On the 3d of May 1736,[56] the audience at Drury Lane, with the Prince of Wales and his bride among them, witnessed some unexpected addition to the entertainment promised them. The footmen chose that night for an attempt to recover their old and abused privilege of occupying the upper gallery, gratis. One body of them entered the gallery by force, a second fought their way through the stage-door to dictate terms to the manager, and an active corps in plush kept the house in alarm by their shouts for a redress of grievances. Amid the fighting that ensued the terrified part of the audience dispersed. Colonel de Veil, with the "authorities," came to read the Riot Act, but no respect was paid either to dignitary or document, whereupon a battle-royal followed, in which plush was ingloriously defeated, with a loss of eighteen finely-liveried and thickly-calved combatants, who, battered, bruised, and bleeding, were clapped into Newgate for safe keeping.
In the latter part of the life of George II., he took advantage of his position to make loud remarks on the performances at which he was present. One night, at Drury Lane, he commanded Farquhar's "Beaux' Stratagem" and Fielding's "Intriguing Chambermaid." He was amused with the Foigard of Yates, and the Cherry of Miss Minors. In the second piece, Kitty Clive played her original part of Lettice—a part in which she had delighted the town, which could then be delighted by such parts, for seventeen years. Walpole, writing of this incident to Mann, says: "A certain king that, whatever airs you may give yourself you are not at all like, was last week at the play. The intriguing chambermaid in the farce says to the old gentleman: 'You are villainously old, you are sixty-six, you cannot have the impudence to think of living above two years.' The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in a passion, and said, 'This is d——d stuff!' and the royal critic was energetically right."
On some occasions there were more kings in the house than he of England. Four were once there among the audience, and as far as their majesties were concerned, rather against their will. These poor majesties were American Indian chiefs, to whom the higher sounding title of "kings" was given by way of courtesy. The Irish actor, Bowen, had contrived to secure their presence at his benefit when "Macbeth" was performed, and a dense mob was gathered, not so much to hear Shakspeare as to see the "kings." The illustrious strangers were placed in the centre box, and as they were invisible to the occupants of the galleries an uproar ensued. Wilks blandly assured the rioters that the kings were really present, as announced. The galleries did not care; they had paid their money, they said, to see them, and the kings they would have or there should be no play. After some negotiating and great tumult the managers placed four chairs upon the stage, to which the four Indian kings gravely descended from their box amid a chorus of "hurrahs!" from the late dissentients, with whose noisy enthusiasm the imperturbable gravity of the chiefs contrasted strangely. They listened seriously to the play, and with as much intelligence to the epilogue, which was specially addressed to them, and in which they were told that as Sheba's queen once went to adore Solomon, so they had been "winged by her example" to seek protection on Britannia's shore. It then proceeded, with some abuse of grammar, thus:—
"O princes, who have with amazement seen
So good, so gracious, and so great a queen;
Who from her royal mouth have heard your doom
Secur'd against the threats of France and Rome;
Awhile some moments on our scenes bestow;"
which was a singular request to make when the play was over!
One of the greatest honours ever rendered to a dramatist by royalty, was conferred by Queen Caroline, wife of George II., on Mottley. The poet was but a poet by courtesy; his two stilted tragedies were soon forgotten, and a better fate has not attended his other productions. What merit gained for him the favour of so great a queen was never known. Mottley's father was an active Jacobite; but the son was a seeker of places, for which he obtained more promises than were realised. Yet for this obscure person, whose benefit night was announced as to take place soon after the Queen's Drawing Room had been held, that queen herself, in that very drawing room (the occasion being the Prince of Wales's birthday), sold Mottley's tickets, delivering them with her own royal hand to the purchasers, and condescending to receive gold for them in return. The money was handed over to that gravest of the Hanoverian officials, Colonel Schurtz, privy-purse to the prince, who presented the same to the highly-honoured, and, perhaps, much astonished poet, with a handsome guerdon added to it by the prince himself.