etter afforded the duchess a triumph. There was a concession in every line. She sent for Mr. Jackson; thanked him ten thousand times for his interference; and declared that he had saved her one thousand six hundred pounds. She showed him the letter which she had received from Foote, and desired him, in her name, to answer it, and publish both. This he declined, alleging that a newspaper controversy would degrade her. She, however, thought otherwise. Foote's letter, her grace's answer, and the rejoinder of the wit, appeared. In the latter Foote compared the duchess to the weeping widow renowned in ancient story, converting her weeds into canonicals for Mr. Jackson, and. applied the following line, as applicable to her supposed amorous condition : 'So mourned the dame of Ephesus her love.' This farce served to turn, for a time, the current of attention into a different channel: but it becoming necessary, in the progress of events, to adopt some serious measures, either to evade or meet the pending prosecution, the duchess openly affected an earnest desire to have the trial, if possible, accelerated. Secretly, however, she was employed in trying every stratagem which art could devise to elude the measures taken against her. A very favorable opportunity offered, which, had she embraced it, her purpose would have been accomplished. It became a matter of debate in the House of Peers whether the trial of her grace should or should not be carried on in Westminster Hall. The expense to be incurred by the nation was, by several peers, considered as introducing a burden wholly unnecessary. Lord Mansfield endeavored to avail himself of this objection in favour of the duchess, whom it was his private wish to have saved from the exposure of a trial, and the ignominy of what be well knew must follow, a conviction. Here then was the critical instant in which the duchess might have extricated herself. A hint was privately conveyed to her that the sum of ten thousand pounds would satisfy every expectation, and put an end to the prosecution. This hint was improved into an authoritative proposal. The duchess was entreated by her friends to embrace the measure; but through a fatal confidence, either in her legal advisers, her own machinations, or in both, she refused the proposal with an air of insult. This was folly in the extreme; and yet it was deserving pity, because it was folly misguided. Under every assurance of safety, the duchess assumed an air of indifference about the business, which but ill accorded with her situation. She talked of the absolute necessity of setting out for Rome; affected to have some mate. rial business to transact with the Pope; and took, in consequence, every measure in her power to ac celerate the trial, as if the regular pace of justice were not swift enough to overtake her. She did not, how. ever, abandon her manoeuvring. On the contrary, at the moment in which she had claimed her privilege as a peeress, and petitioned for a speedy trial, she was busied in a scheme to get rid of the principal evidence, Mrs. Cradock, and prevail on her to quit the kingdom. A near relation of this woman was a deliverer of penny-post letters. He was spoken to, and he engaged to let the duchess have an interview with Mrs. Cradock; but her grace was to be disguised, and to reveal herself only after some conversation. The stratagem was adopted: the duchess changed her sex in appearance, and waited at the appointed hour and place without seeing either Mrs. Cradock or the person who had promised to effect the meeting. The fact was, that every particular of this business had been communicated to the prosecutors, who instructed the letter-carrier to pretend an acquiescence in the scheme. Thus baffled in a project which had a plausible appearance of success, the only method left was the best possible arrangement of matters preparatory to the trial. On the 15th day of April, 1776, the busiuess came on in Westminster-hall, when the queen was present, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, princess-royal, and others of the royal family. Many foreign ambassadors were also present, as well as several of the nobility. These having taken their seats, the duchess came forward, attended by Mrs. Egerton, Mrs. Barrington, and Miss Chudleigh, three of the ladies of her bedchamber, and her chaplain, physician, and apothecary; and as she approached the bar she made three reverences, and then dropped on her knees, when the lord high steward said, Madam, you may rise.' Having risen, she courtesied to the lord high steward and the house of peers, and her compliments were returned. Proclamation being made for silence, the lord high steward men tioned to the prisoner the fatal con sequences attending the crime of which she stood indicted, signifying that, however alarming and awful her present circumstances, she might derive great consolation from considering that she was to be tried by the most liberal, candid, and august assembly in the universe. The duchess then read a paper, setting forth that she was guiltless of the offence alleged against her, and that the agitation of her mind arose, not from the consciousness of guilt, but from the painful cie cuinstance of being called before 90 awful a tribunal on a criminal accusation; begging, therefore, that if she was deficient in the observance of any ceremonial points, her fail. ure might not be understood as proceeding from wilful disrespect, but be attributed to the unfortunate peculiarity of her situation. It was added, in the paper, that she had travelled from Rome in so dangerous a state of health, that it was neces sary for her to be conveyed in a