The story of Mrs. Olive Serres, as nature made it, was one thing; it
was quite another as she made it for herself. The result, before the
story was completely told, was a third; and, compared with the other,
one of transcendent importance. Altogether her efforts, whatsoever
they were and crowned never so effectively, showed a triumph in its
way of the thaumaturgic art of lying; but like all structures built
on sand it collapsed eventually. In the plain version--nature’s--the
facts were simply as follows. She, and a brother of no importance, were
the children of a house painter living in Warwick, one Robert Wilmot,
and of Anna Maria his wife. Having been born in 1772 she was under
age when in 1791 she was married, the ceremony therefore requiring
licence supported by bond and affidavit. Her husband was John Thomas
Serres who ten years later was appointed marine painter to King George
III. Mr. and Mrs. Serres were separated in 1804 after the birth of two
daughters, the elder of whom, born in 1797, became in 1822 the wife
of Antony Thomas Ryves a portrait painter--whom she divorced in 1847.
Mrs. A. T. Ryves twelve years later filed a petition praying that the
marriage of her mother, made in 1791, might be declared valid and she
herself the legitimate issue of that marriage. The case was heard in
1861, Mrs. Ryves conducting it in person. Having produced sufficient
evidence of the marriage and the birth, and there being no opposition,
the Court almost as a matter of course pronounced the decree asked for.
In this case no complications in the way of birth or marriage of Mrs.
Serres were touched on.
Robert Wilmot, the house-painter, had an elder brother James who became
a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and went into the Church, taking
his degree of Doctor of Divinity. Through his College he was presented
in 1781 to the living of Barton-on-the-heath, Warwickshire. The
Statutes of his College contained a prohibition against marriage whilst
a Fellow. James Wilmot D. D. died in 1807 leaving his property between
the two children of Robert, after life-use by his brother. James and
Robert Wilmot had a sister Olive, who was born in 1728 and married in
1754 to William Payne with issue one daughter, Olivia, born in 1759.
Robert Wilmot died in 1812.
[Illustration: OLIVIA SERRES]
Out of these rough materials Mrs. Olive Serres set herself in due
course to construct and carry out, as time and opportunity allowed,
and as occasions presented themselves and developed, a fraudulent
romance in real life and action. She was, however, a very clever
woman and in certain ways--as was afterwards proved by her literary and
artistic work--well dowered by nature for the task--crooked though it
was--which she set for herself. Her ability was shown not only by what
she could do and did at this time of her life, but by the manner in
which she developed her natural gifts as time went on. In the sum of
her working life, in which the perspective of days becomes merged in
that of years, she touched on many subjects, not always of an ordinary
kind, which shewed often that she was of conspicuous ability, having
become accomplished in several branches of art. She was a painter of
sufficient merit to have exhibited her work in the Royal Academy in
1794 and to be appointed landscape-painter to the Prince of Wales in
1806. She was a novelist, a press writer, an occasional poet and in
many ways of a ready pen. She was skilled in some forms of occultism,
and could cast horoscopes; she wrote, in addition to a pamphlet on
the same subject, a book on the writings of Junius, claiming to have
discovered the identity of the author--none other than James Wilmot
D. D. She wrote learnedly on disguised handwriting. In fact she touched
on the many phases of literary effort which come within the scope of
those who live by the work of their brains. Perhaps, indeed, it was
her facility as a writer that helped to lead her astray; for in her
practical draughtsmanship and in her brain teeming with romantic ideas
she found a means of availing herself of opportunities suggested by
her reckless ambition. Doubtless the cramped and unpoetic life of her
humble condition in the house-painter’s home in Warwick made her fret
and chafe under its natural restraint. But when she saw her way to
an effective scheme of enlarging her self-importance she acted with
extraordinary daring and resource. As is usual with such natures,
when moral restraints have been abandoned, the pendulum swung to
its opposite. As she had been lowly she determined to be proud; and
having fixed on her objective began to elaborate a consistent scheme,
utilising the facts of her own surroundings as the foundation of her
imposture. She probably realised early that there must be a base
somewhere, and so proceeded to manufacture or arrange for herself a new
identity into which the demonstrable facts of her actual life could be
wrought. At the same time she manifestly realised that in a similar
way fact and intention must be interwoven throughout the whole of
her contemplated creation. Accordingly she created for herself a new
_milieu_ which she supported by forged documents of so clever a conceit
and such excellent workmanship, that they misled all who investigated
them, until they came within the purview of the great lawyers of the
day whose knowledge, logical power, skill and determination were
arrayed against her. By a sort of intellectual metabolism she changed
the identities and conditions of her own relations whom I have
mentioned, always taking care that her story held together in essential
possibilities, and making use of the abnormalities of those whose
prototypes she introduced into fictional life.
