Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur OrtonAnonymous
History
Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton
Anonymous
Impostors and imposture -- Biography
Mrs. Ryves then went on to state that, after the death of the Duke of
Kent and his father, the Duke of Sussex paid a visit to herself and
her mother. On that occasion, and subsequently, he examined the
papers, and declared himself satisfied that they were genuine.
In her cross-examination, and in answer to questions put by the court,
Mrs. Ryves stated that her mother, Mrs. Serres, was both a clever
painter and an authoress, and was appointed landscape painter to the
court. She had been in the habit of writing letters to members of the
royal family before 1815, when she had no idea of her relationship to
them. Her mother might have practised astrology as an amusement. A
letter which was produced, and described the appearance of the ghost
of Lord Warwick's father, was in her mother's handwriting--as was also
a manifesto calling upon "the Great Powers, Principalities, and
Potentates of the brave Polish nation to rally round their Princess
Olive, grand-daughter of Stanislaus," and informing them that her
legitimacy as Princess of Cumberland had been proved. Her mother had
written a "Life of Dr. Wilmot," and had ascribed the "Letters of
Junius" to him, after a careful comparison of his MS. with those in
the possession of Woodfall, Junius's publisher. She had also issued a
letter to the English nation in 1817, in which she spoke of Dr. Wilmot
as having died unmarried; and Mrs. Ryves could not account for that, as
her mother had heard of his marriage two years previously.
A document was then produced in which the Duke of Kent acknowledged
the marriage of his father with Hannah Lightfoot, and the legitimacy
of Olive, praying the latter to maintain secrecy during the life of
the king, and constituting her the guardian of his daughter
Alexandrina, and directress of her education on account of her
relationship, and also because the Duchess of Kent was not familiar
with English modes of education. Mrs. Ryves explained that her mother
refrained from acting on that document out of respect for the Duchess
of Kent, who, she thought, had the best right to direct the education
of her own daughter (the present queen). She also stated that her
mother had received a present of a case of diamonds from the Duke of
Cumberland, but she did not know what became of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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