famous imposter 7

famous imposter 7

Robert Wilmot, the house-painter, had an elder brother James who became

a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and went into the Church, taking

his degree of Doctor of Divinity. Through his College he was presented

in 1781 to the living of Barton-on-the-heath, Warwickshire. The

Statutes of his College contained a prohibition against marriage whilst

a Fellow. James Wilmot D. D. died in 1807 leaving his property between

the two children of Robert, after life-use by his brother. James and

Robert Wilmot had a sister Olive, who was born in 1728 and married in

1754 to William Payne with issue one daughter, Olivia, born in 1759.

Robert Wilmot died in 1812.

 

[Illustration: OLIVIA SERRES]

 

Out of these rough materials Mrs. Olive Serres set herself in due

course to construct and carry out, as time and opportunity allowed,

and as occasions presented themselves and developed, a fraudulent

romance in real life and action. She was, however, a very clever

woman and in certain ways--as was afterwards proved by her literary and

artistic work--well dowered by nature for the task--crooked though it

was--which she set for herself. Her ability was shown not only by what

she could do and did at this time of her life, but by the manner in

which she developed her natural gifts as time went on. In the sum of

her working life, in which the perspective of days becomes merged in

that of years, she touched on many subjects, not always of an ordinary

kind, which shewed often that she was of conspicuous ability, having

become accomplished in several branches of art. She was a painter of

sufficient merit to have exhibited her work in the Royal Academy in

1794 and to be appointed landscape-painter to the Prince of Wales in

1806. She was a novelist, a press writer, an occasional poet and in

many ways of a ready pen. She was skilled in some forms of occultism,

and could cast horoscopes; she wrote, in addition to a pamphlet on

the same subject, a book on the writings of Junius, claiming to have

discovered the identity of the author--none other than James Wilmot

D. D. She wrote learnedly on disguised handwriting. In fact she touched

on the many phases of literary effort which come within the scope of

those who live by the work of their brains. Perhaps, indeed, it was

her facility as a writer that helped to lead her astray; for in her

practical draughtsmanship and in her brain teeming with romantic ideas

she found a means of availing herself of opportunities suggested by

her reckless ambition. Doubtless the cramped and unpoetic life of her

humble condition in the house-painter’s home in Warwick made her fret

and chafe under its natural restraint. But when she saw her way to

an effective scheme of enlarging her self-importance she acted with

extraordinary daring and resource. As is usual with such natures,

when moral restraints have been abandoned, the pendulum swung to

its opposite. As she had been lowly she determined to be proud; and

having fixed on her objective began to elaborate a consistent scheme,

utilising the facts of her own surroundings as the foundation of her

imposture. She probably realised early that there must be a base

somewhere, and so proceeded to manufacture or arrange for herself a new

identity into which the demonstrable facts of her actual life could be

wrought. At the same time she manifestly realised that in a similar

way fact and intention must be interwoven throughout the whole of

her contemplated creation. Accordingly she created for herself a new

_milieu_ which she supported by forged documents of so clever a conceit

and such excellent workmanship, that they misled all who investigated

them, until they came within the purview of the great lawyers of the

day whose knowledge, logical power, skill and determination were

arrayed against her. By a sort of intellectual metabolism she changed

the identities and conditions of her own relations whom I have

mentioned, always taking care that her story held together in essential

possibilities, and making use of the abnormalities of those whose

prototypes she introduced into fictional life.

 

The changes made in her world of new conditions were mainly as follows:

Her uncle, the Reverend James, who as a man of learning and dignity

was accustomed to high-class society, and as a preacher of eminence

occasionally in touch with Crown and Court, became her father; and she

herself the child of a secret marriage with a great lady whose personal

rank and condition would reflect importance on her daughter. But proof,

or alleged proof, of some kind would be necessary and there were too

many persons at present living whose testimony would be available

for her undoing. So her uncle James shifted his place and became

her grandfather. To this the circumstances of his earlier life gave

credibility in two ways; firstly because they allowed of his having

made a secret marriage, since he was forbidden to marry by the statutes

of his college, and secondly because they gave a reasonable excuse for

concealing his marriage and the birth of a child, publicity regarding

which would have cost him his livelihood.

 

At this point the story began to grow logically, and the whole scheme

to expand cohesively. Her genius as a writer of fiction was being

proved; and with the strengthening of the intellectual nature came

the atrophy of the moral. She began to look higher; and the seeds of

imagination took root in her vanity till the madness latent in her

nature turned wishes into beliefs and beliefs into facts. As she was

imagining on her own behoof, why not imagine beneficially? This all

took time, so that when she was well prepared for her venture things

had moved on in the nation and the world as well as in her fictitious

romance. Manifestly she could not make a start on her venture until

the possibility vanished of witnesses from the inner circle of her

own family being brought against her; so that she could not safely

begin machinations for some time. She determined however to be ready

when occasion should serve. In the meantime she had to lead two lives.

