Gella Substitute Proctor of the Right Honourable Elizabeth Countess of Banbury alias Elizabeth Price together with his Original Proxy We have with all willingness received and with like Diligence ordered Proceedings to be made upon the Contents thereof according to the Form of the same in the best way We could And whereas by reason of an Indisposition We could not go out of Our Episcopal Palace to Examine Witnesses and make these Proceedings We deputed the said Episcopal Palace to be the proper Tribunal but took Care nevertheless that Notice should be given at the Doors of the Parish Church of St. Quiric and Julich and of the Episcopal Palace and of Our Cathedral Church of Verona to the Right Honourable Charles Knolls Earl of Banbury and Elizabeth Litster and their Proctors But no body appearing notwithstanding their Contumacy We thought fit to proceed though not without some Doubts because the Interrogatories of the Party which in the Letters Remissorial were said to be Annexed and Sealed came not to Vs nor Our Tribunal But nevertheless considering the straitness of the Time and importance of this Cause We Ex officio out of Respect to Justice supplying that Defect gave Interrogatories by the stile of Court and having assumed a Notary specially required We took the Depositions of the Witnesses upon their Oaths with all Care Faithfulness and Integrity All which being faithfully reduced into Writing and closed sealed and opened unto none We remit to your Worship with these Presents But whereas some necessary Witnesses named to prove some Articles contained in the Libel are at present in very distant Cities to wit the Reverend Father Decius Gasparinus of the Society of Jesus is in the City of Faccia and the Reverend Father Francis Donati of the same Society is at the City of Bononia in Italy and others are in the City of Mantua so that they could not appear before Vs We considering the Necessity thereof Have requested the Right Reverend the Bishops of Ordinaries of these parts to take the Depositions of the same Witnesses in Form The Articles and Interrogatories being sent to them for that purpose whose Rescripts We expecting did not think fit to send this Our Proceeding without them Nevertheless lest they should not Arrive before the time assigned in the Letters Remissorial We have sent these Presents together with the said Proceeding written in Ninety Nine Leaves and Subscribed by Vs reduced into Valid and Authentick Form closed and sealed The Libel Additional Article and Authentick Certificate to Vs with the Letters of the said Court formerly presented being inserted to the End That as soon as may be they may be faithfully Exhibited to your Worship But as soon as ever We shall receive the Rescripts of the said Right Reverend Bishops and Depositions of the Witnesses residing in those Parts of Italy We will take Care in like manner to Transmit them under Seal For We promoting Justice willingly Imploy Our Office in a Thing so agreeable to Law and whenever Occasion shall be shall use your Worship with all Good Will and Favour Given at Verona from Our Episcopal Palace Saturday the 18 th of September in the Year of our Lord 1694. and Second Year of the Pope Having given an Account by the preceeding Letter of the Care that was taken in the Examinations I shall in the next place make an Exact Abridgment of all the Foreign Depositions except that of the Arch-priests that married us But his Evidence I shall transcribe at large Word for Word as it was taken in order to instruct the Reader in the Method that was used in taking the Depositions of all the rest of the Witnesses that were examined by Virtue of the Commission directed to the Arch-bishop of Verona and the Arch-priests Deposition is in manner and form following On Saturday in the Morning the 11th Day of September 1694. Before the most Illustrious and most Reverend Father in Christ and Lord Peter Leon by the Grace of God and the Apostolick See Bishop of Verona and Count c. and in this present Cause Judge on the Commission c. in the Chamber of his Residence in the Palace John Baptist Picolati Arch-Priest appeared personally the Reverend John Baptist Picolati of Verona Son of Francisco Doctor of Laws Arch-priest of the Parish-Church of St Quirico and Julica of this City aged as he said and by Aspect appeared Fifty One Years a Witness produced and cited by the Messenger as by his Report c. and brought to be examined on the first second and additional Articles contained in their Libel who being admonished to speak the Truth as well upon the Interrogations as upon the Articles and all this present Cause without Hatred Fear Love Gain c. and being sworn as he did swear with his Hand on the Holy Evangelists in the Hands of his said Reverence to the needful Interrogations he said and deposed as follows speaking in the Italian Tongue And first to the Admonition given him about the Weight of an Oath the Penalty of Perjury and the Importance of this Cause he answered I do very well know the Obligation of an Oath and I shall say nothing