LETTER FROM THE QUEEN

TO THE KING.

you,

A sense of what is due to my character and sex forbids me to refer minutely to the real causes of our domestic separation, or to SIR,After the unparalleled the numerous unmerited insults and unprovoked persecution offered me previously to that! which, during a series of years, period; but, leaving to your has been carried on against me Majesty to reconcile with the under the name and authority marriage vow the act of driving, of your Majesty, and which per-by such means, a wife from besecution, instead of being mol-neath your roof, with an infánt lified by time, time has rendered in her arms, your Majesty will only more and more malignant permit me to remind that and unrelenting, it is not with-that act was entirely your own; out a great sacrifice of private that the separation, so far from feeling that I now, even in the being sought for by me, was a' way of remonstrance, bring my-sentence pronounced upon me, self to address this letter to your without any cause assigned, Majesty. But, bearing in mind other than that of your own inthat Royalty rests on the basis clinations, which, as your Maof public good; that to this pa-jesty was pleased to allege, were ramount consideration all others not under your r control. ought to submit; and aware of Not to have felt, with regard the consequences that may re-to myself, chagrin at this decisult from the present unconsti- sion of your Majesty, would tutional, illegal, and hitherto have argued great insensibility anheard-of proceedings; with to the obligations of decorum; á mind thus impressed, I cannot not to have dropped a tear in refrain from laying my grievous the face of that beloved child," Wrongs once more before your whose future sorrows were then Majesty, in the hope that the but too easy to foresee, would justice which your Majesty may, have marked me as unworthy of by evil-minded counsellors, be the name of mother; but, not still disposed to refuse to the to have submitted to it without claims of a dutiful, faithful, and repining would have indicated injured wife, you may be in-a consciousness of demerit, or a duced to yield to considerations want of those feelings which connected with the honour and belong to affronted and insulted dignity of your crown, the sta-female honour.

bility of your throne, the tran- The "tranquil and comfortquillity of your dominions, the able society" tendered to me by happiness and safety of your your Majesty formed, in my just and loyal people, whose mind, but a poor compensation generous hearts revolt at op- for the grief occasioned by conpression and cruelty, and espe-sidering the wound given to cially when perpetrated by a public morals in the fatal examperversion and a mockery of the ple produced by the indulgence" laws. d of your Majesty's inclinations;

more especially when I con-order of the father of my child, templated the disappointment and my natural as well as legal of the nation, who had so mu-guardian and protector? nificently provided for our union, Notwithstanding, however, who had fondly cherished such the unprecedented conduct of pleasing hopes of happiness aris- that tribunal; conduct which ing from that union, and who has since undergone, even in had hailed it with such affec- Parliament, severe and unantionate and rapturous joy. swered animadversions, and

But, alas! even tranquillity which has been also censured in and comfort were too much for the minutes of the Privy Council; me to enjoy. From the very notwithstanding the secrecy of threshold of your Majesty's man- the proceedings of this tribusion the mother of your child nal; notwithstanding the strong was pursued by spies, conspira- temptation to the giving of false tors, and traitors, employed, en-evidence against me before it; couraged, and rewarded to lay notwithstanding that there was snares for the feet, and to plot no opportunity afforded me of against the reputation and life, rebutting that evidence; notof her whom your Majesty had withstanding all these circumso recently and so solemnly vow-stances, so decidedly favourable ed to honour, to love, and to to my enemies, even this secret cherish. tribunal acquitted me of all crime, In withdrawing from the em- and thereby pronounced my prinbraces of my parents, in giving cipal accusers to have been guilty my hand to the son of George of the grossest perjury. But it the Third and the heir-apparent was now (after the trial was to the British throne, nothing over) discovered, that the nature less than a voice from Heaven of the tribunal was such as to would have made me fear injus-render false swearing before it tice or wrong of any kind.- not legally criminal! And thus, What, then, was my astonish-at the suggestion and request of ment at finding that treasons your Majesty, had been created, against me had been carried on to take cognizance of and try my and matured, perjuries against conduct, a tribunal competent to me had been methodized and administer oaths, competent to embodied, a secret tribunal had examine witnesses on oath, combeen held, a trial of my actions petent to try, competent to achad taken place, and a decision quit or condemn, and competent, had been made upon those ac-moreover, to screen those who tions, without my having been had sworn falsely against me informed of the nature of the from suffering the pains and pecharge, or of the names of the nalties which the law awards to witnesses? And what words can wilful and corrupt perjury. Great express the feelings excited by as my indignation naturally must the fact, that this proceeding have been at this shameful evawas founded on a request made,sion of law and justice, that inand on evidence furnished, by dignation was lost in pity for him

