Beschreibung:

AN APPEAL FOR ROYALTY. BEING A LETTER TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, FROM LAVINIA, PRINCESS OF CUMBERLAND AND DUCHESS OF LANCASTER, Second Edition, contemporary half calf, spine gilt, front cover missing, sepia photograph by Henry Dixon of Mrs Ryves laid down on front free endpaper, four page manuscript document signed "Olivia" and regarding Lavinia's claim of £4,000 on George Greville Earl of Warwick pasted onto frontispiece, wear to edges, yellowing and foxing to paper, splitting and tears to affixed document, hardback, 8vo, William Freeman, 1866. British painter and writer Olivia Serres (1772-1834) claimed the title of Princess Olive of Cumberland in 1817. She stated that her uncle James Wilmot had secretly married the princess Poniatowski, sister of King Stanislaus II of Poland, and their daughter had married the Duke of Cumberland in 1767. Olive claimed to be the only child of this marriage (making of Wilmot her grandfather rather than her uncle). Olivia's claim was supported by documents and in 1821, she had herself rebaptized as the daughter of the Duke of Cumberland at Islington Church. She also revealed her parentage in several letters to the newspapers. However, agents of the Royal family managed to locate her birth certificate. This, together with a statement from Princess Poniatowski that none of King Stanislaus's sisters had ever been to England allowed Sir Robert Peel then Home Secretary, to denounce her documents as forgeries in 1823. Olivia managed to escape the prosecution for forgery. Her elder daughter married the painter Antony Ryves. She upheld her mother's claims and styled herself Princess Lavinia of Cumberland. In 1866 she took her case into court, producing all the documents on which her mother had relied, but the jury, without waiting to hear the conclusion of the reply for the crown, unanimously declared the signatures to be forgeries.