but the Truth To the first of the general Interrogatories being interrogated his Name Surname Father Country and Employment he answered I have already declared my Name Surname Age Father Country and Degree of Arch-priest and Employment as Parish-Priest Being asked if he knoweth the Noble Lord Charles Knolls Earl of Banbury and the Noble Lady Elizabeth Price Countess of Banbury he answered I know them no otherways than only that once they came to my Parochial House of St. Quirico and Julica to be married by the Bishop's Licence and upon that Occasion I knew their Names first by Father Decio Gasparini Rector of the Jesuits in Company with Father Donati Reader of Philosophy who came before them to give me Notice and a little time after the said Lord and Lady came and then they gave me their Names that is the Gentleman said his Name was Charles Knolls Earl of Banbury and the Lady Elizabeth Price both of England Being interrogated If he be a Friend related by Consanguinity Affinity Debtor or Creditor of the Parties He answered No I did never see nor was acquainted with them afterwards only upon the Occasion abovementioned Being interrogated if he did know what this present Cause was about and what he thinketh of it he answered As I have heard and by the many Attestations that I have made in Writing about this Cause I suppose that it is about the Validity of this Marriage between the said Parties the English Lord and Lady and as to my Sentiment I do hold the Marriage to be valid and lawful I having duely interrogated both Parties If they were willing to enter into this Matrimony according to the Rites of the Holy Roman Catholick Church and they both answered Yes The Latin Words signifie in English According to the Rite
THE TRUE Countess of Banbury's CASE Relating to Her MARRIAGE RIGHTLY STATED IN A LETTER TO THE Lord BANBURY LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCVI ERRATA PAge 1. between the Words elsewhere and with all the Virulence Read tho' Page 27. these Lines The very next ensuing Paragraph will explain the meanning and give you the reason of his writing this Letter following Should have come in after the Letter in p. 28. THE Countess of Banbury's CASE MY LORD THE Esteem Duty and Affection I have ever had for your Lordship since our Marriage and the first Assurances of Love and Friendship between us has hitherto restrained me from doing my self right in any publick Vindication of my Honour and the Justice of my Cause to the World Because in so doing I must necessarily have exposed your Lordship to such a Degree that you your self must have joined in Opinion with your Fellow-Peers even against your self that is to say That in denying you the Honour and Privilege of Sitting with them in Parliament The Refusal was both Righteous and Reasonable and such was the Tenderness I had for your Lordship's Honour and good Name that I should have kept my self still within these Bounds if the causless and the calumnious Bitterness of your Proceedings against me had not made this Defence necessary As to the Falseness and Injustice of your Pretensions it was sufficiently laid open in the Respective Courts of Chancery King's Bench and elsewhere with all the Virulence of personal Reflections upon me that ill Nature ill Manners could put together and ill Instructed Lawyers invent Yet had not you publickly owned Mrs. Litster by Cohabitation Quartering of Arms Christening of Children by Great and Noble Persons and by their Countenance given the World a strong Presumption of Marriage with her and consequently of disclaiming your Marriage with me though most notoriously Solemnized and Licensed upon your Lordship's taking your Oath and the Holy Sacrament That you were a single Man and free from all Contracts of Marriage with any other Person whatsoever And lastly had not your Lordship with all Industry protracted and kept off the Judgment and Sentence ready to be pronounced in Doctors Commons by appealing to a Court of Delegats because the Dean of the Arches would not admit contrary to all Law Reason and Practice your Mistriss to say no more for a Witness in her own Cause to swear her self a Countess and her Bastard-Children Legitimates by which means the Sentence was deferred for at least Six Months longer I say my Lord had it not been this together with the Insupportable Expences you daily and almost hourly put upon me the Indignities and Affronts you perpetually expose me to I should perhaps have suffered patiently under the heavy Load of all the chargeable Miseries that your faithless Inhumanity hath undeservedly cast upon me But being now fully convinced by the Obstinacy and Iniquity of your Proceedings that there is no Hope left me of recovering your causlesly lost Affections your Lordship must forgive me if at last I repair to the regular Ways of maintaining that which your Lordship cannot take from me that is the Honour you conferred upon me by our Intermarriage We are all mortal My Lord and both of us may die before a Sentence of Law pass and therefore for fear of the worst