After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Royal Murder: 1810 Death in St James' Palace

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

In 1810 a valet called Joseph Sellis was found dead in St James' Palace. All eyes turned to his master the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George III. The scandal that would follow hounded the Duke for decades.Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney this story about royal scandals and the freedom of the press that rings a lot of bells today!Written by Maddy Pelling, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code AFTERDARK.You can take part in our listener survey here.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast

ACAS powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Hello in Tansi. My name is Joel de Moncran. I'm an actor and I'm indigenous and I've created a podcast called Actors and Ancestors. It's a podcast all about indigenous actors here on Turtle Island and our experience in the industry. So if that sounds like something that your ear balls would be happy to listen to, then check out ActorsAndAncestors.com and go to any of your favorite podcast players and we're there. A-G-O-S-E! helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com It's 1832 and Britain is in the grip of a sensational and scandalous libel trial.

In court, the publisher Desire Phillips is going head-to-head with King George III's son, Duke of Cumberland. The case hangs on a book published in the same year and which, among other accusations, suggests that nearly 20 years earlier the Duke was involved in a murder. Not only does the book paint the royal family in the darkest possible light, but it claims to have been penned by Lady Anne Hamilton, a lady-in-waiting at court who, after the book's release, has denied all knowledge of the work before fleeing to France. But how did this book, which also includes accusations of royal bigamy, abuses of power and financial corruption,

come to be. And what was the truth of the events of 1810 to which it referred, and around which the trial would now hinge? Hello and welcome to After Dark, I'm Anthony. And I'm Maddie. And today we are talking about a murder mystery in the true honored tradition of After Dark. We are delving deep into the depths of a royal scandal in the early 19th century. And we're looking specifically at the possible murder of a valet by none other than the Duke of Cumberland. So we are going to be talking about gossip, we're going to be talking about media, we're going to be talking about things that were being said and weren't said, official transcripts, unofficial transcripts, all of these

things. And now in the modern mindset, when you think about early 19th century, we may have been informed by things like Bridgerton or Jane Austen, where it's glitz and glamour and all very shiny things. But in this episode, Maddie is going to be talking to us about something that's far darker, far more sinister, and tells us something about power in the early 19th century, but also about power now. We are going to be in great after dark tradition looking through the keyholes of these dark, shady areas, as we always do, and trying to uncover what it was exactly about this particular case with the Duke and his valet that sparked such interest and that made so many headlines in the early 19th century.

So Maddie, tell us a little bit about what we are going to encounter in this particular episode. MADDIE Well, this case has it all really. It's, we've got a libel trial taking place in the 1830s that makes these accusations, but then we've also got the events themselves that are being alleged that took place 20 years earlier in 1810. So it's a story in two halves. And it's a story that I mean, it's got everything that we love on After Dark. Unfortunately, it's got deadly violence, it's got intrigue, a possible cover up, and we're going to make our minds up hopefully by the end of this episode what the truth is. It has a media scandal involving the Royal Family, something that I think resonates today thinking about Prince Harry and his relationship with the media in particular and

his recent moments in court. And there's a trial, which we often have a trial on after dark actually, but this is a trial for reputation and for the media freedom of speech for the right to report things rather than for the murder itself, which is an interesting thing. I'm going to give you a bit of context. Yes. For what we're going to What context are you going to do? Are you going to do context for the murder or for the actual trial? So I'm going to do the alleged murder.

Alleged. Don't want to be sued 200 years later. What was the meme in the lockdown of the guy on the parish council? Allegedly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Allegedly, that's just come to my mind. That was so long ago. OK, go on. Yeah. So from 2020 all the way back to 1810.

Nice little segue. There is no link. There's no link. Let's do it. Okay. I'm going to take you back to 1810 and the alleged murder. And then we're going to do the trial afterwards. Okay. So this is coming in two halves. So 1810, this is just to give a little bit of a sense of the world, the landscape at the time. In 1810, the marriage between Napoleon and his queen Josephine was a knoll. Lord Byron swims across the Hellespont in Turkey, which is his famous swim. And you can

still do it today. I believe it's pretty dangerous. Do you know, my husband who I've been with for over a decade now doesn't believe that I can swim because he's never seen me swim. I've never swam in front of him. I've never swam. I don't think I've swum for a decade. Secretly swimming somewhere. Yeah, I have a little pool under the house. He doesn't know about it. It's all like anyway, George III in this year is declared permanently medically insane, which is a big moment. It's the beginning of the Regency. You know, we've got this situation where the monarch is no longer able to rule and his son George IV, the man who becomes George IV once George III has died, is at this point the Prince Regent, he's taking over. And so there's concerns there about the stability of the monarchy, also its reputation, their fitness to

rule in terms of their mental and medical health, but also in terms of their moral health as well. And of course, the Prince Regent famously is a bit of a nightmare for in terms of PR, he is gluttonous in all senses, you know, he's just absorbing and consuming women and drugs and sugar and wine and entertainment and architecture, and he just can't get enough of anything. So that's the sort of context. So as we said in the outset of this episode, this is a story potentially about, well it is about the Duke of Cumberland, but potentially about a murder that he commits against his valet. Now, valet is a very specific role, very powerful role in many ways, or influential role maybe is a more accurate word. Can you tell us what a valley is? What they did?

