'The Prince of Wales had concocted, with his royal brothers, a notable scheme for making the old man drunk. Every person at table was enjoined to take wine with the Duke—a challenge which the old toper did not refuse. He soon began to see that there was a conspiracy against him; he drank glass for glass; he overthrew many of the brave. At last, the First Gentleman of Europe proposed bumpers of brandy. One of the royal brothers filled a great glass for the Duke. He stood up and tossed off the drink. "Now," says he, "I will have my carriage, and go home." The Prince urged upon him his previous promise to sleep under the roof where he had been so generously entertained. "No," he said, he had had enough of such hospitality. A trap had been set for him; he would leave the place at once, and never enter its doors more.
'The carriage was called, and came; but, in the half hour's interval, the liquor had proved too potent for the old man: his host's generous purpose was answered, and the old man's grey head lay stupefied on the table. Nevertheless, when his post chaise was announced, he staggered to it as well as he could, and stumbling in, bade the postilions drive to Arundel. They drove him for half an hour round and round the Pavilion lawn; the poor old man fancied he was going home. When he awoke that morning he was in bed at the Prince's hideous house at Brighton. You may see the place now for sixpence: they have fiddlers there every day; and, sometimes, buffoons and mountebanks hire the Riding House, and do their tricks and tumbling there. The trees are still there, and the gravel walks round which the poor old sinner was trotted. I can fancy the flushed faces of the royal princes as they support themselves at the portico pillars, and look on at old Norfolk's disgrace; but I can't fancy how the man who perpetrated it continued to be called a gentleman.'
Another of the Prince's intimates and visitor to the Pavilion was that disreputable old roué William Douglas, third Earl of March and fourth Duke of Queensberry, commonly called 'Old Q,' well known on the turf as a racehorse-owner and betting man, a thorough gambler and finished debauchee.
'And there, insatiate yet with folly's sport,
That polished, sin-worn fragment of the Court,
The shade of Queensb'ry should with Clermont meet,
Ogling and hobbling down St. James's Street.'
Nearly forty years older than the Prince, he was his Mentor in every kind of vice, and rooked him of thousands of pounds at play and in betting.
Thackeray, in 'The Virginians,' portrays him under no pseudonym. He is called simply by his title of Lord March. In Chapter XXVI. Mr. Warrington is at the White Horse Tavern, where are Lords Chesterfield and March:
'"My Lord Chesterfield's deuce is deuce ace," says my Lord March. "His Lordship can't keep away from the cards, or dice."