A NEW CLAIMANT TO THE BRITISH CROWN.

West Coast Times, 1 September 1866, Page 2

A NEW CLAIMANT TO THE BRITISH CROWN.

(from the times.) Tke case of " Ryves v. the AttorneyGeneral," which was brought to -a conclusion ycst^rtl^y, will certainly be remembered as one of the most extraordinary instances of combined hallucination and deception which luive ever been imposed upon the world,. If^re js-a. casg_T>rofp-°««!^c w ct/Ticcru cfaseTyfhe ifofior ami "position of the Royal Family of ibis country, which has occupied the Divorce Court fi>r.jsexgn days. Our columns have been filled wirb " documents purporting to be signed by the m >st distinguished persons of a cen^tury ago, implicating George 111., his brothers, Lord Chatham, and Lord Warwick, in a series of the most flagrant crimes and deceptions ; and the whole story, together; in all probability, with the documents on which it rests, is a mere web of fictfyns spun out of the unassisted brain of *one) half-crazy woman. *Nb form of hallucinatipn is more common than that of imagining a relation to Royal personages ; and the story set up on behalf of Mrs Ryves was as wild and inconsistent as the fancies of the most crnz}' lunutic. It collapsed at* the first touch of the Attor-ney-General's criticism, arid the jury did not even think it necessary to hear the whole of his arguments before announcing their decision But it is non<; the les3 remarkable that the story should have acquired such an apparent consistency, and that an elaborate mass of utterly incredible and inconsistent documents should have been industriously forged and collected in its support. It will serve to ivnJcr ■■the story plainer iei c we stmt from t'. <_ snj.ii pic facts (.<" ■ ' whifth it :: > a-n«v- T t^jr^g vu llvl 1 v v ■ • ?•>-•-• them yfte: b^lix-- - -'•?y? y - '> j" . lived hi } J-\ ia<> - .-. ■' „ beginning of the pros --.- £r "* - mm named >-cm 5 , orothei. y§Wt r^-j^^ > ' ! '" and a j(lli^.^,'\ "- • > "1 ' sl ' •• She v,rm]>i'^ t S y '-'-' ' a!u ' between !fc^ ' J ;me m sonic ni. or '' * " " .v'«ftiuti'nue^ with men I . .^^jt'itiiij. She w:is in }, - 'alsiiiPilP s*'5 *' an '"* °* iUI , cc ~ -. „\uo 3 cl^gpi^p^ «-ul from these •/wple ele?§ie.nf6 11 * rt ?i7nn.j;a the strange web of eritangfcment which' has just been unrav'eJled. She conceived the notion oi prising her claims on the attention of the Royal Family ; and the idea, once entertained, took complete possession of her, and grew gradually into larger and larger proportions. Her first letter was addressed to the Prince of Wales in 1809, and bore evident 'marks of eccentricity . She compares him, says the Attorney-General, to Julius Caesar, and talks in a mad way about the politics of the illustrious personages of the day. In 1810 similar letters are continued, and she asks in one of them, ""Why, Sir, was 1 so huj»Wy born ?" Scattered about the*n are mysterious allusions to secrets of State and symptoms of insane delusions. In one she imagines that she has been seriously injured by the Duke of York ; in another that some one has poisoned her; and sealed packets, such as those which have been produced in the course of the case, are continually referred t<>. The letters are wholly inconsistent with one another. In o*%*^°™™ . to le.id thePrinca o£ Vafa L 20.000 if he . will tyrant her an interviev ; while iq -fltners she represents herself as in great distress, and begs for pecunisry assistance. The letters, too, are full of astrology, and she talks of her occult studfes. It seems, however, that it was not until the death of j Lord Warwick, in 1816, tlat she put forward any definite story, sich as has been now alleged by her dau»Ker ; and it is one of the most conclusive paits of the case for General, th^tjhis Btory un-