Outwardly she was Olive Serres, daughter of Robert Wilmot born in 1772

and married in 1791, and mother of two daughters. Inwardly she was

the same woman with the same birth, marriage and motherhood, but of

different descent being (imaginatively) grand-daughter of her (real)

uncle the Rev. James Wilmot D. D. The gaps in the imaginary descent

having been thus filled up as made and provided in her own mind, she

felt more safe. Her uncle--so ran her fiction--had early in his college

life met and become friends with Count Stanislaus Poniatowski who later

became by election King of Poland. Count Poniatowski had a sister--whom

the ingenious Olive dubbed “Princess of Poland”--who became the wife

of her uncle (now her grandfather) James. To them was born, in 1750,

a daughter Olive, the marriage being kept secret for family reasons,

and the child for the same reason being passed off as the offspring of

Robert the housepainter. This child Olive, according to the fiction,

met His Royal Highness Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, brother

of the King, George III. They fell in love with each other and were

privately married--by the Rev. James Wilmot D. D.--on 4 March 1767.

They had issue one daughter, Olive, born at Warwick 3 April 1772. After

living with her for four years the Duke of Cumberland deserted his

wife, who was then pregnant, and in 1771 married--bigamously, it was

alleged--Lady Anne Horton, sister of Colonel Luttrell, daughter of Lord

Irnham, and widow of Andrew Horton of Catton, Derbyshire. The (alleged)

Royal Duchess died in France in 1774, and the Duke in 1790.

 

Thus fact and fiction were arrayed together in a very cunning way.

The birth of Olive Wilmot (afterwards Serres) in 1772 was proved by a

genuine registry. Likewise that of her daughter Mrs. Ryves. For all the

rest the certificates were forged. Moreover there was proof of another

Olive Wilmot whose existence, supported by genuine registration, might

avert suspicion; since it would be difficult to prove after a lapse of

time that the Olive Wilmot born at Warwick in 1772 daughter of Robert

(the house-painter), was not the granddaughter of James (the Doctor of

Divinity). In case of necessity the real date (1759) of the birth of

Olive Wilmot sister of the Rev. James could easily be altered to the

fictitious date of the birth of “Princess” Olive born 1750.

 

It was only in 1817 that Mrs. Serres began to take active measures for

carrying her imposture into action; and in the process she made some

tentative efforts which afterwards made difficulty for her. At first

she sent out a story, through a memorial to George III, that she was

daughter of the Duke of Cumberland by Mrs. Payne, wife of Captain Payne

and sister of James Wilmot D. D. This she amended later in the same

year by alleging that she was a natural daughter of the Duke by the

sister of Doctor Wilmot, whom he had seduced under promise of marriage.

It was not till after the deaths of George III and the Duke of Kent in

1820, that the story took its third and final form.

 

It should be noticed that care was taken not to clash with laws already

in existence or to run counter to generally received facts. In 1772 was

passed the Royal Marriage Act (12 George III Cap. 11) which nullified

any marriage contracted with anyone in the succession to the Crown to

which the Monarch had not given his sanction. Therefore Mrs. Serres

had fixed the (alleged) marriage of (the alleged) Olive Wilmot with

the Duke of Cumberland as in 1767--five years earlier--so that the

Act could not be brought forward as a bar to its validity. Up to 1772

such marriages could take place legally. Indeed there was actually a

case in existence--the Duke of Gloucester (another brother of the King)

having married the dowager Countess of Waldegrave. It was of common

repute that this marriage was the motive of the King’s resolve to have

the Royal Marriage Act added to the Statute book. At the main trial it

was alleged by Counsel, in making the petitioner’s claim, that the King

(George III) was aware of the Duke of Cumberland’s marriage with Olive

Wilmot, although it was not known to the public, and that when he heard

of his marriage with Lady Anne Horton he was very angry and would not

allow them to come to Court.

 

The various allegations of Mrs. Serres as to her mother’s marriage were

not treated seriously for a long time but they were so persisted in

that it became necessary to have some denial in evidence. Accordingly a

law-case was entered. One which became a _cause célèbre_. It began in

1866--just about a hundred years from the time of the alleged marriage.

With such a long gap the difficulties of disproving Mrs. Serres’

allegations were much increased. But there was no help for it; reasons

of State forbade the acceptance or even the doubt of such a claim. The

really important point was that if by any chance the claimant should

win, the Succession would be endangered.

 

The presiding judge was the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Cockburn. With

him sat Lord Chief Baron Pollock and the Judge Ordinary Sir James

Wilde. There was a special jury. The case took the form of one in the

English Probate Court made under the “Legitimacy Declaration Act.” In

this case, Mrs. Ryves, daughter of Mrs. Serres, was the petitioner.

Associated with her in the claim was her son, who, however, is of no

interest in the matter and need not be considered. The petition stated

that Mrs. Ryves was the legitimate daughter of one John Thomas Serres

and Olive his wife, the said Olive being, whilst living, a natural-born

subject and the legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick, Duke of

Cumberland and Olive Wilmot, his wife. That the said Olive Wilmot, born

in 1750, was lawfully married to His Royal Highness Henry Frederick,

Duke of Cumberland, fourth son of Frederick Prince of Wales (thus being

grandson of George II and brother of King George III), on 4 March 1767,

at the house of Thomas, Lord Archer, in Grosvenor Square, London, the

marriage being performed by the Rev. James Wilmot D. D., father of the

said Olive Wilmot. That a child, Olive, was born to them on 3 April

1772, who in 1791 was married to John Thomas Serres. And so on in accordance with the (alleged) facts above given.