LETTERS OF JANE AUSTEN
House of Commons, when, having occasion to write his name, I asked him if I should spell it with one “l” or two. “Sir,” he replied, “on no account with more than one; there is an ‘l’ of a difference.” The Knatchbulls who are mentioned as having stayed at Godmersham at this time were Captain Charles Knatchbull, R.N., son of Wadham Knatchbull, Chancellor and Prebendary of Durham, who had married his cousin Frances, only daughter and heiress of Major Norton Knatchbull (youngest son of the fourth Hatch baronet), of Babington, Somersetshire, which place Captain Charles now possessed in right of his wife.
The Duke of Gloucester, whose death put off the Deal ball, was the brother of King George the Third, who died in his 62d year. At the time of his death he commanded a regiment of Guards, and was Warden and Keeper of the New Forest, Ranger of Windsor Forest and of Hampton Court Park, and Chancellor of Dublin University.
The Marianne mentioned in the thirty-fifth letter as being strikingly like “Catherine Bigg” was a younger daughter of Sir Brook and Lady Bridges (Fanny Fowler), who was an invalid and died unmarried in 1811.
