Autograph Notes from 3 of Queen Caroline's Defense Attorneys.
Souvenirs of a Royal Divorce Trial: Lady Denman Apparently Giving to a Friend Examples of the Hands of Three of the Main Figures on Queen Caroline's Legal Defence Team, Including An Example of the Hand of Her Husband, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench [Manuscript Archive]. [Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort (1768-1821)]. [Autograph Notes from 3 of Queen Caroline's Defense Attorneys].2 pair of manuscripts, one 7-1/4" x 4-1/2," (18.4 x 11.4 cm) the other 8" x 6-1/2" (20.3 x 16.5 cm), which bear the hands of three chief figures of the legal team for Queen Caroline, the pair of MSS apparently having been given by Lady Denman to a Mrs. Impey in 1833, with a covering MS leaf, 9" x 7-1/2" (22.8 x 19 cm) whose recto gives the addressee's name likely in Lady Denman's hand, above which is an endorsement likely in Mrs. Impey's hand. Typed transcripts included. Light edgewear and soiling, fold lines, very good condition overall. $1,000. * A little more than a decade earlier, Denman had been one of the lead counsel on the defence team of Queen Caroline, and had been conspicuously brilliant thereon. Mrs. Impey appears to have been sufficiently entranced with the celebrity of the defence team more than a decade later that she showed interest in having relics, examples of the hands, of three of the main figures on the team: Thomas Denman (1779-1854), later Lord Chief Justice; Henry Brougham (1778-1868), later Lord Chancellor; and Sir John Williams (1777-1846), later Puisne Justice at the Court of King's Bench. This desire was answered in full by Lady Denman, who provided examples of the hands for Mrs. Impey, whereupon Impey carefully annotated the group with headnotes for posterity. This is possibly the earliest example to survive of an autograph hunter seeking specifically autographs of a legal defence team from any trial: we are not aware of an earlier instance. The trial was a landmark in legal history, and this clutch of autographs may well be a landmark in the history of the collecting of legal manuscripts.
Price: $1,000.00
Book number 85897