The changes made in her world of new conditions were mainly as follows:
Her uncle, the Reverend James, who as a man of learning and dignity
was accustomed to high-class society, and as a preacher of eminence
occasionally in touch with Crown and Court, became her father; and she
herself the child of a secret marriage with a great lady whose personal
rank and condition would reflect importance on her daughter. But proof,
or alleged proof, of some kind would be necessary and there were too
many persons at present living whose testimony would be available
for her undoing. So her uncle James shifted his place and became
her grandfather. To this the circumstances of his earlier life gave
credibility in two ways; firstly because they allowed of his having
made a secret marriage, since he was forbidden to marry by the statutes
of his college, and secondly because they gave a reasonable excuse for
concealing his marriage and the birth of a child, publicity regarding
which would have cost him his livelihood.
At this point the story began to grow logically, and the whole scheme
to expand cohesively. Her genius as a writer of fiction was being
proved; and with the strengthening of the intellectual nature came
the atrophy of the moral. She began to look higher; and the seeds of
imagination took root in her vanity till the madness latent in her
nature turned wishes into beliefs and beliefs into facts. As she was
imagining on her own behoof, why not imagine beneficially? This all
took time, so that when she was well prepared for her venture things
had moved on in the nation and the world as well as in her fictitious
romance. Manifestly she could not make a start on her venture until
the possibility vanished of witnesses from the inner circle of her
own family being brought against her; so that she could not safely
begin machinations for some time. She determined however to be ready
when occasion should serve. In the meantime she had to lead two lives.
Outwardly she was Olive Serres, daughter of Robert Wilmot born in 1772
and married in 1791, and mother of two daughters. Inwardly she was
the same woman with the same birth, marriage and motherhood, but of
different descent being (imaginatively) grand-daughter of her (real)
uncle the Rev. James Wilmot D. D. The gaps in the imaginary descent
having been thus filled up as made and provided in her own mind, she
felt more safe. Her uncle--so ran her fiction--had early in his college
life met and become friends with Count Stanislaus Poniatowski who later
became by election King of Poland. Count Poniatowski had a sister--whom
the ingenious Olive dubbed “Princess of Poland”--who became the wife
of her uncle (now her grandfather) James. To them was born, in 1750,
a daughter Olive, the marriage being kept secret for family reasons,
and the child for the same reason being passed off as the offspring of
Robert the housepainter. This child Olive, according to the fiction,
met His Royal Highness Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, brother
of the King, George III. They fell in love with each other and were
privately married--by the Rev. James Wilmot D. D.--on 4 March 1767.
They had issue one daughter, Olive, born at Warwick 3 April 1772. After
living with her for four years the Duke of Cumberland deserted his
wife, who was then pregnant, and in 1771 married--bigamously, it was
alleged--Lady Anne Horton, sister of Colonel Luttrell, daughter of Lord
Irnham, and widow of Andrew Horton of Catton, Derbyshire. The (alleged)
Royal Duchess died in France in 1774, and the Duke in 1790.
Thus fact and fiction were arrayed together in a very cunning way.
The birth of Olive Wilmot (afterwards Serres) in 1772 was proved by a
genuine registry. Likewise that of her daughter Mrs. Ryves. For all the
rest the certificates were forged. Moreover there was proof of another
Olive Wilmot whose existence, supported by genuine registration, might
avert suspicion; since it would be difficult to prove after a lapse of
time that the Olive Wilmot born at Warwick in 1772 daughter of Robert
(the house-painter), was not the granddaughter of James (the Doctor of
Divinity). In case of necessity the real date (1759) of the birth of
Olive Wilmot sister of the Rev. James could easily be altered to the
fictitious date of the birth of “Princess” Olive born 1750.
It was only in 1817 that Mrs. Serres began to take active measures for
carrying her imposture into action; and in the process she made some
tentative efforts which afterwards made difficulty for her. At first
she sent out a story, through a memorial to George III, that she was
daughter of the Duke of Cumberland by Mrs. Payne, wife of Captain Payne
and sister of James Wilmot D. D. This she amended later in the same
year by alleging that she was a natural daughter of the Duke by the
sister of Doctor Wilmot, whom he had seduced under promise of marriage.
It was not till after the deaths of George III and the Duke of Kent in
1820, that the story took its third and final form.
It should be noticed that care was taken not to clash with laws already
in existence or to run counter to generally received facts. In 1772 was
passed the Royal Marriage Act (12 George III Cap. 11) which nullified
any marriage contracted with anyone in the succession to the Crown to
which the Monarch had not given his sanction. Therefore Mrs. Serres
had fixed the (alleged) marriage of (the alleged) Olive Wilmot with
the Duke of Cumberland as in 1767--five years earlier--so that the
Act could not be brought forward as a bar to its validity. Up to 1772
such marriages could take place legally. Indeed there was actually a
case in existence--the Duke of Gloucester (another brother of the King)
having married the dowager Countess of Waldegrave. It was of common
repute that this marriage was the motive of the King’s resolve to have
the Royal Marriage Act added to the Statute book. At the main trial it
was alleged by Counsel, in making the petitioner’s claim, that the King
(George III) was aware of the Duke of Cumberland’s marriage with Olive
Wilmot, although it was not known to the public, and that when he heard
of his marriage with Lady Anne Horton he was very angry and would not
allow them to come to Court.
