The Creevey Papers
Lady Holland to Eleanor Creevey, [October? 1813]
“Holland House [no date, 1817].
“. . . I have seen few people and heard no news. . .
. Lt. Clifford (the Dss. of D.’s son*) is to marry Lord John Townshend’s 2nd daughter: Ld.
Clivton [sic] Miss
Poyntz. The report at Windsor is that Princess Charlotte is in a bad state of
health—a fixed pain in her side, for which she wears a perpetual blister;
and she is grown very large and is generally unwell. The Duke of York was so tipsy at [illegible]
that he fell down and was blooded immediately, and whilst the Queen was delivering her warlike manifesto,
the little Pss. was making game and turning her back upon her. . . . Poor
Courtenay has had a paralytick
stroke, and Nollekens the sculptor is
very ill from the same dreadful visitation. Ld.
Lauderdale’s eldest daughter was 8 days in labour of a
dead child, and was not out of danger when he wrote.”
Princess Charlotte Augusta (1796-1817)
The only child of George IV; she married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg in 1816 and died
in childbirth the following year.
Sir Augustus William James Clifford, first baronet (1788-1877)
The illegitimate son of William Cavendish, fifth duke of Devonshire, and Lady Elizabeth
Foster; educated at Harrow, he was a naval officer, MP for Bandon (1818-20, 1831-32) and
Dungarvan (1820-22), and Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod (1832-77).
John Courtenay (1738-1816)
Whig politician who supported Fox against Burke in the dispute over the French
Revolution; he wrote
Philosophical Reflections on the late Revolution in
France and the Conduct of the Dissenters in England (1790).
Frederick Augustus, Duke of York (1763-1827)
He was commander-in-chief of the Army, 1798-1809, until his removal on account of the
scandal involving his mistress Mary Anne Clarke.
James Maitland, eighth earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839)
Scottish peer allied with Charles James Fox; he was author of
An
Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, and into the Means and causes of
its Increase (1804) and other works on political economy.
Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823)
English sculptor whose subjects included David Garrick, Lawrence Sterne, Charles James
Fox, and William Pitt.
Henry Stewart, duke of Albany (1546-1567)
The second consort of Mary Queen of Scots and father of James VI and I; his murderers
have never been discovered.
Lord John Townshend (1757-1833)
The son of George Townshend, first Marquess Townshend; he was educated at Eton and St
John's College, Cambridge and was a Whig MP for Cambridge, Westminster, and Knaresborough.
He was a denizen of Holland House and Sheridan's literary executor.
