Diplomatic Text
My Dear Miʃs Hamilton
I beg you will present my humble
Duty to her Majesty & inform her, that I have not
been able to get any Intelligence about the Dutcheʃs
of Ancaster, Lady Caroline Egerton had heard nothing
but the Meʃsage from the Houʃe that she was as
well as could be expected, from which at least one
may conclude she has hitherto escaped the In-
-fection.[1] Their Royl. Highneʃses here are all per-
-fectly well & send their Duty, they did me the
honour of breakfasting with me this Morning in
my Garden, & I have now just taken my Leave
of them. I have rejoiced in this fine Day for
their Majesties at Windsor, the Terrace must have
been delightful. The Gardens here have been
as full as poʃsible, & amongst the Company I
heard of Lord Shelburne & his Future, they are to be married
on Wednesday next.[2] I hope your sweet little Royal Trio are
well & beg my Duty to them. believe me ever my Dear Miʃs Hamn.
Most faithfully yrs.
CFinch
Kew. Sunday Night ½ past ten.
[3]
Lady C. Finch June 1779[4]
Queens Lodge
Windsor
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The Duchess's son Robert Bertie, 4th Duke of Ancaster, died of scarlet fever on 7 July 1779.
2. On Monday 19 July 1779, Lord Shelburne married, as his second wife, Louisa Fitzpatrick.
3. The page has been cut, which suggests the removal of a seal.
4. This annotation appears vertically along the left margin.
Normalised Text
My Dear Miss Hamilton
I beg you will present my humble
Duty to her Majesty & inform her, that I have not
been able to get any Intelligence about the Duchess
of Ancaster, Lady Caroline Egerton had heard nothing
but the Message from the House that she was as
well as could be expected, from which at least one
may conclude she has hitherto escaped the Infection
. Their Royal Highnesses here are all perfectly
well & send their Duty, they did me the
honour of breakfasting with me this Morning in
my Garden, & I have now just taken my Leave
of them. I have rejoiced in this fine Day for
their Majesties at Windsor, the Terrace must have
been delightful. The Gardens here have been
as full as possible, & amongst the Company I
heard of Lord Shelburne & his Future, they are to be married
on Wednesday next. I hope your sweet little Royal Trio are
well & beg my Duty to them. believe me ever my Dear Miss Hamilton
Most faithfully yours
Charlotte Finch
Kew. Sunday Night ½ past ten.
Queens Lodge
Windsor
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/12/10
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: Kew
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Windsor
Date sent: June 1779
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. She asks Hamilton to present her duty to the Queen and inform her that she has been unable to find any information on the Duchess of Ancaster. Lady Caroline Egerton has not heard anything 'but the message from the House that she was as well as could be expected, from which at least one may conclude she has hitherto escaped the infection'.
Finch reports that their Royal Highnesses are well and that she has just taken leave of them. She is pleased that it has been such fine day and writes that the King and Queen must have found the Terrace delightful. The gardens have been full and amongst the company there she has heard that Lord Shelbourne is to be married in a week's time. Finch ends her letter with her hopes that Hamilton's 'Royal trio' are well.
Dated at Kew.
Length: 1 sheet, 188 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.
Transliterator: Cassandra Ulph, editorial team (completed 21 April 2020)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 2 November 2021