So it's a gentleman's personal servant. So someone who's responsible for dressing him for and not only dressing him but caring for his clothes for any medals, regalia, weaponry, all of that. He travels with him. He might sleep maybe not in the same room in this period, but certainly very close nearby, would travel to other country houses, attend events. It's a very personal and a very intimate role and it's potentially one with a bit of discretion in which the valet might offer advice or be a sort of sounding board for discussion and it's a very coveted role and within the household, a royal household or an aristocratic household, the valet is really high up in the hierarchy of servants of the house,

they hold a lot of power. And they sort of transgress the serving world and the world of their master a little bit, which is fascinating. It's one that requires a lot of discretion and sensitivity. So this is the story of the Duke of Cumberland who we're going to talk about who he is in a second in relation to his dad George III. But we have to settle something from the beginning. Is it valet or valet? I actually don't know or care in a way. Controversial. No but because like I don't have one so I'm not going to like if I had one I'd probably want to know what to call them.

Do not, I mean, embarrassing for you. Well, unless my husband qualifies and he doesn't have a lot of hair. But, I was, we were talking about this before we came on. Don't lift the curtain on the magic. Sorry, we don't speak once the cameras are off. And I was thinking, I was like, it's valid. In my head I wanted to say valid. But then I was like, valet.

Anyway, this is not the most pressing issue, but you have a, you were able to inform me as to the kind of origins of this. Well, I feel like, I mean, write in if I'm wrong, I don't know. But they'll write in. They will. They will write in. I, and I'm going to admit, I'm basing this entirely on Downton Abbey. They'll definitely write it down. That historically accurate, no questions asked, wonderful show. I think in Britain the pronunciation is valet, even though it is obviously a French word and technically it should be valet.

So I'm going to say valet. You can say whatever you like and one of us will be crucified in the press. Crucified in the press, you know. Well, good segue. Thank you. Because there is a bit of Presley crucifixion going on in this. There is. That comes from scrutiny on that kind of moral compass around the monarchy

and who's in charge and what they're doing with that power. And their relationship with their servants, whatever they're calling them. So let's get into the Duke of Cumberland. Do you know anything about the Duke of Cumberland? No, I don't. And I'd heard about this scandal, obviously, because often, as we know, I work on queer history, and sometimes there's often an insinuation that there was some kind of a thing there. I don't see it in the archive necessarily myself. So I was aware of it. But I hadn't put together, and I should have had because it's so obvious, but I hadn't

put together the fact that the Duke of Cumberland was a member of the royal family. Because dukes are usually very, very close to the royal family. But I hadn't realized it was this close. C. So interesting as well that you were aware of this scandal, because when I think of the Duke of Cumberland and the long 18th century- You think of sausages. C. Well, yes, potentially. But I think of the previous Duke of Cumberland, who was called Butcher Cumberland because of the sausage connection, who was in think of the previous Duke of Cumberland, who was called Butcher Cumberland because of the Sausage Connection, who was in charge of the British Hanoverian forces at Culloden and fought

the Jacobites. And he's a really brutal man. And so this is a different person, potentially, just as brutal in some ways. So this Duke of Cumberland is Prince Ernest Augustus. He's born in June 1771 and he's the fifth son of George III and Queen Charlotte. The period is created for him as the Duke of Cumberland in 1799 by his father and he lives at least part of the time in St James's Palace in London, the royal residence. And this is really interesting. He's a really physically recognizable person because he fought in the Battle of Tornay in 1794. And he lost sight in one eye and he had huge scars across his face. So he's a sort of bit of an outlier in terms of the royal family. George III and Queen Charlotte famously obsessed with royal image being painted with the thousands of children

that they had, please don't write and tell me they didn't have thousands of children. I do realize that's an exaggeration. But you know, very much interested in sort of the beauty of the royal family, the sort of the pristineness of their image. And he's a little bit outside that. He's also pretty controversial figure. So he is often skewed in the newspapers by the satirists of the day, even before this scandal. He a little bit like his brother, the Prince Regent is always having affairs with married women. And he has numerous illegitimate children. And that's a sort of running joke in the media in 1815, so a little bit after the time that we're going to talk about, but this is interesting, I think, just to give a flavour of

the sort of the murkiness that surrounds him. So in 1815, five years after this, this questionable mystery happens, he marries his first cousin, the Duchess Frederica. And when they get together, when they meet, Frederica is married to a prince and they've been estranged for many years and it is finally agreed that a divorce will take place so that the Duke of Cumberland and Frederica can marry. Now the husband who is about to be divorced disappears before the divorce can be carried out.

