On the 7th of August Lady Jean wrote to inform her brother, the Duke, that she had been blessed with “two boys,” one of which she begged his permission to call by his name—­a letter which only had the effect of rousing His Grace’s “high passion and displeasure,” with a threat to stop her annuity.  For sixteen months the second and more delicate infant was left with his country nurse, the mother never once taking the trouble to visit it; and then the Colonel and his wife made a mysterious journey to Paris, returning with another child, who, they alleged, was the weakling of the twins.  Was it again a coincidence that, at the very time when the second child made his appearance, another infant was purchased from its parents in Paris by a “strange monsieur” who, if not the Colonel, was at least his double?  And was it not strange that this late arrival should appear to be several months older than his more robust brother, as the purchased child was?

At last, provided with two children, and having exhausted their credit on the Continent, Lady Jean and her husband turned their faces homeward, prepared to carry the war into the enemy’s camp.  Arrived in London they set to work to win as many influential friends and supporters as possible; and this Lady Jean, with her plausible tongue, succeeded in doing.  Ladies Shaw and Eglinton, the Duke of Queensberry, Lord Lindores, Solicitor-General Murray (later, Lord Mansfield), and many another high-placed personage vowed that they believed her story and pledged their support.  Mr Pelham proved such a good friend to her that he procured from the King a pension of L300 a year, which she sorely needed; for, at the time, her husband was a prisoner for debt “within the Rules” of the King’s Bench.

Even Lady Jean’s enemies could not resist a tribute of admiration for the courage with which, during this time, she fought her uphill fight against poverty and opposition.  Her affection for her children and her loyalty to her good-for-nothing husband were touching in the extreme; and, if not quite sincere, were most cleverly simulated.

To all her appeals the Duke still remained obdurate, vowing he would have nothing to do either with his sister or the two “nunnery children” which she wanted to impose on him.  In spite of her Royal pension Lady Jean only succeeded in getting deeper and deeper involved in debt, until it became clear that some decisive step must be taken to repair her fortunes.  Then it was that, at last, she screwed up her courage to pay the dreaded visit to her brother, in the hope that the sight of her children and the pathos of her personal pleading might soften his heart.

One January day in 1753, one of the Duke’s servants says,