[77] Jane, daughter to Lord Abercorn, and wife of Lord Archibald Hamilton, was Mistress of the Robes to the Princess of Wales, and for some years governed absolutely at the Prince’s Court. She had contrived to have the Princess told, before her arrival in England, that Lady **** was his mistress, to divert any suspicions from herself; and had planted so many of her own relations about her, that one day at Carlton-house, Sir William Stanhope called everybody there whom he did not know, Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton. Lady Archibald quitted that Court soon after Mr. Pitt accepted a place in the Administration.
[78] Grace, daughter to the Lord Viscount Shannon, and wife of Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex, Master of the Horse to the Prince. She succeeded Lady Archibald Hamilton as Mistress of the Robes.
[79] The following remarkable anecdote was told me by Mr. Fox, who said the King himself told it him, and that the late Lord Hervey had told him the same particular from the Queen. One day, when the Prince was but a boy, his Governor was complaining of him: the Queen, whose way (as the King said) was to excuse him, said, “Ah! je m’imagine que ces sont des tours de page.” The Governor replied, “Plût à Dieu, madame, que ces fûssent des tours de page! ces sont des tours de laquais et de coquins.”
[80] Charles Hedges had been Minister at Turin, and was Secretary to the Prince. He was a man much in fashion, and a pretty Latin poet.
[81] Vide the [Appendix, D] [and E.]
[83] This nickname was not given in the sense it was formerly; “Le boucher etoit anciennement un surnom glorieux qu’on donnoit à un general après une victoire, en reconnoissance du carnage qu’il avoit fait de trente ou quarante mille hommes.”—Essais Histor. sur Paris, de Saintfoix, tom. 2, p. 63.
[84] Sir George Lyttelton, whose sister Ayscough had married, and the three Granvilles, were nephews to Lord Cobham. W. Pitt’s brother had married Lyttelton’s sister.
[85] William Anne Van Keppel, the second Earl of Albemarle.