litter; and that she was perfectly satisfied that she should have a fair trial, since the determination respecting her cause, on which materially depended her honour and fortune, would proceed from the most unprejudiced and august assembly in the world. The lord high steward desired the lady to give attention while she was arraigned on an indictment for bigamy. Proclamation for silence being made, the duchess (who had been permitted to sit) arose, and read a paper, representing to the Court that she was advised by her counsel to plead the sentence of th ecclesiastical court in the year 1769 as a bar to her being tried on the present indictment. The lord high steward informed her that she must plead to the indictment; in consequence of which she was arraigned; and, being asked by the clerk of the crown whether she was guilty of the felony with which she stood charged, she answered, with great firmness, Not guilty, my lords.' The clerk of the crown then asking her how she would be tried, she said, By God and her peers; on which the clerk said, God send your ladyship a good deliverance.' Four days were occupied in arguments of counsel respecting the admission or rejection of a sentence of the spiritual court, which being decided in the negative, the trial proceeded. The first witness was Anne Cradock, who deposed as follows: 'I have known her grace the Duchess of Kingston ever since the year 1742, at which time she came on a visit to Mr. Merrill's, at Lainston, in Hampshire, during the Winchester races. At that time I lived in the family of Mrs. Haumer, Miss Chudleigh's aunt, who was then on a visit at Mr. Merrill's, where Mr. Hervey and Miss Chudleigh first met, and soon conceived a inutual attachment towards each other. They were privately married one evening, about eleven o'clock, in Launceston church, in the presence of Mr. Mountney, Mrs. Hanmer, the Reverend Mr. Ames, the rector, who performed the ceremony, and myself. I was ordered out of the church to entice Mr. Merrill's servants out of the way. I saw the bride and bridegroom put to bed together, and Mrs. Hanmer obliged them to rise again: they went to bed together the night following. In a few days Mr. Hervey was under the necessity of going to Portsmouth, in order to embark on board Sir John Danvers's fleet, in which he was a lieutenant; and, being ordered to call him at five o'clock in the morning, I went into the bedchamber at the appointed hour, and found him and his lady sleeping in bed together, and was unwilling to disturb them, thinking the delay of an hour or two would ot be of any consequence. My husband, to whom I was not married till after the time I have men1.oned, accompanied Mr. Hervey in the capacity of his servant. When Mr. Hervey returned from the Mediterranean, his lady and he lived together. I then thought her in a state of pregnancy. Some months after Mr. Hervey went again to sea; and, during his absence, I was informed that the lady was brought to bed. She herself told me she had a little boy at nurse, and that his features greatly resembled those of Mr. Hervey.' The Duke of Grafton asked the witness whether she had seen the child; and she answered in the negative. His grace also asked, whether, as the ceremony was performed at night, there were any lights in the church? In answer to which she said Mr. Mountney had a wax light fixed to the crown of his hat. In reply to questions proposed by Lord Hillsborough, the witness acknowledged that she had received a letter from Mr. Fossard, of Piccadilly, containing a promise of a sinecure place on condition of her appearing to give evidence against the lady at the bar; and expressing that, if she thought proper, she might show the letter to Mr. Hervey. exa On Saturday, the 20th of April, Anne Cradock was further mined. The Lords Derby, Hills borough, Buckinghamshire, and others, questioning her whether she had not been promised a reward by the prosecutor on condition of her giving evidence to convict the prisoner, her answers were evasive; but she was at length brought to acknowledge that pecuniary offers had been made to induce her to give evidence in support of the prosecution. Mrs. Sophia Pettiplace, sister to Lord Howe, was next examined ; but her evidence was of no conse· quence. She lived with her grace at the time when her supposed marriage took place with Mr. Hervey, but was not present at the cere mony; and she only believed that the duchess had mentioned the cit cumstance to her. Cæsar Hawkins, Esq. deposed that he had been acquainted with the duchess several years, he believed not less than thirty. He had heard of a marriage between Mr. Hervey and the lady at the bar, which circumstance was afterwards mentioned to him by both parties, previous to Mr. Hervey's last going to sea. By the desire of her grace he was in the room when the issue of the marriage was born, and once saw the child. He was sent for by Mr. Hervey soon after his return from sea, and desired by him to wait upon the lady, with proposals for procuring a divorce, which he accordingly did; when her grace declared herself absolutely determined against listening to such terms; and he knew that many messages passed on the subject. Her grace some time after informed him, at his own house, that she had instituted a jactitation suit against Mr. Hervey in Doctors' Commons. On another visit she appeared very grave, and, desiring him to retire into another apartment, said she was exceedingly unhappy in consequence of an oath, which she had long dreaded, having been tendered to her at Doctors' Commons, to disavow her marriage, which she would not do for ten thousand worlds. Upon another visit, a short time after, she