A messenger was despatched to Blackheath with a request to the Princess to return immediately to her. She was met by the bearer of the message on her way, and with ready good sense drove to either house of parliament, in search first of Mr. Whitbread, then of Lord Grey, but without success in either case. Meanwhile, another messenger had been despatched for Mr. Brougham, the law-adviser of the Princess of Wales, and a third for Miss Mercer Elphinstone, the young bosom friend of the Princess Charlotte. Mr. Brougham arrived first, and soon after Miss Elphinstone had reached the house the Princess of Wales also arrived, accompanied by Lady Charlotte Lindsey. ‘It was found,’ said Mr. Brougham, ‘that the Princess Charlotte’s fixed resolution was to leave her father’s house and that which he had appointed for her residence, and thenceforward to live with her mother.’ But Mr. Brougham is understood to have placed himself under the painful necessity of explaining to her that by the law, as all the twelve judges but one had laid it down in George I.’s reign, and as it was now admitted to be settled, the King or the Regent had the absolute power to dispose of all the royal family while under age. Another account states that the Princess met this announcement by the declaration, made amid many tears and much sobbing, that she would rather toil for her daily bread at five shillings a week than continue to endure the persecution to which she had of late been subjected. The Princess of Wales was very much affected by this demonstration of her daughter’s affection and confidence, but she united with Mr. Brougham in urging her to submit to her father’s will. The Princess Charlotte continued to show fixed reluctance to adopt such a course, and was expressing her determination not to follow it when the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived; but the page refused to give him admission, and he remained at the door seated in a hackney coach. The first great official from the Regent’s side who was admitted into the house was Lord Eldon. He had been despatched from the Duke of York’s, where the Regent was dining, when the intelligence of his daughter’s flight had been conveyed to him by the ladies to whose care he had committed her. ‘The Lord Chancellor Eldon,’ says Lord Brougham, ‘first arrived, but not in any particular imposing state, regard being had to his eminent station, for indeed he came in a hackney coach. Whether it was that the example of the Princess Charlotte herself had for the day brought this simple and economical mode of conveyance into fashion, or that concealment was much studied, or that despatch was deemed more essential than ceremony and pomp, certain it is, that all who came, including the Duke of York, arrived in similar vehicles, and that some remained enclosed in them, without entering the royal mansion.’ Lord Eldon appears to have treated the Princess with some roughness, adding threats to the entreaties of