She now received the attentions of many suitors, extraordinary as the circumstance may be, when the mystery of her own conduct and the surmises of the public are considered; and, to make assurance doubly sure, she determined to extinguish all proof of her hasty marriage. Ascertaining that the clergyman who had married her was dead, she went to Lainston church, and contrived to carry away the entry of her marriage from the register. Some time after this, Miss Chudleigh (for she never would take her husband's name) married the Duke of Kingston. It was strongly asserted, though the circumstance is so dishonourable that it can scarcely be believed, that the silence of the real husband was purchased by the advance of a large sum of money from the pretended one. The marriage remained undisturbed until the death of the duke. She then came into possession of his very large disposable property, and traveled in great pomp to Rome; but the duke's nephew and heir, having his suspicious of the fact excited, commenced proceedings against the duchess for bigamy. She was tried before her peers in Westminster hall, and found guilty of the offence, in April 1776; but by claiming the privilege of peerage, she was discharged on payment of the usual fees. It is scarcely possible to believe that a man of the rank and profession of Lord Bristol, could have been base enough to connive at his wife's marriage with the Duke of Kingston. But there can be no question, that in the prevalent opinion of the time, he had even taken a large sum of money for the purpose. In one of Walpole's letters, subsequently to the trial, he says, "if the Pope expects his duchess back, he must create her one, for her peers have reduced her to a countess. Her folly and her obstinacy here appear in the full vigour, at least her faith in the ecclesiastical court, trusting to the infallibility of which she provoked this trial in the face of every sort of detection. The living witness of the first marriage, a register of it fabricated long after by herself, the widow of the clergyman who married her, many confidants to whom she had entrusted the secret, and even Hawkins, the surgeon, privy to the birth of the child, appeared against her. The Lords were tender, and would not probe the earl's collusion; but the ecclesiastical court, who so readily accepted their juggle, and sanctified the second match, were brought to shame--they care not if no reformation follows. The duchess, who could produce nothing else in her favour, tried the powers of oratory, and made a long oration, in which she cited the protection of her late mistress, the Princess of Wales. Her counsel would have curtailed this harangue; but she told them they might be good lawyers, but did not understand speaking to the passions. She concluded her rhetoric with a fit, and retired with rage when convicted of the bigamy."