I’ve received a threat of libel against her family from (name supplied) in an email, (dated 9 October, 2022), who claims to be a descendent of Mabel Hookey ,who I’ve quoted in my book ‘The Great Regency Cover-Up’.

She is threatening legal action if I “continue to quote from her ad nausea, without checking if indeed her claims are accurate or how the impact such claims may have on the Desailly descendants.”

She says she is is “fed-up” with Hookey’s “figment of imagination”.

“I now have support with members of Hookey’s own family,” she adds, “who together with our family, may take legal action for libel. Her claims are not true.”

Firstly they have no case.

They should be suing Mabel Hookey, the author of the book I’ve quoted, not me.

If they offend them then they need to sue Hookey, the author of the book I’ve quoted, “The Chaplain, Being Some Further Account Of The Days Of Bobby Knopwood”.

The passages I’ve quoted in the book refer only to rumours.

Hearsay.

I’ve heard independently from a descendant of Dr Desailly who supports my story of Dr and Mrs Desailly and say her family also has not been able to learn anything about the doctor’s alleged secret.

The other subject containing Mabel Hookey’s quotes is of rumours surrounding the private lives of King George III and King George IV.

One concerns a rumoured secret marriage of George III to a Hannah Lightfoot when he was young.

The other of a secret marriage of George Prince of Wales to a widow Mrs Maria Fitzherbert.

The legitimacy of the marriage was declared legal by the Pope but not the British Parliament.

If either rumours were true then this may have changed the entire course of history.

Both matters are still being disputed today, more than 200 years later.

Any evidence, like the hastily drawn up wedding agreement between George Prince of Wales and Maria Fitzherbert were destroyed by Mrs Fitzherbert after the King’s desth.

I’ve given what evidence we have, in both cases, in my book ‘The Great Regency Cover-up’.

I imagine thousands of others have done the same.

Mabel Hookey, in her book and the extracts I have quoted, is only offering whatever evidence we have, circumstantial or otherwise, in Chapter 13 ‘The Secret Marriage’ and elsewhere throughout the book.

As for doctor Desailly, I have found documents that show he eventually appeared in elite circles in Tasmania.

He is reported to be in the company of the first chaplain of Tasmania, Rev Robert Knopwood, and the Governor of the colony, David Collins.

Hookey’s information, she clearly says, is only rumours.

From chapter 2 in ‘The Great Regency Cover-Up’, “It was whispered that”, “gossip”, “conjecture”, “supposition”, “mystery”, “secret”, “let us draw a bow at”.

All rumours.

There is no case of libel against the Hookey family here.

Certainly not against me.

Neil.