I have here drawn up a true and impartial Narrative of all the Proceedings between your Lordship and my self relating to our Marriage from the Day you and your Family came first to my House appealing to your own Conscience upon the Truth of every Syllable I deliver with the Manner and Proofs of it submitting my self upon the whole matter to the Judgment of God and the World If any thing bear hard upon your Lordship your Wife's Honour my Lord is at Stake and this Defence is in some sort a Duty to your Lordship in the Right of your Wife Your Lordship well knows that about August 1689. you took my House in the Pall-mall and brought your Sister the Lady Katharine with all your Family thither and at that time you were taken for a single Man by your own Servants and Relations You wanted nothing then but a Wife and to supply that Want you were pleased to make Applications to me Upon this Address I was so far prevailed upon as to break off a Match in a manner agreed upon by the Consent of all my Friends with a Gentleman not inferiour in Fortune to your Lordship and moreover to oblige my self in the most solemn Vows and Promises of Marriage to your Lordship and in order to Consummation of the Marriage your Lordship perswaded me to go into France to have it celebrated there Pursuant to that Agreement in December 1689. your Lordship carried me and my Sister Brownsworth privately to Dover Mrs. Hanah Brownsworth and prevailed with her to go over with me to Calis sending your Plate Clothes and some of your Servants to attend me till you could come your self assuring me upon parting That you would dispatch your Business in England and come over with all the speed you could But your Affairs so fell out that your Lordship did not come to Paris till May following where you may remember you found me in a Monastery and received and treated me with all the Respect and Endearments of a most affectionate Husband and though we were not formally married suffered me yet to take your Title upon me and wrote Letters to me your self as Countess of Banbury All this is fully proved in Court I shall not trouble your Lordship or the Reader with the History of our-Travels and the manner of our living in France but pass over that and all other Actions between us till by your Lordship's Order I came into Italy and met with your Lordship there How your Lordship treated me at Mantua Verona and other places in Italy will appear by your own Letters and Proofs herein truly recited whereby it is proved That about Easter 1692. I was carried by your Lordship from Mantua to Verona and there solemnly married to you And for further Satisfaction I shall desire the Reader 's leave in the first place to inform him how careful they were in taking the Foreign Depositions and Proofs of my Marriage with your Lordship and for that purpose I shall insert a true Copy of the Archbishop of Verona's Letter who is likewise a temporal Prince to Doctor Oxenden Dean and Judge in the Cause between us Word for Word as it is registred in the Arches and it is as follows We PETER LEON by the Grace of God and the Holy Apostolick See Bishop of Verona and Count c. To our Beloved in Christ the Right Worshipful George Oxenden Dr. of Laws Official Principal of the Arches Court of Canterbury lawfully Constituted or his Surrogator Health c. YOur Letters Remissorial of the Second day of April last past directed to Vs by your Worship and actually presented by Mr. Francis
to Pompeio's and there lived in the same manner And he says That in April 1692. the Earl invited him and his Brother and Wife to a Dinner which he prepared in memory of the Birth-day of the Lady Elizabeth desiring us to bring some other Gentry along with us which we did and there they were openly and publickly saluted as Husband and Wife and taken as such by all the Gentry for that otherways they would not have come to the Feast And deposes That he travelled with them towards Paris and saw and read their Pass from the King of France as Husband and Wife and after parting there came Letters from the Earl directed to the said Lady Elizabeth which I saw with this exact Superscription A Madama Madam La Countesse de Banbury and says That the Duke of Mantua honoured them with costly Presents when they left Mantua and upon the Earl's Request gave him the deponent Leave to travel with them into France and saw several Letters directed to her as Countess of Banbury Pompeio the Merchant from the Earl and other Persons The last Foreign Witness is Mr. Pompeio the Merchant at whose House they lived in Mantua And he swears That he knew the Earl and Lady That they came from the House of Seignior Antonio Pavesio Treasurer to the Duke's Houshold and there continued for three Months so that he had Converse with them and served them with what they had occasion for and took them for Husband and Wife and they treated each other as such were so held and reputed by their Serene Highnesses For that our most Serene Dutchess did always admit my Lady to be her Companion and to play with her in her Court I could