“After this examination of the head, which served every purpose in view, and without examining the body below the neck, it was immediately restored to its situation, the coffin was soldered up again, and the vault closed.
“Neither of the other coffins had any inscription upon them. The larger one, supposed on good grounds to contain the remains of King Henry VIII., measured six feet ten inches in length, and had been enclosed in an elm one two inches in thickness; but this was decayed, and lay in small fragments near it. The leaden coffin appeared to have been beaten in by violence about the middle, and a considerable opening in that part of it exposed a mere skeleton of the King. Some beard remained upon the chin, but there was nothing to discriminate the personage contained in it.
“The smaller coffin, understood to be that of Queen Jane Seymour, was not touched; mere curiosity not being considered by the Prince Regent as a sufficient motive for disturbing these remains.”
THE ORANGE MATCH.
[The following extract from the Duke of Buckingham’s “Court of the Regency” may be read with interest in illustration of the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of the Autobiography:]
“The Grand-Duchess of Oldenburg contrived to obtain considerable influence over the Princess Charlotte, and persuaded her to reject the Prince of Orange. The object of this was not suspected at the time; but it was a Russian intrigue that, shortly afterwards, fully explained itself. Some amusing speculations respecting this Russian Princess are indulged in by the authoress of the ‘Diary of George IV.,’ vol. iii. p. 48. The Prince Regent is stated to have kept her under strict espionage to make her marry one of his brothers—the Grand-Duchess had already (had) one husband—and to prevent her having any communication with the Princess of Wales, which was possible any day during her stay in England through a third party. The real object of the visit of the Duchess of Oldenburg could not have been suspected, or the Prince Regent would not have placed her exactly in that position in which she could succeed with the greatest ease. The writer especially adds in a subsequent page: ‘The Regent evidently wished his daughter to take the Prince of Orange; otherwise, why should he, who was so careful in excluding from Princess Charlotte’s society any one inclined to encourage her in independent principles, have permitted her to be intimate with this cunning Russian lady, whose very eyes betrayed the wily nature of her character?’
“It was said that the Princess Charlotte’s insurmountable objection to the union arose from repugnance to quitting her own country; but Lord Clancarty was commissioned to propose her constant residence in England, should the marriage take place.
“Some amusement may be found in tracing the course of this Russian intrigue. In January, 1814, the Emperor expressed to Lord Castlereagh the strong interest he felt in the proposed marriage of the Princess Charlotte and the Prince of Orange, and was extremely desirous that himself and his sister, the Grand-Duchess Catherine, should be permitted to visit England. A month or two subsequently, Russia exhibits much solicitude to obtain a direct interest in the affairs of Holland. A little later this Grand-Duchess precedes the Emperor as a visitor to England, and immediately endeavours to obtain the confidence of the Princess Charlotte, who thenceforth becomes intractable on the subject of the proposed alliance. Lord Castlereagh wrote to Lord Clancarty on the 26th of June: ‘The circumstances attending the rupture of the marriage are still mysterious;’ but the mystery, shortly afterwards, began to unfold itself. The Emperor returned to his own dominions by way of Holland, and immediately a marriage was rumoured between its hereditary Prince and the Grand-Duchess Helen. ‘Connected with this,’ writes Mr. George Jackson, at Berlin, ‘is the expectation affected to be entertained of Russia procuring East Friedland for the Duke of Oldenburg.’... In September the Czar allowed it to be known at St. Petersburg, as a secret, that a marriage was contemplated between the Prince of Orange, who had been invited to Russia, and the Grand-Duchess Anne. The following summer they were married.
“The Duchess of Oldenburg was also suspected of being a means of communication between the Princess Charlotte and her mother, and was evidently regarded by the latter with more than ordinary admiration.... Encouraged by a such a friend and such a mother, the young Princess proceeded on a course that her warmest friends regarded with deep concern.