[93]. “The year 1800, though marked by no great political event, obtained a disastrous celebrity as a year of scarcity. At the commencement of harvest the rain descended in torrents, the lowlands were deluged with water, the crops were spoiled, the price of wheat rose to more than 120s. a quarter, and people resorted to all sorts of devices to economise the consumption of bread. Potatoes, potato flour, and rice, were the ordinary substitutes, and an Act of Parliament forbade the bakers to sell any but whole meal bread.”—The Diaries and Correspondence of the Right Hon. George Rose, vol. i. p. 280.
[94]. Sister of Lord Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. In the two following chapters of this Memoir there is frequent notice of Lady Aylesbury.
[95]. Mrs. Fitzherbert must, at that time, have been in her forty-fifth year. She was about twenty-nine when she first attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, who was six years her junior. They were married according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, on the 21st of December, 1785. When Miss Knight met Mrs. Fitzherbert on the occasion referred to (1800-1), the prince had been married for some time to Caroline of Brunswick. That ill-omened event took place on the 8th of April, 1795.
[96]. Daughter of the Earl of Dunmore. Lady Augusta was married to Prince Augustus (Duke of Sussex) at Rome, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, and afterwards at St. George’s, Hanover-square. She had two children by the prince, but after her marriage was declared illegal, she refused to have further intercourse with him.
[97]. The Rev. William Nelson, who succeeded to the earldom on Nelson’s death, but left no issue.
[98]. The preliminaries were signed in London on the 1st of October, 1801, and in Paris on the 5th of the same month. The Treaty of Peace was concluded at Amiens on the 27th of March, 1802, and war again declared on the 18th of May, 1803.
[99]. Son of the Marquis of Aylesbury.
[100]. Correspondence of Henrietta Louisa Fermor, Countess of Pomfret, and Frances, Countess of Hartford, afterwards Duchess of Somerset.—Three vols. 8vo. London: 1805.
[101]. On the 31st of May the Duke of Cumberland returned to town from a dinner at Greenwich, in order to be present at a concert for the benefit of the Royal Society of Musicians. He retired to rest about one o'clock, and awoke a little after two, in consequence, as he thought, of a bat flying about the room. He had actually, however, received a severe sword-cut on the head, which was quickly followed up by a second. As his royal highness sprang out of bed the assassin cut him across the arm, and, in all, inflicted some half-dozen wounds before the duke could make his escape from the room. His cries quickly brought an English valet (Neale) to the spot, when a sabre belonging to the duke was found on the floor of the bedroom. Sellis, his Corsican or Italian valet, was then discovered stretched on his bed, partly undressed, and with his throat cut from ear to ear. The circumstantial evidence in proof of his guilt was conclusive, though many calumnious stories were afterwards circulated tending to criminate the duke himself, who had stood godfather to Sellis's last child. At the coroner's inquest the jury brought in a verdict of "felo de se," and the body of the wretched man was accordingly buried in "the high road" in Scotland-yard.
[102]. The Princess Amelia was born on the 7th of August, 1782, and died on the 2nd of November, 1810. From her earliest infancy she was extremely delicate, and perhaps for that reason was the especial favourite of the king. His malady was greatly aggravated by the shock which he sustained one day when he visited her during her last illness. The princess slipped upon his finger a ring, containing a lock of her hair under a crystal, and beneath the hair were inscribed her name and the words “Remember me.”