“The plot thickens, or rather opens.  Yesterday the judges were called on for their opinions, and una voce dismantled the Ecclesiastical Court.  The Attorney-General, Thurlow, then detailed the ’Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Chudleigh, alias Hervey, alias the most high and puissante Princess, the Duchess of Kingston.’  Her Grace bore the narration with a front worthy of her exalted rank.  Then was produced the first capital witness, the ancient damsel who was present at her first marriage.  To this witness her Grace was benign, but had a transitory swoon at the mention of her dear Duke’s name; and at intervals has been blooded enough to have supplied her execution if necessary.  Two babes were likewise proved to have blessed her first nuptials, one of whom, for aught that appears, may exist and become Earl of Bristol.”

Three days later Horace Walpole concludes his narrative of the trial, which we are afraid his antipathy to the adventurous Duchess has coloured a little too vividly: 

“The wisdom of the land,” he writes, “has been exerted for five days in turning a Duchess into a Countess, and yet does not think it a punishable crime for a Countess to convert herself into a Duchess.  After a pretty defence, and a speech of fifty pages (which she herself had written and pronounced very well), the sages, in spite of the Attorney-General (who brandished a hot iron) dismissed her with the single injunction of paying the fees, all voting her guilty; but the Duke of Newcastle, her neighbour in the country, softening his vote by adding ‘erroneously, not intentionally.’  So ends the solemn farce.  The Earl of Bristol, they say, does not intend to leave her that title....  I am glad to have done with her.”

A few days later, in spite of a writ, ne exeat regno, which had been issued against her, she was back in France, travelling in state as “Madame la Duchesse de Kingston.”  From Calais she made her magnificent progress to Rome, where Pope and Cardinals vied in doing honour to so exalted and charming a lady, and entertained her as regally as if she had been a Queen.  Returning to Calais she installed herself in a palatial house where she dispensed a lavish hospitality, and flung her gold about with prodigal hands.

But Calais soon palled on her exacting taste.  It was too dull, too cabined for her activities.  So away she sailed in a splendid yacht to St Petersburg where Catherine received her as a sister-Empress, and gave balls, banquets, and receptions in her honour.  From St Petersburg she continued her journey to Poland, and made a conquest of Prince Radzivill, who exhausted his purse and ingenuity in devising entertainments for her, including the excitement of a bear-hunt by torchlight.