officer in the customs, who resided at 27 Burton Street, Eaton Square. Here they remained only three weeks, but during that time appear to have contracted a sort of friends.h.i.+p with the Bloor family, for, after being absent till the latter end of the year, they returned to the house in Burton Street, and endeavoured to procure apartments there. Mr. Bloor's rooms were full, and he was unable to accommodate them; but, in order to be near his old friends, Mr. Howard took apartments for his wife, at No. 32, in the same street.

Being a person of dissipated and peculiar habits, and being, moreover, haunted by duns, he did not himself reside in the new lodgings, or even visit there; but, by Mr. Bloor's kindness, was accustomed to meet his wife occasionally in a room, which was placed at his service, in No. 27. Still later, Mrs. Howard returned to lodge at Mr. Bloor's, and occupied the whole upper portion of the house, while the lower half was rented by one of her friends, named Baudenave. Mr. Howard, in the meantime, remained in concealment in Ireland, and thither Mr. Bloor proceeded in April or May 1864, and had an interview with him, at which it was arranged that the Burton Street lodging-house keeper should allow Mrs. Howard to be confined at his residence, and should make every arrangement for her comfort. On the 16th of May, Mrs.

Howard, whose confinement was not then immediately expected, informed the Bloors that she intended to leave London for a time, and set out in a cab for the railway station. In a very short time she returned, declaring that she felt extremely ill, and was immediately put to bed; but there being few symptoms of urgency, she was allowed to remain without medical attendance until Mr. Bloor returned from his work at eight o'clock, when his wife despatched him for Dr. Wilkins, a medical man whom Mrs. Howard specially requested might be summoned, although he was not the family doctor, and lived at a considerable distance. At half-past nine o'clock Mr. Bloor returned without the doctor; and was told by his rejoicing spouse, that her lodger had been safely delivered of a son under her own superintendence, and that the services of the recognised accoucheur could be dispensed with. Proud of the womanly skill of his wife, and glad to be spared the necessity of another wearisome trudge through the streets, he gladly remained at home, and Dr. Wilkins was not sent for several weeks, when he saw and prescribed for the infant, who was suffering from some trifling disorder. Unfortunately, this fact could not be proved, nor could the doctor's evidence be obtained as to Mr. Bloor's visit, as he had died before the case came on. But Mrs. Bloor, who attended Mrs. Howard during her confinement; Miss Rosa Day, sister of Mrs. Bloor, who a.s.sisted her in that attendance; Miss Jane Richardson, sister of Mrs. Howard; and Mr.

Baudenave, their fellow-lodger, were all alleged to have seen the child repeatedly during the three following months, although it was admitted that its existence was kept a profound secret from everybody else. The three women above-mentioned were placed in the witness-box, and gave their evidence clearly and firmly, and agreed with each other in the story which they told; and, although Mrs. Bloor was rigorously cross-examined, her testimony was not shaken. When Mr. Baudenave was wanted he could not be found, and even the most urgent efforts of detectives failed to secure his attendance before the court.

On the other side it was contended that the story told on behalf of the infant plaintiff was so shrouded in mystery as to be absolutely incredible, and that it was concocted by the missing Baudenave, who was said to have been living on terms of suspicious familiarity with Mrs. Howard, and who had succeeded in inducing the witnesses to become accomplices in the conspiracy from motives of self-interest. Evidence was also produced to show that the birth had not taken place. A dressmaker, who measured Mrs. Howard for a dress, a little time before the date of her alleged confinement, swore that no traces of her supposed condition were then visible. Dr. Baker Brown and another medical man deposed that they had professionally attended a lady, whom they swore to as Mrs. Howard, and had found circ.u.mstances negativing the story of the confinement; and Louisa Jones, a servant, who lived in the house in Burton Street shortly after the birth of the infant, said she had never seen or heard of its existence. After the hearing of this evidence the case was postponed.

On its resumption Mrs. Howard produced witnesses to show that she was at Longley, in Staffords.h.i.+re, during the whole of that period of August, 1864, to which the evidence of Dr. Baker Brown and the other medical witness related.

At the sitting of the court, on the 1st of March, 1870, Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Selborne), who represented Charles Francis Howard, the other claimant, gave the whole case a new complexion by informing the court that he was in a position to prove that, in the month of August, 1864, Mrs. Howard and another lady visited a workhouse in Liverpool, and procured a newly-born child from its mother, Mary Best, a pauper, then an occupant of one of the lying-in wards of the workhouse hospital. In support of his a.s.sertion he was able to produce three witnesses--Mrs. Higginson, the head-nurse, and Mrs. Stuart and Mrs.

O'Hara, two of the a.s.sistant-nurses, of whom two could swear positively to Mrs. Howard's ident.i.ty with the lady who came and took away the child. The third nurse was in doubt.

The Solicitor-General, who represented the infant-claimant, thereupon requested an adjournment, in order to meet the new case thus presented. Their lords.h.i.+ps, however, refused to comply with his desire until they had had an opportunity of examining Mrs. Howard; but when that lady was called she did not appear, and it was discovered that she had left the House of Lords secretly, and could not be found at her lodgings or discovered elsewhere. The case was therefore adjourned. At the next sitting, a week later, Mrs. Howard appeared before the committee, but refused to be sworn, demanding that the witnesses who were to be brought against her should be examined first.