marriage of the Duke of Cumberland with Olive Wilmot could not be separated from that part of the evidence which struck at the legitimacy of the Royal Family, by purporting to establish the marriage of George III. to a person named Hannah Lightfoot.  Could any one believe that the documents on which that marriage was attested by W. Pitt and Dunning were genuine?  But the petitioner could not help putting forward the certificates of that marriage, because two of them were written on the back of the certificate of the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland with Olive Wilmot.  Men of intelligence could not fail to see the motive for writing the certificates of those two marriages on the same piece of paper.  The first claim to the consideration of the royal family put forward by Mrs. Serres was, that she was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Cumberland by Mrs. Payne—­a married woman.  Her next claim was, that she was his daughter by an unmarried sister of Dr. Wilmot.  She lastly put forward her present claim, that she was the offspring of a lawful marriage between the duke and Olive, the daughter of Dr. Wilmot.  At the time when the claim was put forward in its last shape, it was accompanied by an attempt at intimidation, not only on the score of the injustice that would be done if George IV. refused to recognise the claim, but also on the score that she was in possession of documents showing that George III., at the time he was married to Queen Charlotte, had a wife living, and had issue by her; and consequently that George IV., who had just then ascended the throne, was illegitimate, and was not the lawful sovereign of the realm.  And the documents having reference to George III.’s first marriage were inseparably attached to the documents by which the legitimacy of Mrs. Serres was supposed to be established, with the view, no doubt, of impressing on the king’s mind the fact that she could not put forward her claims, as she intended to do, without at the same time making public the fact that the marriage between George III. and Queen Charlotte was invalid.  Could any one believe in the authenticity of certificates like these; or was it possible to imagine that, even if Hannah Lightfoot had existed, and asserted her claim, great officers of state like Chatham and Dunning should have recognised her as “Hannah Regina,” as they were said to have done?

In another document the Duke of Kent gave the guardianship of his daughter to the Princess Olive.  Remembering the way in which that lady had been brought up, and the society in which she had moved, could the Duke of Kent ever have dreamed of superseding his own wife, the mother of the infant princess, and passing by all the other distinguished members of his family, and conferring on Mrs. Serres, the landscape painter, the sole guardianship of the future Queen of England?  They must also bear in mind the way in which the claim had been brought forward.  The irresistible inference from the different tales told was, that the documents