The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 1 September 1820
“House of Lords, 2 o’clock, 1st Sept., 1820.
The chienne Demont† turns out
everything one could wish on her cross-examination. Her letters have been
produced written to her sister living still in the Queen’s service. . . . They contain every kind of
panegyric upon the Queen, and she often writes of a journal or diary she has
kept of everything that has occurred during the whole of her service and
travels
* George IV. was
hereditary sovereign of Hanover as well as of Great Britain and
Ireland. † Former femme-de-chambre to the Princess of Wales
(Queen Caroline), an
important witness for the prosecution. |
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| 1819-20.] | LOUISE DEMONT. | 315 |
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with the Queen; the object of such
journal being, as she says, to do the Queen justice, and to show how she was
received, applauded, cherished, wherever she went. At length she
writes—‘Judge of my astonishment at an event that happened
to me the other day. A person called upon me at Lausanne, and said he
wished to speak to me alone. I brought him up into my chamber: he gave me a
letter: I broke the seal. It was a request that I would come immediately to
England under the pretext of being a governess: that I should have the
first protection: that it would make my fortune. True it is, there was no
signature to the letter, but as a proof of its validity I had an immediate
credit given me on a banker.’ The Attorney-General here objected to this evidence. . . .”
“½ past 3.
“The House put a question to the Judges whether
these letters could be read in evidence, and they decided they could not unless
Demont admitted them to be her handwriting. They have
just been put into her hands, and she has admitted them all to be hers. . .
.”
“5 o’clock.
“Adjourned . . . a most infernally damaging day for
the prosecution. . . .”
Queen Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1768-1821)
Married the Prince of Wales in 1795 and separated in 1796; her husband instituted
unsuccessful divorce proceedings in 1820 when she refused to surrender her rights as
queen.
Robert Gifford, first Baron Gifford (1779-1826)
Barrister, educated at the Middle Temple, he practiced on the western circuit and was
Tory MP for Eye (1817-24), attorney general (1819-24), and lord chief justice of the common
pleas (1824).
