The book: or the investigation of the conduct of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales / being the evidence given under a Commission from the King; with Her Royal Highness's defence and other important documents.

  • Caroline, Queen, consort of George IV, King of Great Britain, 1768-1821
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The book: or the investigation of the conduct of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales / being the evidence given under a Commission from the King; with Her Royal Highness's defence and other important documents. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/98 (page 8)
    the Princess wentiiito DcTonshlre, anti lam sure that it is the same child. Not long after I had first seen the child, the Princess said, that she had the child at first to sleep with her for a few nights ; but it made her nervous, and now they had got a regular nurse for her. She said, we gave it a little milk at first, but it was too much for me, and now we breed it by hand, • and it does very well. I can swear positively that the child I saw at the window is the same child as the Princess told me she had two days after she parted with me. The child was called William. I never heard that it had any other name. 'When the child was in long clothes, we breakfasted one day with the Princess, and she said to Sir John Douglas, This is the Deptford boy. Independently of the Princess’s confession to me, I can swear that she was pregnant in 1802. In October, 1804, when we re- turned from Devonshire, I left my card at Montague House, and on the 4th of October I received a letter from Mrs. Vernon, desiring me not to comeany more to Montague House. I had never, at this time, men- tioned the Princess’s being with child, or being deli- vered of a child, to any person, not even to Sir John Douglas. After receiving Mrs. Vernon’s letter, I wrote to the Princess on the subject. The letter was sent back unopened. I then wrote to Mrs. Fitzge- rald, saying, that I thought myself extremely ill used. In two or three days after this, I received an anony- mous, which I produce, and have marked with the letter A, and signed with my name, both on the let- ter and the envelope. The Princess of Wales has told me, that she got a bed-fellow whenever she could, that nothing was more w holesome: she said, that nothing was more convenient than her own room —it stands at the head of the staircase which leads into the Park, and I have bolts in the inside, and have a bed-fellow whenever I like. I wonder you can be satisfied only with Sir John. She said this more than once. She has told me that Sir Sydney