his industrious, faithful, and brave people, your royal fatherwould have perished at, the head of that people you of

who could lower his princely and to ensure my, humiliation, plumes to the dust by giving his You took to your councils and countenance and favour to the your bosom men whom you most conspicuous of those aban-hated, whose abandonment of, doned and notorious. perjurers. and whose readiness to sacrifice Still there was one whose me were their only merits, and upright mind nothing could whose power has been exer warp, in whose breast injustice cised in a manner, and has been never found a place, whose attended with consequences, hand was always ready, to raise worthy of its origin. From this the unfortunate, and to rescue unprincipled and unnaturalunion the oppressed. While that good have sprung the manifold eyils and gracious father and Sove-which this nation has now to reign remained in the exercise endure, and which present a of his royal functions, his un-mass of misery and, of degrada offending daughter-in-law had tion, accompanied with acts of nothing to fear. As long as the tyranny and cruelty, rather than protecting hand of your late have seen which inflicted on ever-beloved and ever-lamented father was held over me, I was safe. But the melancholy event which deprived the nation of the active exertions of its vir- When, to, calumniate, revile, tuous King, bereft me of friend and betray me, became the sure and protector, and of all hope path to honour and, riches, it of future tranquillity and safety. would have been strange indeed To calumniate your innocent if calumniators, revilers, and wife was now the shortest road traitors had not abounded. Your to royal favour; and to betray Court became much less a scene her was to lay the sure foun-of polished manners and reline dation of boundless riches and intercourse than of low intrigue titles of honour. Before claims and scurrility, Spies, Baccha Jike these, talent, virtue, long nalian tale-bearers, and foul. services, your own personal conspirators, swarmed in those, friendships, your royal engage-palaces which had before been ments, promises, and pledges, the resort of sobriety, virtue, written as well as verbal, melt-and honour. To enumerate all ed into air. Your cabinet was the various privations and morfounded on this basis. You took tifications which I had to ento your councils men, of whose dure, all the insults that were persons, as well as whose prin-wantonly heaped upon me, from ciples, you had invariably ex-the day of your elevation to the pressed the strongest dislike. Regency to that of my departure. The interest of the nation, and for the Continent, would be to even your own feelings, in all describe every species of perother respects, were sacrificed sonal offence that can be offered to the gratification of your de- to, and every pain short of sire to aggravate my sufferings, I bodily violence that can be, in