The various allegations of Mrs. Serres as to her mother’s marriage were
not treated seriously for a long time but they were so persisted in
that it became necessary to have some denial in evidence. Accordingly a
law-case was entered. One which became a _cause célèbre_. It began in
1866--just about a hundred years from the time of the alleged marriage.
With such a long gap the difficulties of disproving Mrs. Serres’
allegations were much increased. But there was no help for it; reasons
of State forbade the acceptance or even the doubt of such a claim. The
really important point was that if by any chance the claimant should
win, the Succession would be endangered.
The presiding judge was the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Cockburn. With
him sat Lord Chief Baron Pollock and the Judge Ordinary Sir James
Wilde. There was a special jury. The case took the form of one in the
English Probate Court made under the “Legitimacy Declaration Act.” In
this case, Mrs. Ryves, daughter of Mrs. Serres, was the petitioner.
Associated with her in the claim was her son, who, however, is of no
interest in the matter and need not be considered. The petition stated
that Mrs. Ryves was the legitimate daughter of one John Thomas Serres
and Olive his wife, the said Olive being, whilst living, a natural-born
subject and the legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick, Duke of
Cumberland and Olive Wilmot, his wife. That the said Olive Wilmot, born
in 1750, was lawfully married to His Royal Highness Henry Frederick,
Duke of Cumberland, fourth son of Frederick Prince of Wales (thus being
grandson of George II and brother of King George III), on 4 March 1767,
at the house of Thomas, Lord Archer, in Grosvenor Square, London, the
marriage being performed by the Rev. James Wilmot D. D., father of the
said Olive Wilmot. That a child, Olive, was born to them on 3 April
1772, who in 1791 was married to John Thomas Serres. And so on in
accordance with the (alleged) facts above given.
The strange position was that even if the petitioner should win her
main case she would prove her own illegitimacy. For granting that the
alleged Olive Serres should have been legally married to the Duke of
Cumberland, the Royal Marriage Act, passed five years later, forbade
the union of the child of such a marriage, except with the sanction of
the reigning monarch.
In the making of the claim of Mrs. Ryves a grave matter appeared--one
which rendered it absolutely necessary that the case should be heard
in the most formal and adequate way and settled once for all. The
matter was one affecting the legality of the marriage of George III,
and so touching the legitimacy of his son afterwards George IV, his son
afterwards William IV and his son the Duke of Kent, father of Queen
Victoria--and so debarring them and all their descendants from the
Crown of England. The points of contact were in documents insidiously
though not overtly produced and the preparation of which showed much
constructive skill in the world of fiction. Amongst the many documents
put in evidence by the Counsel for Mrs. Ryves were two certificates of
the (alleged) marriage between Olive Wilmot and the Duke of Cumberland.
On the back of each of these alleged certificates was written what
purported to be a certificate of the marriage of George III to Hannah
Lightfoot performed in 1759 by J. Wilmot. The wording of the documents
varied slightly.
It was thus that the claim of Mrs. Ryves and her son became linked
up with the present and future destinies of England. These alleged
documents too, brought the Attorney General upon the scene. There
were two reasons for this. Firstly the action had to be taken against
the Crown in the matter of form; secondly in such a case with the
possibility of such vast issues it was absolutely necessary that every
position should be carefully guarded, every allegation jealously
examined. In each case the Attorney General was the proper official to
act.
The Case of the Petitioners was prepared with extraordinary care.
There were amongst the documents produced, numbering over seventy,
some containing amongst them forty-three signatures of Dr. Wilmot,
sixteen of Lord Chatham, twelve of Mr. Dunning (afterwards the 1st
Baron Ashburton), twelve of George III, thirty-two of Lord Warwick and
eighteen of H.R.H., the Duke of Kent, the father of Queen Victoria.
Their counsel stated that although these documents had been repeatedly
brought to the notice of the successive Ministers of the Crown, it had
never been suggested until that day that they were forgeries. This
latter statement was traversed in Court by the Lord Chief Baron, who
called attention to a debate on the subject in the House of Commons in
which they were denounced as forgeries.
In addition to those documents already quoted were the following
certificates:
“The marriage of these parties was this day duly solemnized at
Kew Chapel, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church
of England, by myself.
“J. Wilmot.”
“George P.”
“Hannah.”