One night at Kensington Palace, just as Lady Deloraine was about to sit down to cards with the King, one of the Princesses pulled her chair away and she came down with a bump on the floor.
It was bad enough to be laughed at by the Princesses, but far worse to have little George guffawing at her with the knowledge in her mind that she was only playing second fiddle to the Walmoden.
Lady Deloraine waited her opportunity, and later, when the King was about to sit down, pulled his chair away, with the view of getting her own back again. The result, however, was not at all what she expected; the sacred person of his Majesty is said to have been much bruised, and so far from regarding the performance as a joke, he excluded Lady Deloraine from his Court from that time forth, and the Walmoden, now created Countess of Yarmouth, reigned henceforth supreme till the King’s death many years after. Many will recollect a similar anecdote in similar circumstances in our own day.
The next event, however, in the life of the Prince of Wales, following quickly on the death of his mother, was the birth of his eldest son, afterwards to fill the throne of England as George the Third. This took place at Norfolk House, St. James’s, on the 4th of June (new style), 1738, while Carlton House was still under repair.
The birth was premature, and the child very frail, so much so that he was baptized on the day of his birth.
The Poet Laureate seized this opportunity of the birth of a Prince in the direct line of succession to the throne to become drivelling. He congratulated Nature that she had first amused herself by sketching a girl—Princess Augusta—by which bit of practice she had enabled herself to produce the wonderful baby George!
Truly this Laureate was a person of some imagination!
The Corporation of London appear to have gone to the King direct and in a talented address pointed out to him the fact—which perhaps otherwise might have been overlooked—that this joyful occasion was the result of the alliance of the baby’s parents!
The Bath Municipality seem to have also done something in this way to distinguish themselves, by congratulating the Prince of Wales on his own birth, to which they owed the sight of the royal presence in which they stood.
It may be mentioned here that on his first birthday little Prince George was the object of a curious attention.