To which his irate governor responded:
“Plût à Dieu, madame,” he virtuously answered, “these are not the tricks of a page; these are the tricks of a lacquey and a rascal!”
It is pretty certain that young as the boy was his life was developing on the same lines as his father and grandfather, for which their bad example and the lonely state in which he lived was undoubtedly accountable.
George the First, however, when he visited Hanover in 1716 found no fault with his grandson. He appears to have been one of the few friends the boy had. He evidently approved of him in every way whether he knew of the child’s growing bad habits or not. He was especially pleased that he held courts and levees at Herrenhausen in his absence and as a mark of his general approval created the boy Duke of Gloucester, but as it has been already stated the patent never passed the Seal, probably because the title chosen had proved a very unlucky one in former cases.
A propos of this visit of King George to Hanover—the first since his accession to the English throne two years before—Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu writes:—
“This town is neither large nor handsome, but the palace capable of holding a greater Court than that of St. James’s. The King has had the kindness to appoint us a lodging in one part, without which we should be very ill-accommodated, for the vast number of English crowds the town so much it is very good luck to get one sorry room in a miserable tavern.... The King’s company of French comedians play here every night; they are very well dressed, and some of them not ill actors. His Majesty dines and sups constantly in public. The Court is very numerous, and its affability and goodness make it one of the most agreeable places in the world.”[9]
Lady Mary writes again to another friend:
“I have now got into the region of beauty. All the women have literally rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and bosoms; jet eyebrows and scarlet lips, to which they generally add coal black hair. These perfections never leave them until the hour of their deaths, and have a very fine effect by candlelight. But I could wish them handsome with a little more variety. They resemble one of the beauties of Mrs. Salmon’s Court of Great Britain,[10] and are in as much danger of melting away by approaching too close to the fire, which they for that reason, carefully avoid, though it is now such excessive cold weather that I believe they suffer extremely by that piece of self-denial.”
This bit of satire apparently was directed at the Hanoverian ladies’ excessive fat.
But Lady Mary was charmed with Herrenhausen.