408 DEFENCE OF QUEEN CAROLINE. [1820. 



me by her favourite, and adopted child, Mrs Dawson 

 Darner, who naturally took a warm interest in defend- 

 ing the memory of her friend and protectress. * 



The whole subject of the marriage is discussed in a 

 book of her nephew's, Lord Stourton, and Mr Charles 

 Langdale, but the narrative is far from being distinct. 

 They refer to the papers left in the hands of the Duke 

 of Wellington and Lord Albemarle, and deposited at the 

 bank of Messrs Coutts, and which the Langdales had 

 not the means of obtaining access to, but which we 

 should have had by summoning them as witnesses. 



It is very remarkable that so important an enact- 

 ment as one affixing the penalty of the crown's for- 

 feiture should be framed in so clumsy and careless a 

 manner. No means of carrying it into effect are pro- 

 vided ; no declaration of the powers by whom the fact 

 is to be ascertained is made ; or by what authority the 

 subject is to be absolved from his allegiance, and that 

 allegiance transferred from one to another. It is pro- 

 bable that, if the circumstance occurred, the two Houses 

 of Parliament would, from the necessity of the case, be 

 required to interpose, as in the two precedents of 

 1788 and 1811 of the Eegency. But the statute is 

 altogether silent, and the whole enactment assumes 

 the form of a menace or denunciation. Nevertheless 

 its meaning is clear; the intention is to prevent a 

 Roman Catholic marriage, and to forfeit all right and 

 title in whatever king or heir to the crown contracts 

 such a marriage. The bringing forward, therefore, the 

 marriage with Mrs Fitzherbert, was of necessity the 



* See in Lord Holland's < History of the Whig Party,' vol. i. p. 123, 

 a reference to the deposited documents, whence Lord Holland infers, 

 " the truth that there was such a ceremony is now no matter of conjecture 

 or inference, but of history." 



