Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/82/1

Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


1

My Drst: Ms H
      Yo. made me last night ye. happiest of Men by taking off Yr. Gloves, & by letting me see
that yo. had that Ring upon yr. Finger wch. I had ye. honor of presenting yo. wth-. We were at  ------  to
day, & I beg yo. will inform my ——[1] (as if  ------ [2] had only brought yo. a meʃsage from me; not mentioning
a word of my having writ to yo)[3] That A & M[4] are still very well, & that they desired me to present
their love to them.  ------  also desired me to return yo. & A & M thanks for ye. long Letters you had been
so good as to write to her. Adieu dear Ms H. & pray let that ring continue to be a constant companion
of yrs. as a token of yr. esteem & affection towards me, & believe me that I am & I hope ever shall
be, yr. sincere admirer & very affectionate Friend
      P.S. Pray excuse ye. badneʃs of my writing & my interliniations for I am in haste, & I[5]

Monday April 5th. 1779
½ after 6 o'Clock[6]



Typed[7]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. Probably a reference to both the King and Queen, the context of his sisters sending their love to the plural them.
 2. Presumably, the name redacted here is that of George's messenger, not identified.
 3. George would not wish for his parents to know of his (inappropriate) correspondence with Mary Hamilton, strengthening the probability that it is the King and Queen he refers to here.
 4. A & M probably refers to Princesses Augusta and Charlotte. According to Dorothy Stuart, Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Princess Royal, was affectionately referred to by George III as his ‘Ever Dearest Daughter, Matilda’, suggesting she was informally known as Matilda to other family members. See Stuart (1939), The Daughters of George III, p.5.
 5. The remainder of the postscript has been cut away.
 6. The date appears to the left of the postscript.
 7. The last sheet is otherwise blank.

Normalised Text



My Dearest Miss Hamilton
      You made me last night the happiest of Men by taking off Your Gloves, & by letting me see
that you had that Ring upon your Finger which I had the honour of presenting you with. We were at  ------  to
day, & I beg you will inform my parents (as if had only brought you a message from me; not mentioning
a word of my having written to you) That Augusta & Matilda are still very well, & that they desired me to present
their love to them. also desired me to return you & thanks for the long Letters you had been
so good as to write to her. Adieu dear Miss Hamilton & pray let that ring continue to be a constant companion
of yours as a token of your esteem & affection towards me, & believe me that I am & I hope ever shall
be, your sincere admirer & very affectionate Friend
      P.S. Pray excuse the badness of my writing & my interlineations for I am in haste, & I






(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. Probably a reference to both the King and Queen, the context of his sisters sending their love to the plural them.
 2. Presumably, the name redacted here is that of George's messenger, not identified.
 3. George would not wish for his parents to know of his (inappropriate) correspondence with Mary Hamilton, strengthening the probability that it is the King and Queen he refers to here.
 4. A & M probably refers to Princesses Augusta and Charlotte. According to Dorothy Stuart, Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Princess Royal, was affectionately referred to by George III as his ‘Ever Dearest Daughter, Matilda’, suggesting she was informally known as Matilda to other family members. See Stuart (1939), The Daughters of George III, p.5.
 5. The remainder of the postscript has been cut away.
 6. The date appears to the left of the postscript.
 7. The last sheet is otherwise blank.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: Windsor Castle, The Royal Archives

Archive: GEO/ADD/3 Additional papers of George IV, as Prince, Regent, and King

Item title: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: GEO/ADD/3/82/1

Correspondence Details

Sender: George, Prince of Wales (later George IV)

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 5 April 1779
notBefore 5 April 1779 (precision: medium)
notAfter 5 April 1779 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton on seeing her wearing his ring.
    Written Monday, ½ after 6 o'clock.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 178 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated 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:

Transliterator: David Denison, editorial team (completed October 2019)

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 2 November 2021

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