He just poof, gone. And there's some murmurings around that that maybe the Duke of Cumberland just couldn't wait for the divorce, just wanted to speed things along a little bit. The controversy is so powerful and so scandalous that actually at court Queen Charlotte refuses to welcome her new daughter-in-law once they are married. But these children don't make it easy for their family, do they? The parents have a really tension-filled relationship with the boys, mostly. Charlotte does. George is off incredibly unwell. Of course, now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so she's having to deal with this all alone and to navigate these adult children who are, frankly, a bit of a nightmare.

So that's one scandal that's associated with him, but it's not the main one. And that's what we're going to concentrate. So it's actually interesting in terms of context, what you're describing. So you're describing someone who's fairly mired in, what sounds like, multiple scandals involving women involving marriages and divorces and potential disappearings and maybe even a murder that's not connected to the murder we're about to talk about. But then he has this sort of slightly difficult and complex public image because he's been involved in these heroics fighting in a battle. He's been wounded for his country, he's fought for his country. And so the image of monarchy here, even represented by the fifth son who isn't necessarily

in line, you know, several people would need to die before him to inherit, but it's complicated. It's sort of becoming, as you say, mired in all this complication and these conflicting ideas of how to perform publicly as a royal and how to live your life privately. And it's that tension between the public image and the private behaviour, the private life that we're going to see played out in this. And you could argue that this has never been more apparent than at this time during this reign during the reign of George III, that the absoluteness of monarchy is disappearing at a fairly rapid rate, particularly in the case because there's been a regency.

And I know we haven't had an absolute monarchy for quite a while prior to this, but the reputational damage is quite intense at this time. Yes, yeah, absolutely. The investment in the monarchy as power is dwindling, coupled with an explosion in print media. There are more newspapers, more satirical printmakers, more pamphleteers, more ballad singers and sellers than ever before. This is an absolutely verbose period in time when everyone has an opinion, and everyone has something to say, everyone gets an opportunity to say that whether that's in the printed word or, you know, in terms of graffiti, in terms of gossip, in terms of just images sometimes as well as as well as the written word. So there's, there's a real tension here between, I suppose, a sort of grappling for power in terms of the monarchy, but also in terms of narrative as well.

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murder that we are here to- Allegedly. That's not often you can say murder and then laugh afterwards. I shouldn't really do that, but it's what happened. But let's get into that and look at that specifically and see how that fits into the context of these wider scandals then. It's two o'clock in the morning on the 31st of May 1810 and at St. James's Palace in London. All is quiet outside on the street. On the 31st of May 1810 and at St James's Palace in London, all is quiet. Outside on the street it's still dark, too early for the street sellers who rise before dawn to take their places along the city's dusty pavements. Inside the palace, its occupants,

from the most senior royals to the lowest kitchen maid, are a bed. Only the guards are awake, some swaying slightly with fatigue, others rubbing sleep from their eyes when they think no one is looking. All is peaceful until, quite suddenly, a cry rings out. It is low, a man's voice perhaps, and desperate. The nearest soldiers spring into action. The sound has come from the bedchamber of the Duke of Cumberland. They race along gilded corridors, past empty suits of armour and fine porcelain vases that threaten to topple as they rush by. The door to the bedroom is torn open and there, rising in horror from his four-poster bed, is the Duke covered in blood.

His arms are slashed and red gushes profusely from the wounds. Beside him, a valet, Mr. Neel, is hovering, stupefied by the whole scene. Cellis, Cellis! The duke shouts, gesturing wildly into the air. Cellis did this! The men rush back out of the room, jostling at the door and down the corridor. Neil and the duke follow, blood trailing behind them. A second door now, beyond it, the bedroom of Joseph Cellus, the duke's other valet, is locked. From within, a terrible gurgling is

rising and hissing. The door gives way, and there on his bed, Celis is gasping his final breaths, a deep cut at his throat. There's a moment of thrashing in the scarlet soaked bedsheets, then stillness. He is dead. He is dead. Hmm, how did he die? We're going to discuss. What we're led to believe, is it not, is that Celis has taken his own life in the initial phases of this story, right? So the initial narrative is the Duke of Cumberland is in bed. It's the night time. He's asleep. He has

