[113]. Daughter of Lord Keith; afterwards Baroness Keith (1823)—married in 1817 the Count de Flahault, the present (1860-61) French Ambassador at our Court.
[114]. Lord Eldon’s grandfather, William Scott, of Sandgate, was “said to have been clerk to a ‘fitter,’ and who, in the latter part of his life, himself became the owner of several ‘keels’—a ‘fitter’ being the person who buys and sells coals between the owner of the mine and the shipper, and who conveys them in ‘keels,’ or barges, from the higher parts of the Tyne to Newcastle or Shields, where they are loaded for exportation.”—Lord Campbell’s Life of Lord Eldon.
Lady Charlotte Campbell thus relates this scene at second-hand: “Sunday, 17th (January), Lady de Clifford came and told the Princess all the story of the Regent’s scolding Princess Charlotte over again, and repeated what he had said in respect to her never having an establishment till she married. He had also, she said, called her a fool, and used other violent language. The Chancellor told the Princess Charlotte that if she had been his daughter, and had written him such a letter, he would have locked her up till she came to her senses. ‘Rather violent language,’ said Lady de Clifford, ‘for a coal-heaver’s son to the future Queen of England.’”—Diary Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth, vol. i.
[115]. Lord Moira’s wife, a Countess in her own right.
[116]. In Lady C. Campbell’s “Diary Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth” there occurs the following entry, under the date of the 24th of January: “She (the Princess Charlotte) told her mother that there had been a great battle at Windsor between the Queen and the Prince; the former refusing to give up Miss Knight from her own person to attend on Princess Charlotte as sub-governess; but the Prince Regent had gone to Windsor himself, and insisted on her doing so, and the ‘old begum’ was forced to submit, but has been ill ever since, and Sir Henry Halford declared it was a complete breaking up of the constitution (to the great delight of the two Princesses who were talking about the affair). Miss Knight was the very person they wished to have; they think they can do as they like with her.” Upon this the editor remarks in a footnote: “In this idea their Royal Highnesses were much mistaken; for Miss Knight was a person of uncompromising integrity and steady rectitude of conduct. A devoted royalist, but not a sycophant, no one has proved more than she has the fallaciousness of Court favour. The Queen Charlotte never forgave her for having left her service to attend the young Princess Charlotte, and the Regent afterwards dismissed her in an unjust manner from the post in which he had himself placed her, and which every one who knows Miss Knight is confident she never was unworthy of.”
[117]. Warwick House stood at the end of Warwick-street, which stretches from Cockspur-street towards Carlton House-terrace, but terminates in a cul-de-sac. The site of the house itself, between which and the gardens of Carlton House there appears to have been a private communication, is now occupied by some livery stables. Warwick House was formerly the residence of Sir Philip Warwick, the well-known Royalist writer, who was born there in 1609. The street, which was built at a later date, was called after the Warwick family, and still retains the name.
[118]. Sister of Colonel Goldsworthy, one of the royal equerries most frequently mentioned in Madame D’Arblay’s Memoirs. She was very deaf, and in the habit of falling asleep at the dinner-table.
[119]. Daughter of Thomas Anguish, Esq., a Master in Chancery.
[120]. Catherine Anne Sarah, daughter of fifth Duke of Leeds, born 1798; married, in 1819, to J. Whyte-Melville, Esq., of Bennochy.
[121]. “He (Prince Regent) was indeed,” said the Duke (of Wellington), “the most extraordinary compound of talent, wit, buffoonery, obstinacy, and good feeling; in short, a medley of the most opposite qualities, with a great preponderance of good, that I ever saw in any character in my life.”—Raikes’s Journal, vol. i.