Lady Archibald made the Queen no answer to this address, which sounded rather like a rebuke to one of her own dependents, which Lady Archibald probably really was. The latter turned to the Prince and simply remarked:
“You see, sir.”
Lord Hervey appears to have received an account of this interview direct from the Queen and Princesses when they were partaking of the chocolate he had had prepared for them in his room, and we may take it that any conversation unfavourable to them was discreetly left out.
The Duke of Grafton, Lord Essex and Lord Hervey, were then admitted to see the baby, and the Queen withdrew with this very considerate remark to the Princess of Wales after embracing her:
“My good Princess, is there anything you want, anything you wish or anything you would have me do? Here I am, you have but to speak and ask, and whatever is in my power that you would have me do, I promise you I will do it.”
The Prince accompanied her to the foot of the stairs where he parted from his mother, who walked across the courtyard to Lord Hervey’s lodgings. Arrived there she made the following characteristic and elegant observation to the two Princesses and the Duke of Grafton, and Lord Hervey who accompanied her:
“Well, upon my honour, I no more doubt this poor little bit of a thing is the Princess’s child than I doubt of either of these two being mine; though I own to you I had my doubts upon the road that there would be some juggle, and if instead of this poor little ugly she-mouse there had been a brave, large, fat, jolly boy, I should not have been cured of my suspicions.”
And now comes the great question which has puzzled everybody from that day to this, and to which only the feeblest and most unsatisfying answers have been given.
Why did the Prince and Princess take all this trouble in removing from Hampton Court in order that their child might be born in London?
That they had made their preparations beforehand in providing the nurse who appeared at a few minutes’ notice cannot be doubted, and that, like the careless young people that they were, they left out many of the essentials—such as the sheets—is also evident. Why did they take all this trouble?