informed him that a sentence had passed in her favour at Doctors' Commons, which would be irrevocable, unless Mr. Hervey pursued certain measures within a limited time, which she did not apprehend he would do. Hereupon he inquired how she got over the oath; and her reply was, that the circumstance of her marriage was so blended with falsities, that she could easily reconcile the matter to her conscience; since the ceremony was a business of so scrambling and shabby a nature, that she could as safely swear she was not as that she was married. Judith Philips, being called, swore that she was the widow of the Reverend Mr. Ames; that she remembered when her late husband performed the marriage ceremony between Mr. Hervey and the prisoner; that she was not present, but derived her information from her husband; that, some time after the marriage, the lady desired her to prevail upon her husband to grant a certificate, which she said she believed her husband would not refuse; that Mr. Merrill, who accompanied the lady, advised her to consult his attorney from Worcester; that, in compliance with the attorney's advice, a register-book was purchased, and the marriage inserted therein, with some late burials in the parish. The book was here produced, and the witness swore to the writing of her late husband. The writing of the Reverend Mr. Ames was proved by the Reverend Mr. Inchin and the Reverend Mr. Dennis; and the entry of a caveat to the duke's will was proved by a clerk from Doctors' Commons. The book, in which the marriage of the Duke of Kingston with the lady at the bar was registered on the 8th of March, 1769, was produced by the Reverend Mr. Trebeck, of St. Margaret's, Westminster; and the Reverend Mr. Samuel Harpur, of the Museum, swore that he performed the marriage ceremony between the parties on the day mentioned in the book produced by Mr. Trebeck. Monday, the 22d of April, after the attorney-general had declared the evidence on behalf of the prosecution to be concluded, the lord high steward called upon the prisoner for her defence, which she read and the following are the most ma terial arguments it contained to in validate the evidence adduced by A was in possession of her wishes. lawsuit with the owner of the estate was the consequence of the agree. ment. The duchess went to Petersburgh, and returned to France before it was finished. The manner in which this suit was decided proved the ultimate cause of her death. not a probability of their succeeding in the attempt; but still the attempt was to be made. This kept alive the apprehension of danger in the mind of the duchess: and, so long as that apprehension subsisted, it was necessary, in policy, to affect a particular regard for certain persons in England, who had the power Besides this trivial purchase, anof rendering her a service. Among other was made by the duchess, the these was Dr. Schomberg, who, in scale of which was truly grand. return for the zeal he manifested in The brother of the then French her cause, was presented in her monarch was the owner of a domain, pame with a ring, brilliantly encir- according in every respect with his cled, the stone a deep blue, and dignity. This was the territory of upon it the words 'Pour l'Amitié. St. Assize, at a pleasant distance The intrinsic value was never once from Paris, abounding in game of considered by Schomberg; it was different species, and rich in all the the presumable tribute of gratitude luxuriant embellishments of nature. which affected the mind. He wore The mansion was fit for the brother the ring, and almost in every com- of a king; it contained three hunpany he proclaimed the donor. But dred beds. The value of such an a short portion of time elapsed be- estate was too considerable to be fore one of the encircling brilliants expected in one payment: she there. fell out, and then he discovered it fore agreed to discharge the whole to be a mere bauble, which did not of the sum demanded, which was originally cost more than six-and- fifty-five thousand pounds, by instalthirty shillings. The indignant ments. The purchase on the part Doctor threw it out of the window. of the duchess was a good one. It The will of his grace of Kingston afforded not only game, but rabbits receiving every confirmation which in plenty; and, finding them to be the courts of justice could give, to of superior quality and flavour, the dissipate, rather than expend, the duchess, during the first week of income of his estates, appeared to her possession, had as many killed be the leading rule of her life. A and sold as brought her three hunhouse which she had purchased at dred guineas. At Petersburgh she Calais was not sufficient for the had been a distiller of brandy; and purpose of perplexities; a mansion now at Paris she turned rabbitat Mont Martre, near Paris, was merchant. fixed on, and the purchase of it negotiated in as short a time as the duchess could desire. There were only a few obstacles to enjoyment, which were not considered until the purchase was completed. The house was in so ruinous a condition as to be in momentary danger of falling. The land was more like the field of the slothful than the vineyard of the industrious. These evils were not perceived by the duchess till she VOL. III. Such was her situation, when one day, while she was at dinner, her servants received the intelligence that judgment respecting the house near Paris had been awarded against her. The sudden communication of the news produced an agitation of her whole frame. She flew into a violent passion, and burst an internal blood-vessel: even this, however, she appeared to have surmounted, until a few days after 69 |