his valet Mr Neil, who's in a closer room to him. So he comes in at the first sound of commotion. And we are led to believe that Seles, who has a room down the corridor, has come into the duke's room, attacked him, interestingly with his own saber, and we're going to get into the crime scene and the clues a little bit. But one of the jobs of a valet, as well as dealing with clothing of the master, is also to deal with the weaponry in this period. So he's been sharpening this cutlass, this saber. He supposedly attacks the duke in the dark, interesting and important detail, but visually there's not a lot of clarity in this room. He then, Cellus, that

is, runs out of the room. The dukes defended himself. He has injuries on his arms from defending himself. Sellus has run down the room, got into his own bedchamber, locked the door, got onto his bed, and cut his throat with a razor. And by the time the guards have heard the cry, they've gone to the duke's room, they've gone down the corridor, he's managed to die. He is dead when they enter the room. Or dying. So the question is, is everything as it seems? And is there really time for Celes to have done all of that?

And I suppose another question is, why would he have done that in the first place? It's hard to tell because with a little bit of knowledge that I have on this, the implication otherwise apart from Celis having potentially done this is that the Duke of Cumberland is somehow involved in physically harming Celis for one reason or another but none of it really makes sense because either way one of them has to access the other. Time doesn't seem to be on anyone's side there for that in terms of not being seen by other valets or other people that are just around. It's an odd, it feels odd that Cumberland seems so sure that it's cellus, given that this attack happens in the dark, but maybe that's not odd at all.

And that Mr. Neil, the other valet is in on the scene. Totally inexplicable. Yeah. So let's get into the details. But first of all, I want you to describe this image, which was produced in the aftermath. And this event became huge news, first of all, and then huge debate over the details on what actually happened. And people sort of became real armchair detectives and tried to put this whole scene under scrutiny. But I think this image says so much about the perception of the Duke, about the perception of Celis and the narrative that was being sold to people initially. Right. This is actually super interesting. I've never seen this image before. So what

we have is a very pastily print on the left hand side. As you look at it, there is a guy who looks like a very young Santa Claus because he's wearing one of those kind of nighttime bubble hats. A horror Santa Claus. A horror Santa Claus. And he's in a, he's in a night shirt that comes down to just above his knees, but you can see it's blood soaked as Maddy was describing in that narrative. There are slashes, there are slashes to his face. And oh, I can even see one of the fingers on his left hand has been chopped off by the looks of it. So he's quite bloodied. He looks really like

a Hanoverian. I'm just looking at him and his face. This is Cumberland obviously. And he looks really, really like Hanoverian in a very, you know, luxurious four-posted bed. Which can I just say to interject that says so much about the the royal image as well and the fact that in satirical art of the period, there is a shorthand for showing the royal family. There is a look, there is a... regardless of how accurate that was, we recognise that as being part of the Hanoverian royal family. It's heavy eyes, a larger nose, thicker lips, pointy chin, kind of handsome, but certainly we're supposed to be recognising this person. And then having just burst through the door

on the right hand side, we have somebody who is clearly not a member of the royal family who looks absolutely unhinged. They have a cutlass which is unsheathed and that is being held back as if it's being swiped forward, has just been swiped forward. It's covered, I think, just we can see still in a little bit of blood. So really linking this person to it. But I just before I started talking saw the inscription on the bottom and it says, the blessed effects of preferring foreign servants to our own countrymen, dedicated to all the royal family and particularly to the princes. Yeah, that's introducing another element now. Mm hmm. Yes. So Joseph Sellis, and thinking about the very specific time that we're in in 1810, and some of the context

we gave at the beginning, Joseph Sellis is from Corsica. So thinking about the context that we talked about in the beginning, and other figures who might be looming large in terms of foreign threat in this moment. Are you saying Napoleon? Is that what you're trying to say? I'm sure they're saying Napoleon. So Joseph Seles, much like Napoleon, is from Corsica. He is a foreigner. And I think you can see that in this satirical print, the way that he's depicted, you spoke about the Duke having this very Hanoverian, sort of noble, handsome, quite delicate

look about him. And Seles, in contrast to that, is shown as, what did you say, completely unhinged. He looks deranged. He's got these dark, brushy eyebrows and this really contorted face. And don't forget, the duke's the one who actually has scars all over his face. But that's not what we're seeing here at all. And I think- The hairstyle is really French now that you've mentioned it. Salas's hairstyle is very Napoleonic. The brushed forward curls. Yeah, and I wonder if you... So this image is by Isaac Krukshank. And I wonder if you put it next to contemporary images of Napoleon, there'd be very close similarities in terms of how they're portrayed. So there's a sort of wider narrative going on here about the threat of people from Corsica, but specifically, you know, alluding to Napoleon. It's a lot about the power of the monarchy, the safety of the monarchy and the threat of foreign invasion, even in St James's Palace, the stronghold of the monarchy in London. And this place that is associated with Regency elegance, 18th century refinement, people coming to court dressed in their finest in their jewels,

behaving and performing in this very courtly ritualistic way. And here we've got the absolute collapsing of that. The other thing that I want to say about this image is just the inclusion of the bed. And you've got the curtains of this four-poster bed that have been sort of unceremoniously pulled back. And you and I have both talked before about how interesting the bed is as a space, both in terms of the history of monarchy, but also just in terms of intimacy, privacy, how architectural space works when you can shut yourself into a smaller space. And I just find it fascinating that it's been opened up here with such violence. And I think its inclusion in the

image is really, really important. So that's the sort of initial narrative that Celis has become deranged, he's attacked. The other thing about Celis, just to add on about him not only being a Corsican, which in this period obviously is massive condemnation, that he was a valet before he was the valet to the Duke of Cumberland and the royal family. He was a valet for a Mr. Church in America, and there he's accused of thievery and he's brought in New York before magistrates. And he is not convicted, but he has to come to England to start a new life as a servant there. And again, you know, it's under George III that Britain loses the American colonies. And there's just

something here about Sellus is really- Religious undertones. Yeah. And he's becoming a sort of, he's the sort of perfect symbol of all of these threats to Britain. So who then, if there's Sellus, and it wouldn't be unusual that somebody would have two valets necessarily, but who then is, is it Neil? Yeah, so there's Mr Neil as well, Cornelius Neil, which I think is a gorgeous name. Cornelius Neil, lovely. He is married and his wife works in the palace as well.

And she actually gives evidence as part of the sort of media frenzy that follows. Because as we're about to see a lot of the people involved in this, minus Celis, of course, who's dead, write down their testimonies, supposedly, and, you know, take it with a pinch of salt, and they are published in the newspapers at the time, including the duke's own testimony, which is quite remarkable. So we see this initial story that Selas has become deranged, there's speculation and we'll get into that why. But it does start to shift. And I think a lot of that comes down to the total ambiguity about the crime scene. And the timings of Selas doing the attack, the Duke not really being able to defend himself. I mean, to be fair, if you're in bed and you started

getting slashed by a sword, what could you do? But he says it's Celus, then he says in his account that it's really dark and he couldn't see he just felt the injuries. And then Mr. Neil is suddenly there in the room, shouting for the guards and Celus is already locked back in his bedroom with his throat cut. So there's a lot of ambiguity there. The timing issue is real strange, isn't it? It's strange, yeah. So I'm going to now, because I'm so generous, I'm going to make you read, I'm going to force you at Saber Point to read some of the Duke's testimony and his description. And it is written in not in the first person because whilst he can give his words to the papers,

you know, he cannot possibly use the word I. So it's written in the third person, but it is supposedly his testimony that's been written down and is published. So this is the moment that he's attacked. And then we're going to talk a little bit about those moments after the initial violence takes place. So this is what the Duke has said. His, the Duke's own testimony. Before three o'clock this morning, being in bed and asleep, he received two blows upon his head, which awoke him. And upon starting up,

he received two other blows upon his head, which being accompanied with a hissing noise, it occurred to him that some bat had flown against him. Yeah. Let's just keep going. Being between sleeping and waking and immediately received two other blows, there was a lamp burning in the room, but he did not see anybody. That there was a night table standing near the bedside where a letter lay which was covered

with blood. That is weird. It's a strange testimony. He thinks there's a bat in the room. There's a hissing sound. What's that about? How did everything become a bat? This thing about him being between sleeping and waking. In a court of law today, I mean, that state of being where you're not really awake. I'd be interested to see exactly are you a reliable witness? We're not lawyers, but... Yes, this is not a legal podcast. Now, The Times of London also publishes, as I say,

the testimony of other people. And it talks about how the Duke, once he's been attacked, he gets out of bed and he shouts for Neil, he shouts, Neil, Neil, I am murdered, I am murdered. And Neil rushes into the room armed with a poker. He's not in the room when this violence is happening, but he's so nearby. Could be in the room, but outside the room is fine. It makes sense. Yeah, like it's not necessarily suspicious. But obviously he gets there very quickly to the crime scene and he's already armed himself with a weapon, but crucially not the sword, it's a poker that he's armed himself with. So there's sort of confusion there and the fact that the Duke says even though there's a lamp burning, he doesn't see anybody. And then he's when the guards

come, he tells people that it's Sallus and they all know to rush to Sallus's room. So what's happened in that period of time in terms of the crime scene and the clues? I just want to run through a few of these because I just think there are certain interesting elements here. So as I've said before, the sword that was used to attack was supposedly in Sallis's care, he'd been sharpening it. But of course, Mr. Neal would know that as well. So there's a question mark there. So the other thing, which is really crucial, and this is something that people pick up on in the press, and this is, I think, when the narrative starts to turn. So Celis, dead on

the bed, he's supposedly cut his own throat. Now the razor that he's used, a shaving razor, you know, proper fold out cut throat razor. He has supposedly used the blunt side of that to cut his throat. And the razor itself is really far away from the body in the room. Now he could have thrown it. But psychologically, not to get too graphic, but if one were to do that kind of self harm injury, would you not to use the sharp end? So this doesn't make sense. This really resonates with people as being an odd moment. Now the Duke comes out and he tells the newspaper that Joseph Celest, he says, had not incurred my, he says, displeasure and that he had not any reason to think ill of him. So there's just random attack. So random attack, no motive, the timings off,

there's the razor situation that we're unclear about, but then you could argue if he's mentally unwell, maybe he's not thinking that clearly. So you can explain these things away. But people start to ask, has the Duke killed Celis? Have they had some kind of scrap? They've both been injured and the Duke has takenus? Have they had some kind of scrap? They've both been injured. And the Duke has taken him back to his room, cut his throat there.

But then how's the door locked from the inside? We don't know. And then has he injured himself with the saber? Had Sellus done that while he was still alive? And do we know that the door was locked from the inside? Or was the door just locked? The door was locked, but I think it would be fair to assume, yeah. Your master, the Duke of Cumberland, is unlikely to have a key to your bedroom if your is valid,

I would say. Unless he's killed you. Unless he's murdered you. There were even maps of the crime scene that were sold to the public and pretty soon after this had happened, and I think this is incredible thinking about the public and royal relationship and how delicate that was in this moment and how delicate it still is today and how desperate we all are to get into the lives of the royals and know something about them and sort of dig the dirt as it were. That people could pay to come into St James's Palace and see

the crime scene. They could go in the duke's bedroom. So the royal family must have thought to do that. They must have allowed this. And they could go into Selis's room and the blood splatters had not been cleaned up. Stop it. His body was gone at this point, but you could go and see the scene and speculate for yourself and plot it on your little map. But the royal family must have been involved in that. They just had to have been. They must have been, surely. Surely. Unless it was a scam being run by the guards or something. There's a great scam at the Tower of London in the 18th century when Queen Charlotte's zebra is on

display and the guards there start charging people, which they're not meant to do, to see it and they bill it as the Queen's ass. Then you can pay a shilling to see the Queen's ass. I mean, soldiers never change. So maybe there's something like that going on where the guards are sort of sneaking. That just seems like an awful lot of access. Yeah and you can imagine hundreds of people traipsing through, right? So that's fascinating to me. Now there's an inquest the day after Sallis's death and very quickly it's ruled as a suicide and the whole thing's put to bed. Of course it isn't in terms of public conversation, in terms of the media, but legally that's a line drawn onto that. And the Duke, he's let off the hook, but he never really recovers from this tarnishing of his reputation. And this is a question mark, there's a question mark over his head of what has he really done? And also, what was the motive to be killed by your valet?

Have you done something to deserve that? Yeah, what's the cover up? What's the cover up? Yeah, because people will go immediately to cover up. And we know in our own time that there is, that when scandal hits the royal family or attaches itself to a particular individual within the royal family, we know that that then doesn't go away. We know what that feels like. We know what that's like to talk about those individuals. And people remember it. It sticks in people's minds. Now, some of the theories around motive

are things like, given his reputation with women, had he been sleeping with Mrs. Neil, Mr. Neil the Violet's wife, who does live in close quarters with them. Has Neil then attacked sell us and then attacked his master and tried to cover that up. There are other suggestions that Neil and sell us we're having a sexual relationship or the Duke and sell us we're having sexual relationships. Yeah, there's some element of blackmail. I don't know. There's evidence for that. But I will say there's an intimacy there of personal relationships living in very close quarters. There's obviously some personal ill feeling and tension. Or is it simply that Celis is so mentally unwell that he has this moment

and strikes out. It's so difficult to know, especially with this distance of time, and all this speculation that gets completely out of hand in the media. But I think the fact that we can still go to the sources and kind of recreate this crime scene as accurately as we can based on the words from people who were there. And obviously, they had their own motives in how they reported that, especially if they had been involved in a murder or a cover-up, you know, we can't necessarily take them at face value, but I think it's so fascinating to step back into that scene and to, you know, I can almost see it with crime scene lighting

and sort of pointing and little numbers for the clues on the floor, you know, it's really tantalizing. So when you've been teasing about a trial then, this isn't a trial as a lot of people might have assumed, and it would be fair enough to assume, this isn't a trial for that murder, that supposed murder. This is a liable trial?

