name, and in a black veil to conceal her blushing or not blushing.  To this farce, novel and curious as it will be, I shall not go.  I think cripples have no business in crowds, but at the Pool of Bethesda; and, to be sure, this is no angel that troubles the waters.”

But if Walpole resisted the temptation to witness a scene so piquant and remarkable, hundreds of the highest in the land, including Queen Charlotte herself, the Prince of Wales and many another Royal personage, ambassadors and statesmen, flocked to Westminster to see the notorious Duchess on her trial on the charge of bigamy.  And the vast Hall was packed with a curious and expectant crowd when her Grace made her stately entry with a retinue of femmes de chambre, her doctor, apothecary, and secretary, and proceeded to her seat, in front of her six bewigged Counsel, with the dignified step and haughty mien of an Empress.

Hannah More, who was present at the trial, says that hardly a trace of her once enchanting beauty was visible; and that, had it not been for her white face, “she might easily have been taken for a bundle of bombasin.”

The trial lasted several days, during the whole of which the Duchess conducted herself with remarkable dignity and composure, in face of the damning array of evidence that was brought against her—­the evidence of a maid who had witnessed her midnight marriage in Lainston Church; of the widow of the parson who officiated at the nuptials; and of Serjeant Hawkins, who authenticated the birth of her first child by Augustus Hervey.

“The scene opened on Wednesday with all its pomp,” wrote Walpole, who although not present seems to have followed the trial with the keenest interest, “and the doubly-noble prisoner went through her part with universal admiration.  Instead of her usual ostentatious folly and clumsy pretensions to cunning, all her conduct was decent, and even seemed natural.  Her dress was entirely black and plain; her attendants not too numerous; her dismay at first perfectly unaffected.  A few tears balanced cheerfulness enough, and her presence of mind and attention never deserted her.  This rational behaviour and the pleadings of her Counsel, who contended for the finality of her Ecclesiastical Court’s sentence against a second trial, carried her triumphantly through the first day, and turned the stream much in her favour.”

The following day proved a much more severe test to her Grace’s composure; and no sooner had the Court risen than “she had to be blooded, and fell into a great passion of tears.”  And each succeeding day added to the tension and anxieties which she struggled so bravely to conceal.

On the third day of the trial Walpole says: