Some weeks ago, the Committee of Privileges of the House
of Lords, while dealing with the Berkeley Peerage case, ruled as inadmissible in evidence a communication addressed by the Prince Regent in 1812 to the widow of Lord Berkeley. Thiallocument has however, been sent to the papers, and was published in Friday's Times. The •following is• the most striking passage it contains :—" At the Prince's desire, the late Lord Thurlow went into a minute investigation of the marriage of 1785. His lordship directed the recording the evidence in the Court of Chancery. The Prince knows that Lord Thurlow was acquainted with the facts of Lord Berkeley having disowned his wife, of his having registered the baptism of the children in her maiden name, and that he had sworn himself a bachelor to obtain the licence for a second marriage. And when the Prince suggested to Lord Thurlow that it might be proper to put his Royal Highness's evidence upon record in the Court of Chancery, Lord Thurlow said -there was evidence recorded there sufficient to prove twenty marriages." While the whole matter is still sub judioe, it would be most improper to discuss the value of these state- ments, but the document is unquestionably a very curious one. The account it gives of the Prince lecturing Lord Berkeley on the impropriety of his conduct is not a little amusing.
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