CONNECTED WITH THE UPPER CLASSES OF SOCIETY, IN THE Relations of Private Life. BY PETER BURKE, ESQ., OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. LONDON: W. BENNING & CO., 43, FLEET STREET 1851. PREFACE. THE Editor's collection of Celebrated Trials, of a domestic nature, relative to the nobility, published about two years ago, having been favorably received, he is induced to bring out this series, which may be regarded in a certain measure as supplemental to the former one. The volume of aristocratic trials, including those only in which some titled person was more or less concerned, necessarily passed over many curious and important judicial investigations appertaining to parties of note and rank, though not bearing any titular distinction. This new series supplies the deficiency, and embraces probably every remaining famous cause of unpolitical character, whose notoriety, both on account of the strangeness of the affair itself and the eminence of some of the actors in it, created a wide and stirring sensation at the time it occurred. In the present volume the plan of the former one is strictly carried on. The same regard has been had to the giving of brief historical and genealogical information when necessary, and to the exclusion of all matter of an improper or indelicate nature. Like the previous collection, this series purports to present a narrative of facts only, and therefore legal arguments |