A visit from the Duke of York was expected while the Court was at Cheltenham. So eager was the King for the society of this his favourite son, that he caused a portable wooden house to be moved from the further end of the town, and joined on to Bays Hill Lodge, for the reception of the Prince and his attendants. The work consumed much time and money, but the fond father was bent on lodging his Frederick close to himself. All this care and affection met with the too familiar return. The Duke arrived on August 1, according to his appointment; and Miss Burney describes the King’s joy as only less extreme than the transport he had shown when, a year before, she had seen the darling appear at Windsor after long absence in Germany. But the Prince, so much looked for, would remain no more than a single night. Military business, he declared, required him to be in London by the next day but one, which was Sunday; however, he would travel all Saturday night that he might be able to spend a second evening with his parents. ‘I wonder,’ cried Colonel Digby, with the sententious propriety which charmed our Fanny, ‘how these Princes, who are thus forced to steal even their travelling from their sleep, find time to say their prayers!’
On August 5 the Court visited Worcester for the purpose of attending the Musical Festival. When the royal cortége stopped at the Bishop’s palace, “the King had an huzza that seemed to vibrate through the whole town, the Princess Royal’s carriage had a second, and the equerries a third. The mob then,” proceeds the Diary, “as ours drew on in succession, seemed to deliberate whether or not we also should have a cheer; but one of them soon decided the matter by calling out, ‘These are the maids of honour!’ and immediately gave us an huzza that made us quite ashamed.” The opening performance of the Festival next morning did not much gratify the historian. ‘It was very long and intolerably tedious, consisting of Handel’s gravest pieces and fullest choruses, and concluding with a sermon, concerning the institution of the charity, preached by Dr. Langhorne.’[[87]] A second morning performance to which she went did not strike her more favourably. One of the evening concerts she liked better. Of another she observes that it ‘was very Handelian, though not exclusively so.’
At the close of the Festival the royal party and their suite returned to Cheltenham. On the same evening Colonel Digby took his departure, ‘leaving me,’ says Fanny, ‘firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate friend for life.’ Next day an express came from him with a letter for Miss Burney, begging her to inform the Queen that the Mastership of St. Katharine’s Hospital, which was in her Majesty’s gift, had just become void by the death of the occupant. In a few more days it was announced that the vacant appointment had been conferred on Mr. Digby.
By August 16, the Court was again established at Windsor, and a rumour began to circulate of the Colonel’s gallantry at Cheltenham, mingled with a second rumour of his being then confined by gout at a house where lived Miss Gunning, for whom he had been supposed to have an admiration. Both reports were disregarded by Mrs. Schwellenberg’s assistant, who could think of nothing but the change from the pleasant society which she had lately enjoyed to the arrogance, the contentiousness, the presuming ignorance, that assailed her in the hated dining-room at the Queen’s Lodge. ‘What scales,’ she wrote, ‘could have held and weighed the heart of F. B. as she drove past the door of her revered lost comforter, to enter the apartment inhabited by such qualities!’
One strange visitor, however, she had at starting, who provided her with some little amusement:
“August 18th.—Well, now I have a new personage to introduce to you, and no small one; ask else the stars, moon and planets! While I was surrounded with band-boxes, and unpacking, Dr. Shepherd[[88]] was announced. Eager to make his compliments on the safe return, he forced a passage through the back avenues and stairs, for he told me he did not like being seen coming to me at the front door, as it might create some jealousies amongst the other Canons! A very commendable circumspection! but whether for my sake or his own he did not particularize.
“M. de Lalande, he said, the famous astronomer, was just arrived in England, and now at Windsor, and he had expressed a desire to be introduced to me....
“His business was to settle bringing M. de Lalande to see me in the evening. I told him I was much honoured, and so forth, but that I received no evening company, as I was officially engaged. He had made the appointment, he said, and could not break it, without affronting him; besides, he gave me to understand it would be an honour to me for ever to be visited by so great an astronomer....
“In the midst of tea, with a room full of people, I was called out to Dr. Shepherd!... I hurried into the next room, where I found him with his friend, M. de Lalande. What a reception awaited me! how unexpected a one from a famed and great astronomer! M. de Lalande advanced to meet me—I will not be quite positive it was on tiptoe, but certainly with a mixture of jerk and strut that could not be quite flat-footed. He kissed his hand with the air of a petit maître, and then broke forth into such an harangue of Eloges, so solemn with regard to its own weight and importance, and so fade with respect to the little personage addressed, that I could not help thinking it lucky for the planets, stars, and sun, they were not bound to hear his comments, though obliged to undergo his calculations.
“On my part sundry profound reverences with now and then an ‘Oh, monsieur!’ or ‘c’est trop d’honneur,’ acquitted me so well, that the first harangue being finished, on the score of general and grand reputation, Eloge the second began, on the excellence with which ‘cette célèbre demoiselle’ spoke French!