“This is to solemnly certify that I married George, Prince
of Wales, to Princess Hannah, his first consort, April 15,
1759; and that two princes and a princess were the issue of
such marriage. 

          
                                                                                  J. WILMOT.”

“London, April 2, 176—.”

“This is to certify to all it may concern that I lawfully
married George, Prince of Wales, to Hannah Lightfoot, April
17, 1759; and that two sons and a daughter are their issue
by such marriage. 
J. WILMOT. 
CHATHAM. 
J. DUNNING.”

The concealed Princess Olive was meanwhile brought up, until 1782, in the family of Robert Wilmot, to whom it was said that an allowance of L500 a year was paid for her support by Lord Chatham.  On the 17th of May, 1773, his Majesty created her Duchess of Lancaster by this instrument,—­

“GEORGE R.

“We hereby are pleased to create Olive of Cumberland Duchess of Lancaster, and to grant our royal authority for Olive, our said niece, to bear and use the title and arms of Lancaster, should she be in existence at the period of our royal demise.

“Given at our Palace of St. James’s, May 17, 1773. 
CHATHAM. 
J. DUNNING.”

A little before this time (in 1772) Dr. Wilmot had been presented to the living of Barton-on-the-Heath, in Warwickshire, and thither his grand-daughter Olive went with him, passing as his niece, and was educated by him.  When she was seventeen or eighteen years old she was sent back to London, and there became acquainted with Mr. de Serres, an artist and a member of the Royal Academy, whom she married in 1791.  The union was not a happy one, and a separation took place; but, before it occurred, Mrs. Ryves, the elder petitioner, was born at Liverpool in 1797.  After the separation Mrs. Serres and her daughter lived together, and the former gained some celebrity both as an author and an artist.  They moved in good society, were visited by various persons of distinction, and in 1805 were taken to Brighton and introduced to the Prince of Wales, who afterwards became George IV.  Two years later (in 1807) Dr. Wilmot died at the mature age of eighty-five, and the papers in his possession relating to the marriage, as well as those which had been deposited with Lord Chatham, who died in 1778, passed into the hands of Lord Warwick.  Mrs. Serres during all this time had no knowledge of the secret of her birth, until, in 1815, Lord Warwick, being seriously ill, thought it right to communicate her history to herself and to the Duke of Kent, and to place the papers in her hands.