“William Pitt.”
“Anne Taylor.”
* * * * *
“I hereby Certify that George, Prince of Wales, married Hannah
Wheeler _alias_ Lightfoot, April 17, 1759, but from finding the
latter to be her right name I solemnized the union of the said
parties a second time May the 27th, 1759, as the Certificate
affixed to this paper will confirm.
“J. Wilmot.
Witness (Torn)”
* * * * *
The case for the Crown was strongly supported. Not only did the
Attorney-General, Sir Roundell Palmer (afterwards Lord Chancellor
and First Earl of Selborne) appear himself, but he was supported by
the Solicitor-General, the Queen’s Advocate, Mr. Hannen and Mr. R.
Bourke. The Attorney-General made the defence himself. At the outset
it was difficult to know where to begin, for everywhere undoubted and
unchallenged facts were interwoven with the structure of the case; and
of all the weaknesses and foibles of the important persons mentioned,
full advantage was taken. The marriage of the Duke of Gloucester to
Lady Waldegrave had made him unpopular in every way, and he was at the
time a _persona ingrata_ at Court. There had been rumours of scandal
about the King (when Prince of Wales) and the “Fair Quaker,” Hannah
Lightfoot. The anonymity of the author of the celebrated “Letters of
Junius,” which attacked the King so unmercifully, lent plausibility to
any story which might account for it. The case of Mrs. Ryves, tried
in 1861, in which her own legitimacy had been proved and in which
indisputable documents had been used, was taken as a proof of her _bona
fides_.
Mrs. Ryves herself was in the box for nearly the whole of three days,
during which she bore herself firmly, refusing even to sit down when
the presiding judge courteously extended that privilege to her. She
was then, by her own statement, over seventy years of age. In the
course of her evidence a Memorial to George IV was produced, written
by her mother, Mrs. Serres, in which the word offspring was spelled
“orfspring”; in commenting on which the Attorney-General produced a
congratulatory Ode to the Prince Regent on his birthday in 1812, by the
same author, in which occurred the line:
“Hail valued heir orfspring of Heaven’s smile.” Similar eccentric
orthography was found in other autograph papers of Mrs. Serres.
The Attorney-General, in opposing the claim, alleged that the whole
story of the Duke of Cumberland’s marriage to Olive Wilmot was a
concoction from beginning to end, and said that the mere statement of
the Petitioner’s case was sufficient to stamp its true character. That
its folly and absurdity were equal to its audacity; in every stage
it exposed itself to conviction by the simplest tests. He added that
the Petitioner might have dwelt so long upon documents produced and
fabricated by others, that, with her memory impaired by old age, the
principle of veracity might have been poisoned, and the offices of
imagination and memory confounded to such an extent that she really
believed that things had been done and said in her presence which were
in fact entirely imaginary. No part of her story was corroborated
by a single authentic document, or by a single extrinsic fact. The
forgery, falsehood and fraud of the case were proved in many ways. The
explanations were as false and feeble as the story itself. “I cannot
of course,” he said, “lay bare the whole history of the concoction
of these extraordinary documents, but there are circumstances which
indicate that they were concocted by Mrs. Serres herself.”
Having commented on some other matters spoken of, but regarding which
no evidence was adduced, he proceeded to speak of the alleged wife of
Joseph Wilmot D. D., the Polish Princess, sister of Count Poniatowski,
afterwards elected King of Poland (1764), who was the mother of his
charming daughter, Olive. “The truth is,” said Sir Roundell, “that
both the Polish Princess and the charming daughter were pure myths;
no such persons ever existed--they were as entirely creatures of the
imagination as Shakespeare’s Ferdinand and Miranda.”
As to the documents produced by the Petitioners he remarked:
“What sort of documents were those which were produced? The
internal evidence proved that they were the most ridiculous,
absurd, preposterous series of forgeries that the perverted
ingenuity of man ever invented ... they were all written on
little scraps and slips of paper, such as no human being would
ever have used for the purpose of recording transactions of this
kind, and it would be proved that in every one of these pieces of
paper the watermark of date was wanting.”
This was but a new variant of the remark made by the Lord Chief
Justice, just after the putting-in of the alleged marriage Certificate
of the Prince of Wales and Hannah Lightfoot:
“The Court is, as I understand, asked solemnly to declare, on the
strength of two certificates, coming I know not whence, written
on two scraps of paper, that the marriage, the only marriage of
George III which the world believes to have taken place, between
His Majesty and Queen Charlotte, was an invalid marriage, and
consequently that all the Sovereigns who have sat on the throne
since his death, including Her present Majesty, were not entitled
to sit on the throne. That is the conclusion which the Court is
asked to come to upon these two rubbishy pieces of paper, one
signed ‘George P.,’ and the other ‘George Guelph.’ I believe them
to be gross and rank forgeries. The Court has no difficulty in
coming to the conclusion, even assuming that the signatures had
that character of genuineness which they have not, that what is
asserted in these documents has not the slightest foundation in
fact.”
With this view the Lord Chief Baron and the Judge-Ordinary entirely
concurred, the former adding:
“... the declarations of Hannah Lightfoot, if there ever was such
a person, cannot be received in evidence on the faith of these
documents ... the only issues for the jury are the issues in the
cause and this is not an issue in the cause, but an incidental
issue.... I think that these documents, which the Lord Chief
Justice has treated with all the respect which properly belongs
to them, are not genuine.”
Before the Attorney General had finished the statement of his case, he
was interrupted by the foreman of the jury, who said that the jury were
unanimously of opinion that there was no necessity to hear any further
evidence as they were convinced that the signatures of the documents
were not genuine. On this the Lord Chief Justice said:
“You share the opinion which my learned brothers and I have
entertained for a long time; that every one of the documents is
spurious.”
As the Counsel for the Petitioners had “felt it his duty to make some
observations to the jury before they delivered their verdict,” and had
made them, the Lord Chief Justice summed up. Towards the conclusion of
his summing-up he said, in speaking of the various conflicting stories
put forth by Mrs. Serres:
“In each of the claims which she made at different times, she
appealed to documents in her possession by which they were
supported. What was the irresistible inference? Why, that
documents were from time to time prepared to meet the form which
her claims from time to time assumed.”
The jury, without hesitation, found that they were not satisfied “that
Olive Serres, the mother of Mrs. Ryves, was the legitimate daughter of
Henry Frederick Duke of Cumberland and Olive his wife; and they were
not satisfied that Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, was lawfully
married to Olive Wilmot on the 4th of March 1767....”
The case of Mrs. Serres is an instance of how a person, otherwise
comparatively harmless but afflicted with vanity and egotism, may be
led away into evil courses, from which, had she realised their full
iniquity, she might have shrunk. The only thing outside the case we
have been considering, was that she separated from her husband; which
indeed was an affliction rather than a crime. She had been married
for thirteen years and had borne two children, but so far as we know
no impropriety was ever alleged against her. One of her daughters
remained her constant companion till her twenty-second year and through
her long life held her and her memory in filial devotion and respect.
The forethought, labour and invention which she devoted to the fraud,
if properly and honestly used, might have won for her a noteworthy
place in the history of her time. But as it was, she frittered away in
criminal work her good opportunities and great talents, and ended her
life within the rules of the King’s Bench.