THE VILLAGE : IN AND ABOUT IT 151 



Cumberland and Cambridge had embraced each 

 other in Kew Gardens. Ernest was by no means 

 a fool, and seems to have had a good deal of 

 character and courage, but also a perfect itch for 

 rubbing people's sore points. In his German 

 kingdom he ruled with a high hand, getting his 

 own way more easily than in England, and play- 

 ing the bully not only with those who opposed 

 him, but with his subservient courtiers, as 

 appears in the reminiscences of his chaplain, 

 Mr. Wilkinson. 



The hatred for him in London had come out 

 at the time of a mysterious tragedy enacted 

 (1810) in his apartments at St. James's, when the 

 Duke was found bleeding from several sword 

 cuts, and in an adjoining room, locked inside, his 

 Piedmontese valet, Sellis, lay dead with his throat 

 cut. The coroner's jury gave a verdict that 

 Sellis had committed suicide after trying to 

 assassinate his master ; but many were inclined 

 to believe that the murder had been " the other 

 way on " ; and an unfortunate printer went to 

 prison for publishing such suspicions. A genera- 

 tion later, heads were again shaken over a strange 

 robbery of the registers from Kew Church : men 

 whispered the name of one illustrious parishioner 



