Note 173 — BOOK THE THIRD 1812-1815

[See vol. ii. p. 149, in the earlier portion of Lord Holland’s Memoir. In that year, owing to a report that the Princess had been delivered of an illegitimate child, a Committee, consisting of Lords Erskine, Ellenborough, Grenville, and Spencer, with Sir S. Romilly, the Solicitor-General, as their legal adviser, was appointed to examine into her conduct. They stated in their report that there was no vestige of truth in the primary charge, but that in their opinion the levity of her behaviour on several occasions was worthy of censure. The matter again came to the front in 1813, owing to the Prince Regent’s refusal in October of the preceding year to allow the Princess to see her daughter, although she had gone specially to Windsor for that purpose. Furious at the insult, she wrote the letters referred to in the text to her husband and the Speaker of the House of Commons. A debate in that House ensued, and the letters and papers were referred to a Committee of the Privy Council, who reported that under the circumstances they considered that the intercourse between mother and daughter should be regulated and restricted.]