hen distinctly
friendly to her cause--the Earl of Albemarle: "The peers rose as the
queen entered, and remained standing until she took her seat in a
crimson and gilt chair immediately in front of her counsel. Her
appearance was anything but prepossessing. She wore a black dress with a
high ruff, an unbecoming gipsy hat with a huge bow in front, the whole
surmounted by a plume of ostrich feathers. _Nature_ had given her light
hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, and a good-humoured expression of
countenance; but these characteristics were marred by _painted
eyebrows_, and by a _black wig_ with a profusion of curls, which
overshadowed her cheeks and gave a bold, defiant air to her features."
The names of the witnesses, and possibly the precise nature of the
testimony against her, would seem to have been unknown to the queen, for
we have it on record that when the first witness (Teodoro Majoochi, the
celebrated "Non Mi Ricordo") was placed at the bar, on the 21st of
August, Her Majesty, "uttering a loud exclamation, retired hastily from
the House, followed by Lady Ann Hamilton."[40] She evidently laboured
under some strong emotion, whether of surprise or displeasure, or both,
seems never to have been ascertained.

Among the general public, and even in the House of Commons itself, the
falsehood of all that had been alleged on oath against the queen was
assumed as an undeniable axiom; the witnesses were loaded with the most
opprobrious epithets, while those who had been concerned in collecting
or sifting evidence were represented as conspirators or suborners. We
shall see, when we come to speak of the caricatures of Robert
Cruikshank, the light in which these unhappy witnesses were regarded by
the graphic satirists on the popular side.[41] Nevertheless, if their
testimony is carefully read over by any unprejudiced person having any
knowledge of the law of evidence, in spite of the badgering of Mr.
Brougham, the admirable speech of that gentleman, and the testimony of
the witnesses on the other side, I think he cannot fail to come to any
other conclusion than that expressed by the then Lord Ellenborough, that
Her Royal Highness was "the last woman a man of honour would wish his
wife to resemble, or the father of a family would recommend as an
example to his daughters. No man," said his lordship, "could put his
hand on his heart and say that the queen was not wholly unfit to hold
the situation which she holds."[42] He will see