ficted on, any human being. Be-thers, and those mothers who reft of parent, brother, and father- have been suddenly bereft of in-law, and having my husband the best and most affectionate for my deadliest foe'; seeing and only daughters, it belongs those who have promised me to estimate my sufferings and support bought by rewards my wrongs, Such mothers will to be amongst my enemies; re-judge of my affliction upon hearstrained from accusing my foes (ing of the death of my child, in the face of the world, out of and upon my calling to recolregard for the character of the lection the last look, the last father of my child, and from a words, and all the affecting cirdesire to prevent her happiness cumstances of our separation. from being disturbed; shunned Such mothers will see the depth from motives of selfishness by of my sorrows. Every being those who were my natural as- with a heart of humanity in its sociates; living in obscurity, bosom will drop a tear of symwhile I ought to have been the pathy with me. And will not centre of all that was splendid; the world, then, learn with inthus humbled, I had one conso-dignation, that this event, callation left; the love of my dear culated to soften the hardest and only child. To permit me heart, was the signal for new to enjoy this was too great an conspiracies, and indefatigable indulgence. To see my daugh-efforts for the destruction of this ter; to fold her in my arms; to afflicted mother? Your Majesty mingle my tears with hers; to had torn my child from me; you receive her cheering caresses, had deprived me of the power and to hear from her lips assur- of being at hand to succour her; ances of never-ceasing love; you had taken from me the posthus to be comforted, consoled, sibility of hearing of her last upheld, and blessed, was too prayers for her mother; you much to be allowed me. Even saw me bereft, forlorn, and on the slave mart the cries of broken-hearted; and this was "Oh! my mother, my mother! the moment you chose for reOh! my child, my child!" have doubling your persecutions. prevented a separation of the Let the world pass its judgvictims of avarice. But your ment on the constituting of a advisers, more inhuman than commission, in a foreign counthe slave-dealer, remorselessly try, consisting of inquisitors, tore the mother from the child. spies, and informers, to discover, Thus bereft of the society of collect, and arrange matters of my child, or reduced to the ne-accusation against your wife, cessity of imbittering her life by without any complaint having struggles to preserve that socie-been communicated to her: let ty, I resolved on temporary ab- the world judge of the employsence, in the hope that time ment of ambassadors in such a might restore me to her in hap-business, and of the enlisting of pier days. Those days, alas! foreign courts in the enterprise: were never to come. To mo- but on the measures which have

been adopted to give final effect merely upon that report, have to these preliminary proceeed-brought forward a Bill containings it is for me to speak; it is ing the most outrageous slanders for me to remonstrate with your on me, and sentencing me to Majesty, it is for me to protest; divorce and degradation. it is for me to apprize you of my determination.

The injustice of putting forth this Bill to the world for six weeks before it is even proposed to afford me an opportunity of contradicting its allegations is too manifest not to have shocked the nation; and, indeed, the proceedings even thus far are such as to convince every one that no justice is intended me. But if none of these proceedings, The injustice of refusing me a if none of these clear indications clear and distinct charge, of re- of a determination to do me fusing me the names of the wit-wrong had taken place, I should nesses, of refusing me the names see, in the constitution of the of the places where the illegal House of Lords itself, a certainty acts have been committed; these that I could expect no justice at are sufficiently flagrant and re-its hands. volting; but it is against the con- Your Majesty's ministers have stitution of the Court itself that advised this prosecution; they I particularly object, and against are responsible for the advice that I most solemnly protest.. they give; they are liable to puWhatever may be the prece-nishment if they fail to make dents as to Bills of Pains and Penalties, none of them, except those relating to the Queen of Henry the Eighth, can apply here; for here your Majesty is the plaintiff. Here it is intended by the Bill to do what you deem good to you, and to do me great harm. You are, therefore, a party, and the only complaining party.

I have always demanded a fair trial. This is what I now demand, and this is refused me. Instead of a fair trial, I am to be subjected to a sentence by the Parliament, passed in the shape of a law. Against this I protest, and upon the following grounds:

good their charges; and not only are they part of my judges, but it is they who have brought in the Bill; and it is too notorious that they have always a majority in the House; so that, without any other, here is ample proof that the House will decide in favour of the Bill, and, of course, against me.

But, further, there are reaYou have made your com-sons for your ministers having a plaint to the House of Lords. majority in this case, and which You have conveyed to this reasons do not apply to common House written documents sealed cases. Your Majesty is the up. A secret committee of the plaintiff to you it belongs to House have examined these do-appoint and to elevate Peers. cuments. They have reported Many of the present Peers have that there are grounds of pro-been raised to that dignity by ceeding; and then the House, yourself, and almost the whole

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