An Autograph Letter of Elizabeth Craven to Louis XVIII of France
One thing that always annoys me is how many letters written by women or appertaining to women are not catalogued under that woman's name in archives, but are shoved in with the papers of a male relative or recipient. The British Library does not list this item in its collection under Elizabeth Craven. It is left hidden in the miscellaneous correspondence of her son Keppel. Yet this letter is of great interest being written to Prince Louis Stanislas Xavier de Bourbon, known as Count of Provence until in later life he became King Louis XVIII of France. He was the younger brother of Louis XVI who had been sent to the guillotine in 1792. The letter is dated in 1814, just before his accession to the throne after the fall of Napoleon. It indicates what friendly terms Elizabeth Craven was on with him during his exile in England, and was sent as a cover-note with a gift of a manuscript by a French author, apparently dedicated to her late husband the Margrav...