Princess Olive (about 1772 - 1834), was an eccentric pretender to the Royal Blood of England.

Olive was born Olive Wilmot, the daughter of Robert Wilmot, a house painter and embezzler, in Warwick. At the age of ten she was sent to board with her uncle, James Wilmot, rector of Barton-on-the-Heath. In 1789 she rejoined her father in London. She had a talent for painting and studied art with John Thomas Serres , whom she married in 1791. They had two daughters. Olive exhibited her paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts and the British Institution , but was financially reckless; both her and her husband were imprisoned for debt.

The Serres came to a parting of the ways, with acrimony on both parts: her husband because Olive had had several affairs when he was away, and Olive because she was given an allowance of only £200 per annum.

George Fields, an artist friend, moved in with Olive and she gave birth to his son prior to her divorce in 1804.

Olive continued to keep food on the table by selling her paintings and her writings, including plays, poems and essays. She was given to making outrageous claims in these writings. Among her assertions was that her uncle, Rev. Dr. James Wilmot, had written the Letters of Junius . Olive herself wrote a letter to the Prince of Wales claiming that she was the natural daughter of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland by Mrs. Olive Payne, who was sister of James Wilmot's sister and her actual aunt). She was asking him for financial support.

In 1820, (after both her father and her uncle had died) she revised her claim. James Wilmot, she claimed, had secretly married the sister of King Stanislaus I of Poland, and their daughter had married the duke of Cumberland: Olive claimed to be the only child of this marriage, and that her mother had died "of a broken heart" on the Duke of Cumberland's "second" and "bigamous" marriage to Anne Horton (the Duke had actually only married once, the "first" marriage being a fabrication by Olive). According to Olive's fantasies, James Wilmot had given Olive to his brother Robert to raise, but George III learned the "truth" and gave Olive £5000 in cash and a yearly pension of £500 for life. She also claimed to have gotten support from the king of Poland and to have been created the Duchess of Lancaster by George III in May 1773, which, she said, entitled her to the income of the Duchy of Lancaster.

In 1821, she had herself rebaptized as the daughter of the duke of Cumberland at Islington Church, and "announced" her parentage in several letters to the newspapers and in pamphlets. She actually succeeded in obtaining some courtesies in response to her claims of royal status, such as being permitted to pass through the Constitution Gate.

The same year, however, she was arrested again for debt and placed in the King's Bench prison. She appealed to the public for contributions, placing posters reading "The Princess of Cumberland in Captivity!" all over London, and publishing, in 1822, further details of her claims.

On her release, she had an affair with Sheriff J. W. Parkins, a London eccentric, who turned against her when she failed to honor her debts to him.

She next had an affair with a young man who called himself William Henry FitzClarence, who claimed to be an illegitimate son of the duke of Clarence.

Olive managed to persuade Sir Gerald Noel , an aged Parliamentarian, to make inquiry into her claims, but by this time the royal family was fighting back, having located her birth certificate, a statement by Robert Wilmot stating that he was her natural and lawful father, and a statement from Princess Poniatowski that none of King Stanislaus's sisters had ever been to England. Sir Robert Peel responded to Noel's speech in Olive's favor with a denunciation of her documents as forgeries and her story as a fabrication. It was concluded that her claims were false, but Olive escaped prosecution for forgery.

Olive continued a shadowy existence in and out of debtor's prisons. In 1830 she again published a pamphlet staking a claim on royalty; she died in 1834 and her eldest daughter divorced her husband, began calling herself Princess Lavinia and once again took to the courts.

In 1844 Princess Lavinia tried to take Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington to court for having "overlooked" (as George III's executor) a bequest of £15,000 to Olive. In 1850 Lavinia published a pamphlet requesting financial aid from Queen Victoria.

In 1866, aged sixty-nine, Princess Lavinia asked the Court of Probate and Divorce to declare her the legitimate granddaughter of the duke of Cumberland and award her the £15,000 bequest "left" by George III.

In the process of the 1866 trial, Lavinia produced several remarkable documents attesting to her claims, and a handwriting expert testified to the authenticity of George III's and James Wilmot's signatures (modern experts believe them to be forgeries). Testimony was introduced that in fact the duke of Kent had supported Olive financially, and had spoken of Olive as "my cousin Serres", apparently believing her story.

The trial was most remarkable, perhaps, for the claims made by Dr. Walter Smith, Lavinia's barrister, that George III had been privately married to a Quaker, Hannah Lightfoot, and that in consequence thereof, neither George IV nor Queen Victoria had any right to the throne.

Lavinia's case, however, quickly ran into difficulties: in some of the submitted documents, George III had "signed" his name as "George Guelph"; in others, William Pitt and Lord Brook had "signed" as earls before they had in fact become earls.

The court found that Lavinia was the legitimate daughter of John and Olive Serres but was not the granddaughter of the duke of Cumberland. The court did not prosecute Lavinia for forgery: Lavinia maintained she believed in good faith that the documents left her by Olive were genuine. (It is thought that the documents were in fact forged at the behest of Olive, rather than Lavinia, perhaps by Mr. FitzClarence, Olive's boyfriend, who had calligraphic talents.)

Lavinia continued to write pamphlets in support of her claims, and her case was reheard by the House of Lords. She died, however, in 1871, her claims unrecognized.

References

• The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries, Jan Bondeson, W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 2004. [ISBN 0-393-01969-1]