sumes its final form. First of all, in 1817, c a letter addressed to the Prince Regent < by Mr Groves, and countersigned by her, t alleges that she was the illegitimate t daughter of the Duke of Cumberland by Mrs P.ijne, a sister of Dr Wilmot, and the wife of Captain Payne. The writer of this letter states that he kad seen the attestation of her birth. Later in the same year, and again in 1813, she repre- < sents herself, in two letters under her / own hand, as the natural daughter of the Duke by another sister of Dr Wilraot, j whom, she alleges, he seduced under a/ g promise of marriage. Throughout these twoj v stages of her story, documents in support' . of her allegations are constantly offered for inspection, and it ia obvious that these must have been wholly inconsistent with , those which are now produced. The only explanation offered of the discrepancy is a j series of stories about sealed packets of letters aud other documents being constantly discovered, x»r not being opened i until after certain dates, out of consideration to members of the Royal Family. , At length, in 1821, after the death of George 111. and the Duke of Kent, or, in other words, of the two persons who would have most effectually disproved it, the story j took its present form, and the addition < which it then received offers not the least \ characteristic features of romantic halluci- i nation. This statement was to the effect 1 that her mother was not the sister, but < the daughter of the Dr. Wilmot already ( mentioned; that be had contracted a ( secret marriage with a Polish Princess, t whose brother subsequently ascended the throne of Poland ; that his daughter, who \ was very beautiful, had been engaged to i: Lord Waiwick, but that when she after- t wards attneted the attention of the Duke - of Cumberland Lord Warwick waived his < claim, and she was married to the Duke by her father, Dr. Wiimot himself, in the presence of Lord Warwick, then Lord Brooke. The marriage, it w said, was well known to George 111., to Dunning, to tha Wilmot family, and to the Royal Family of Poland. The Duke, as-is well known, subsequently married Mrs Horton, and all these great personageg acquieiced in the bigamy. The true Duchess, Olive Wilmot, was conveyed away by I^o^Chatliam to France, where she died ?'"'^ bjqken heart, and Dr Wilmot revenged hrn elf by writing "The Letters of Juniu. 1 ' We are required further to believe that all this romance, though in the possasion of so many persons, remained a pofound secret until 1815, and was only filly developed by the gradual producton of sealed packets, up to about 1820, -witm it came convenient to put it forward. If any further evidence were reuired of the real nature of the story thin is furnished by its mere recital, it is'ty be found in the extraordinary docunmts which have been produced. Thesc'are Certainly very clumsy forgeries, buttley are some of the most voluminous and lie ■ most elaborate that have ever beeiV'nvented for such a Jperson. No less tlan eighty-two documents were produced at the trial, and besides these there are abojt fifty more which have been referred to at different times. These, for the. most part, i consist of declarations and protestations oi [ all , the great personages introduced, mti i the story, wlio would seem to have th jiighl - it the best means of keeping their secret ie t be constantly commuting it .to little b;/ V-f -??" paper. They are. written for . W i part on mere scraps, and, after the fashion 1 - of the petitioner's explanation, ifc wa> I attempted to account for their sizt- by •-^alleging that they had been cut smaller by Lord Warwick, thAt they might be the easier kept. • These documents are manii festly forgeries, whether we have regard to the handwriting, to the supposed -signatures, which, the Attorney-General states, are sometimes not those which were commonly made use of by the perspn intended, or to their contents, which are so egregiously absurd that none but a person more or less insane could have written them. 1 The Lord Chief Justice enumerated several of their absurdities ; but it will be ; sufficient to mention that George 111 is represented as making away with the Duchy . of Lancaster, which he bad no power to do, i andthatthisiliegalactof Royal prodigality^ countersigned by Pitt and Dunning. But i one ot the most suspicious points in these t extraordinary documents is furnished by a , certificate, which, if genuine, would tend ■ t3 invalidate the title of the present Royal I Family to the Throne, and which, with the • strange madness which marks the rest of the ea^*. was evidently produced at first • with a-i :ew of intimidation. At the back ' i on-, oi the doeumeafej attesting the mar.iage of QVre Wilmot was a certificate k affirming the marriage of George 111., in f [r;-> fo a person named Hannah Light- • ft, iuirl if v :js t'leged that three chil- . divn were the i-suo of this marriage ; so i , that the children of the King by the Priu- : «;e c f< Charlotte were illegitimate. When me claim was urged in 1821, it was accom1 panied by a threat of revolution, and it was i obviously supposed that this extraordinary i document would invalidate the legitimacy | of George IV. Among other things, the • alleged will of this person was produced, '• with the signature " Hannah Regina," and i attested by Chatham and Dunning. We ; may mention, as a last example, that in one i of the documents, the Dnke of Kent gives the guardianship of his daughter — the prei sent Queen— to the "Princess Olive," whereas, ap is well known, by his authentic 1 will, her Majesty was intrusted to the sole charge of her mother, the Duchess of • Kent. - ' , In short, a wilder story, supported by more extravagant or more foolish forgeries, was never invented. Not the least ' curious part of the case is that if Mrs Ryves had succeeded in making out that her mother was a Royal Princess, she would have established, at the same time her own illegitimacy. The alleged marriage of the Duke of Cumberland was celebrated before the Royal Marriage Act, and consequently, if Mrs Serres had been the Duke's daughter, she would have "been a Princess of the Blood Royal. But that Act had been passed before her marriage with Mr Serres, and would have rendered it invalid, so that her issue would have been illegitimate, As, it is, Mrs Ryves obtains a declaration of her legitimacy, but' at the cost of her pVetended Royal descent. Such a .result is :a better conclusion to her efforts than th(iir audacity and folly, if not their deceptio n, merited. It is possible, as the Attornei said, that she, like her moth 1 ier. may have brooded over the story til| \ the has persuaded herself that it is trii je ; .but we cannot avoid adding that it isi ' unpardonable that more responsible pers* ,ob should have abetted her in the delus**u., ■ As the story, Jiowever, has been bright/ k> prominent; ((forward, it is satisfactory t £ an ix»all__nx»/L_4ln»««t<iffllllx«- as

only be rememb/ re( i for t h e future as a a extraordinary monurae nt of the ingenuity p S r 3*" d ind<lßtr y which ma y bs ./ exerted \y vanity and madness. . /