Note 114 — Chapter XI

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.