Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/308

 stayed some time with the electress dowager. On her return to England she led a life of extreme dissipation. Hervey, who was anxious to marry again, sent a message to her in 1768 by Cæsar Hawkins, the surgeon who had been present at the birth of her child, to say that he purposed applying for a divorce. In order to obtain a divorce, however, it was necessary to prove the marriage, and as Elizabeth was not willing to incur the scandal of a divorce, she refused to allow that a marriage had taken place. At the same time she was as anxious as he was for the dissolution of the marriage, in order that she might become the wife of the Duke of Kingston. Accordingly in Michaelmas term she instituted a suit of jactitation against him in the consistory court, and the answer made by Hervey was so weak that there is good reason to believe that the whole proceeding was collusive. Elizabeth, however, was unhappy, so she told Cæsar Hawkins, at finding that she had to swear that she was not married. However, she took the required oath, and on 11 Feb. 1769 the court declared her a spinster and free from any matrimonial contract, and enjoined silence on Hervey; and on 8 March next she was married to the Duke of Kingston by special license. While she had been the duke’s mistress she had, when in England, lived much in a villa at Finchley, and then at Percy Lodge, near Colnbrook, and she was now building a house in Paradise Row, Knightsbridge, which was finished after her marriage to the duke, and was accordingly called Kingston House.

The duchess was presented on her marriage to the king and queen, who wore her favours, as did the officers of state. In May 1773 Hervey renewed his matrimonial case by presenting a petition to the king in council for a new trial, and the matter was referred to the lord chancellor. The duke died on 23 Sept. following, leaving to the duchess, by his will dated 5 July 1770, his real estate for life and the whole of his personalty for ever, on condition that she remained a widow, the reason of this restriction being her liability to be imposed on by any adventurer who flattered her. The extravagant signs of mourning displayed by the duchess were much ridiculed. Shortly after the duke’s death she sailed to Italy in her yacht; she received many marks of favour from Clement XIV, and delighted the Roman people by having her yacht brought up the Tiber. During her absence Mr. Evelyn Meadows, the duke’s nephew, on information obtained from Ann Cradock, who had been in her service, caused a bill of indictment for bigamy to be drawn up against her. On hearing of this she determined to return to England at once, and finding some difficulty in obtaining the money she wanted from the English banker at Rome with whom she had lodged her valuables, went down to his office with a pistol and compelled him to supply her. On her return to England she busied herself in taking measures for her defence. On 20 March 1775 her first husband, Hervey, succeeded his brother as Earl of Bristol. The duchess appeared in the court of king’s bench on 24 May, before Lord Mansfield, to answer the indictment preferred against her. She was attended by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Mountstuart, and others, and entered into a recognisance (herself in 4,000l. and four sureties in l,000l. each) to stand her trial by her peers in parliament assembled. In the course of this year Foote the comedian ridiculed her under the character of Kitt Crocodile in his play ‘A Trip to Calais,' which he proposed to bring out at the Haymarket. The duchess offered him 1,600l. to suppress the play, and when he refused to do so her friend Lord Mountstuart prevailed on the lord chamberlain, Lord Hertford, to forbid its production. The friends of the duchess, and among them her chaplain Foster, declared that Foote attempted to extort 2,000l. from her. Fearing that he would publish the play, the duchess on 15 Aug. wrote him an abusive letter. Foote replied, and the letters, which were published in the ‘Evening Post,’ show that the actor had by far the best of the encounter. The play was produced the next year with many alterations and under the title of ‘The Capuchin.’ Although the duchess declared that she was anxious that her case should be settled, she nevertheless on 22 Dec. applied for a nolle prosequi, on the ground of the sentence of the consistory court. The attorney-general, however, held that the crown had no power to grant this, as the offence with which she was charged was created by act of parliament, and to stay proceedings would therefore be an infringement of the Bill of Rights. The trial of the duchess began on 15 April 1776, on which day the peers went in procession from their house to Westminster Hall, together with the judges, the Garter king of arms, and other attendants on the lord high steward, Earl Bathurst. In the course of the proceedings, which extended over 16, 19, 20, and 22 April, the marriage with Hervey, the birth of the child, and the registration of the marriage in 1659 were clearly proved by Anne Cradock, by the sergeant-surgeon Cæsar Hawkins, and by the widow of Mr. Amis, who had since married a steward of the Duke of Kingston, and a verdict of guilty