It is. 20 years later. This is 20 years later. The Duke is not gonna be able to shake this scandal and it's gonna come back to bite him on the Queen's ass. this scandal and it's going to come back to bite him on the queen's ass. When, twenty years later, the duke climbed the steps at the king's bench to give evidence in the libel trial he himself had called, he must have seemed grim and determined. He felt the media had betrayed him, spread false

information and made up stories to sell copy. As he took to the stand, the journalists below him scribbled furiously. The duke was just one of several witnesses called to discredit the book's claims, including the coroner who had originally ruled Sellus' death as a suicide years before, and who now confirmed his findings before a packed courthouse. The defence for Josiah Phillips, the publisher of the authentic records of the Court of England of the last 70 years, argued that the allegations made were a matter of public interest. They didn't stand a chance. The prosecution were merciless, quick to condemn its creators as possessing no ordinary amount of malice.

They even gave dramatic readings from the text, performing with affectation before the jury to demonstrate its apparent ridiculousness. The jury were convinced and finally found Phillips guilty. He would flee into exile before he could be imprisoned. But the question remained, who had written the offending book? If they had been someone close to the Duke, were they really only interested in defaming him so publicly, or was there a deeper truth they had tried to expose? Yeah, see this is what this is throwing up for me. It's not, oh he's putting this to rec-, he's putting this, the record straight.

It throws up more questions and it feels very like if the Duke of Cumberland had decided to give an exclusive interview to Emily Maitlis and absolutely ruined his reputation in so doing and like, it just feels- I don't know what you're alluding to. No, I don't. I just said something. But it is, it doesn't solve this at all, because we're talking about it years later, hundreds of years later. If anything, the doubling down, it doesn't help him. And it's introducing more mystery now, who is the author of the authentic records.

I mean, it's such a boring title. But you know as the title suggests this is meant to be written, it's a true account supposedly, written by someone who has had access to the royal family. So it's believable in the public imagination. It sells very well. Now the name on the title page is given as Lady Anne Hamilton. Now she was a lady in waiting to George IV, so the brother of the Duke of Cumberland's estranged wife, Carolina Brunswick. Now I adore Lady Anne Hamilton because I have seen her gorgeous diaries and commonplace books in the Bodleian Library. She was a regular visitor at Friend of the Pod, Fonthill Abbey. William Beckford.

Thank you. He is no friend. No. For people who don't know, like go and look up Fonthill. It's the most incredible Gothic madness. It's love it. The hubris of a man who makes in the 18th century a fake medieval monastery with the biggest tower ever. And then it collapses, not once, but like four times or something. It's well, anyway, she went their loads. She was a great sort of chronicler of her social circle. She would write little poems, she would collect little poems from people and write them in her books. So she's very much a society gal and someone who has access to the private lives of all these people. So she is a possible legitimate person to put the name to. She's horrified by this association. But this is not the first time that she's been attached

to royal scandal. So 10 years earlier in 1822, there's another anonymous book that comes out making all these claims about the royals. They can't catch a break in the 19th century. And this is meant to be deathbed confessions of George IV's mistress this time. So not the wife, Caroline Brunswick,

the mistress, Frances Villiers. And among them, among the accusations in that book, there are details of Villiers apparent abuses of Queen Caroline. So it's this kind of really messy like court intrigue, bullying, scandal, scandal scandal scandal. Yeah, absolutely. And Mary Hamilton is the name given to that text and she denies it again. Her name's not Mary. Her name's Anne. Yeah, her name's Anne. Get it right. So Anne is so humiliated in the 1830s when the second book appears. I mean, yeah, have your name attached. This was not great. Awful. I mean, she either did write them or she had a real enemy out there. She just wanted to bring it out. And I really want to know which. Yes. She wrote one and then the other one. Which one would you do the first? Yeah,

she didn't write the second one. I have't know. There's no proof of that. Yeah, absolutely no proof whatsoever. But she's so humiliated she runs off to France. So sad. They all did that though. France is a good place to go if you've committed any kind of scandal. Now there are theories that there's a more likely candidate for the authorship of the authentic records, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not going to read the title again. This is a woman called Olivia Serres. She is fascinating. I am obsessed with her. She's the daughter of a house painter. So not an artist as in like a painter decorator kind of thing, who claimed with no proof to be the illegitimate child of Prince Henry, who was a grandson of King George the Second. Are you with me? So according to Hamilton, Hamilton comes out and says, it was her, it was her, it was her. Sarah's had gained her confidence, so become close to her. And she was kind of known as a bit of a trickster.