have produced several more Witnesses if it had been needful besides authentick Attestations and Certificates Amongst many others that are Register'd in Doctors Commons I shall conclude my Foreign Concern with the Two following Attestations which surely make a compleat and full Proof of my Marriage WE Peter Leon by the Grace of God and the Apostolick See Bishop of Verona and Count c. To all to whom this present Process shall come do certifie for undoubted Truth and attest That all the Premises in this present Process contained were written and subscribed with the proper Hand of the Vnder-written Notary by us specially deputed in this present Cause and that the Acts and Examinations of the Witnesses were had and taken before us in our Presence In Faith and Testimony whereof we have thought fit to put hereunto this our Attestation and we have subscribed the same with our own Hand and ordered the great Seal of our Bishoprick to be hereunto put Given in Verona from our Episcopal Palace on Friday the Seventeenth Day of September 1694. Sec. Jud. Petrus Episcopus Veronensis I Bernard Roveti Son of Francis of Ponte Petro in Verona Publick Notary by the Venetian Authority and Clerk of the Bishop's Court in this present Cause specially deputed by the most Illustrious and Reverend Father in Christ and Lord Petro Leone Bishop of Verona and Count c. Do attest That I as Notary thereunto required was present at all and singular the Premises and did faithfully write with my own Hand in valid and authentick Form this present Process consisting of Ninety Nine Leaves In Witness c. Having given an Account of what was done abroad I shall now proceed to give the Reader a short and punctual Relation of what passed in my own Cause afterwards My Lord parted with me at Nona in Italy and ordered me for France when he parted from me assuring me That he would go and settle his Affairs in England with all the Care and Speed he could and come to me at Paris as soon as his Affairs would permit And accordingly I went to Paris where I stayed until September in which time having spent that small Provision my Lord left me and himself neither coming nor sending me any Supply my Equipage and Character having drawn me also to a more than ordinary Expence I was driven to great Streights to support my self And being informed That Mrs. Bowtel who then lived in a Monastery there under the Care and Government of Father Sherburne President of the English Benedictines had received a considerable Summ of Money I was forced to apply my self to her for Money to discharge the Debts I had contracted and to carry me into England and by the Approbation of Father Sherburne I did borrow a Hundred Pound of her and prevailed with her to come with me for England and for our better Conveniency in travelling she did procure a Pass both for me and her self in the Names of Ridley which was her Mother's Maiden Name designing to conceal my self as well in England as in my Travel till I understood my Lord's Resolutions touching the Disposition he intended to make of himself and me and with that Pass we travelled and came to London to my Sister Brownsworth's House and immediately dispatched a Servant to my Lord. Upon this Message he came to me without any Delay and entertained me with the greatest Tenderness imaginable But having at that time a purpose to sell his Estate he desired me to conceal my being in Town and not to appear at present under the Character of his Wife but to pass still by the Name of Ridley to which in Obedience I submitted and this Disguise was the Source of all the miseries that have since befallen me For had I but published my Marriage instead of this Complaince Mrs. Litster had never been heard of under any other Character but that of a Mistress Unfortunate Mr. Lawson in all Probability still living and your Lordship clear and free from Crimes That out of the Respect I still retain for your Lordship I will not mention at this time The vast Expences in Law had been saved and your Lordship undoubtedly much Richer without your Mistress and the Summs you borrowed of her upon your Plate and Jewels long after your pretended Marriage with her And when you lived publickly with me and owned me for your Wife as by your Letter to your Steward Palmer proved in the Cause and confessed by your Lordship most evidently appears And when the Reader shall have perused your Lordship's own Letters and considered the further Proofs I hope he will be of the same Opinion For I am resolved to keep my Word and alledge nothing in this Paper but what is proved by undeniable Testimony or by your own Letters and Confession and therefore I am now to acquaint the Reader That from the time of my Return to England his Lordship lived with me in the most affectionate manner imaginable until he went to visit his Sister the Lady Katharine at Thistleworth And in order to satisfie all Mankind and confirm them in the Truth of what I write it seems necessary for me to give the Reader an Account of my Lord's Behaviour to me when he was first taken after the