She'd like risen in society through this claim of being the illegitimate child of a grandson of a king. I was going to say why was she a court? So she's kind of like a confidence tricker. Fascinating. And she had supposedly got close to Hamilton Mayfair and so they've stolen her papers because you just have papers documenting these royal scandals. Insurance policy, retirement plan. She supposedly stole them. She writes the book. Maybe that was Olivia's way of settling scores in terms of her claims being rejected of this royal line that she was from. So we will never

know the truth. I don't think it was Mary Hamilton. I don't. But I think, okay, I don't think it was Anne Hamilton or indeed Mary Hamilton come to that. I think it's hard press for it to be Olivia Serra's. The scale of it to me just feels, I don't know, it just feels like a move that she wouldn't make. She's all about intimate personal trickery and trying to do a sort of performance of something. I don't know if putting that on the printed page is her style, but obviously it made a splash. It had an effect. So someone wanted to cause a scandal 20 years after this original scandal happened. Whoever it was, this succeeded. I think what I would like it to be Olivia,

because it's a bit of a hustle and Olivia seems like a bit of a hustler. So that, so for me, I want it to be Olivia, but Olivia doesn't gain. And Olivia seems like the type of person who Yeah, no one's gonna, no one's gonna turn around to her and be like, do you know what? Yeah. Welcome to the Royal Family. Yeah, so that feels so who was it? Maddie Belling? You'll have to tune in next time to find out. No, I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I don't know. But I think this story tells us so much about early crime writing. As I say, it feels like we can step back into the crime scene. That's already fascinating. And I love that we will never know the truth of that. I find it really

tantalizing. It's a case that I've often come back to in my mind. Yeah. You were the first person to tell me about this case. You were the first person to go over it. I've been bringing it up as an episode for quite a while wanting to do it. Like I just, I just think it has so much there. And you can read all of their testimonies, the Duke of Cumberland, Neil, Mrs. Neil, there's other people, there's one of the leaders of the guard and things like that. You can read them all online and they really immerse you in that moment, that just snapshot of a royal palace in a moment of political global turmoil when the royal family is facing a crisis. And yet it's this intimate little domestic drama playing out that's really

violent and I just find that fascinating. And of course, the other thing to say is that this feels to me a landmark case in terms of, it feels very modern. It feels like a landmark in terms of setting a precedent for the relationship between the British Crown and the press. And it's something that obviously we're still seeing the fallout of today. And we're still seeing people narrativise and explore and expand on those relationships. And those moments when the royals decide to speak to the press and how they try and control the narrative and where it could go wrong, I think they should look to this story for some tips potentially. But don't kill people. I mean, go to the safe.

Yeah. Let's just do that. Well, I want to hear now your thoughts on who killed Sellus. Did Sellus attack Cumberland? And the reason I want to hear all of these things is because I, unlike Maddie, I find it hugely frustrating that we won't know these things. I always enjoy the ambiguity. Yeah, and I do because it's very imaginatively driven therefore. And so that's a good thing. But like, let us know who you think may have committed that initial murder. Was it some kind of self harm? What was going on there? And then the second mystery, who wrote the authentic account? Olivia? Anne? Hamilton? Mary Hamilton?

Mary Hamilton, whoever she is. It is a story full of intrigue twists turns, and as you say, a lack of answers, which we so often do find in After Dark, but therein I think lies the reason they're enduring stories, because we start to fill the gaps as human beings. That's what we do. We try to tell the story. And that's why things last, I think. I agree. And I think the ambiguity leads us to ask other questions, not necessarily to find the answers to the ambiguity and to those gaps. But it asks other questions about human nature, about reporting, about the history of the media, about the history of crime. And it leads you down avenues that you didn't

know existed necessarily, or in pursuit of people that have disappeared from the archives in all of the ways sometimes. Maybe not necessarily with the royals, but in a lot of the cases that we do. Neil and Celis, we wouldn't probably know about otherwise. Absolutely. Not very upfront either way. Well, listen, that's the end of that we. Deal and sell us, we wouldn't probably know about otherwise. Absolutely. Not very upfront either way. Well, listen, that's the end of this episode. Thank you very much, as ever, for listening and watching After Dark. If you want to get in touch, you can reach us at afterdark at history hit dot com.

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