Pepys, too, alludes to the practice of card-playing on Sunday initiated by Catherine into the English Court, and writes: “This evening, going to the queen’s side to see the ladies, I did find the queen, the Duchess of York, and another at cards, with the room full of ladies and great men, which I was amazed to see on a Sunday, having not believed, but contrarily flatly denied the same a little while to my cousin.”
In the ensuing reign, basset and other gambling games were in high vogue in Court and fashionable society. Mary Beatrice, consort of James II., disliked cards, and was frightened at the idea of high play; but, it seems, her ladies told her she must do as others did, or she would become unpopular. Accordingly her reluctance was overcome by their importunities, and soon she was to be seen at the card-table, losing, time after time, large sums of money at a game in playing which she found no pleasure. In after years she was apt to say: “I suffered great pain from my losses at play, and all for the want of a little firmness in not positively refusing to comply with a custom which those who were so much older than myself told me I was not at liberty to decline. I shall always regret my weakness, since it deprived me of the means of doing the good I ought to have done at that time.” Such was the acknowledgment made nearly forty years afterwards of what she always regarded as an inexcusable error on her part.
Like her sister Anne, Mary II. was in her early life a constant card-player, and, not satisfied with devoting her week-day evenings to this diversion, she played on the Sabbath. In after years she maintained her love for cards, and we find her playing at basset, a game much in request throughout the Courts of Europe, and at which vast sums were won and lost. After the peace of Mimeguen, the Marquis d’Avaux, the ambassador from Louis XIV., sent word on the morning of December 3, 1680, to Monsieur Odyke—an official in the household of the princess—that he would wait on her that evening. But he forgot to give the notice, so that when the French Ambassador arrived he found the princess had commenced her gambling. She rose and asked him if he would play; he made no answer, and she resumed her game, the ambassador sitting down and looking on. After a while he joined in the game, and the Prince of Orange, who arrived shortly afterwards, did the same. According to strict etiquette, however, as the visit of the ambassador had been previously announced, the basset tables should not have been set till his arrival.
William III., too, was much given to gambling. He passed whole days on the race-ground, and in the evenings he gambled, losing at one sitting, it is said, four thousand guineas at basset. The following morning, in a state of exasperated temper, he gave a gentleman a stroke with his horsewhip for riding in front of him on the race-ground. The proceeding was the subject of much comment, and was satirised by a bon-mot, declaring “that it was the only blow he had struck for supremacy in his kingdoms.” William appears to have lost enormous sums at the basset-table, and his inveterate habit of gambling, added to the passion of his princess for cards, caused, as might be expected, the scandalmongers of the period to scatter broadcast the most derogatory stories respecting their Sunday gambling parties, a practice which brought down the most unsparing remonstrances of the Church of England clergymen, and caused Mary’s old tutor, Dr. Lake, the greatest concern.
It would seem that the game of basset occupied a considerable portion of Queen Anne’s time, “breaking into her hours by day as well as by night.” At the basset-table the players so closely crowded her Majesty that she could scarcely “put her hand in her pocket,” an obligation, it is said, not infrequent, since she was usually unfortunate at play. Allusions to the game occur in her correspondence, as, for instance, in a letter to the Duchess of Marlborough, written in 1703, dated “Monday night,” and which runs thus: “Just as I came from basset I received my dear Mrs. Freeman’s letter, and though it is very late, I cannot be content with myself without thanking you for it.” It is not surprising that there was a great and constant drain on the privy-purse when so much was drawn out of it to meet the demands for play-money.
At the period of George II.’s reign there were cards everywhere. “Gaming has become so much the fashion,” writes Seymour, the author of the “Court Gamester,” “that he who in company should be ignorant of the games in vogue, would be reckoned low-bred and hardly fit for conversation.” On Twelfth Day it was customary for the Court to play in state. “This being Twelfth-day his Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and the Knights Companions of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath appeared in the collars of their respective orders. Their Majesties, the Prince of Wales, and three eldest Princesses went to the Chapel Royal, preceded by the heralds. The Duke of Manchester carried the Sword of State. The King and Prince made offerings at the altar of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, according to the annual custom. At night their Majesties played at hazard with the nobility, for the benefit of the groom-porter; and ’twas said the King won 600 guineas; the Queen, 360; Princess Amelia, twenty; Princess Caroline, ten; the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Portmore, several thousands.”
George II. was once seated at a card-table, when the Countess of Deloraine, who usually formed one of his intimate society, happened to be one of the party at the game. In the midst of the play one of the Princesses quietly glided behind Lady Deloraine, and suddenly drawing the chair from under her caused her to fall on the ground. The King, by his excessive laughter, showed himself highly amused at the occurrence, which so enraged Lady Deloraine that, some time afterwards seizing the King’s chair, she occasioned him the same mishap which she had experienced herself.
But George, says Horace Walpole, “like Louis XIV., was mortal in the part which touched the ground.” Diverted as he had been when the misfortune occurred to another, he regarded the insult as unpardonable when offered to himself, and henceforth Lady Deloraine was banished the Court.[87]
The Princess Amelia Sophia, daughter of George II., was fond of the card-table, and Horace Walpole, who was frequently invited to her card-parties, has given many a graphic picture of the Princess on these occasions. She was a great snuff-taker, and on one occasion, when playing at cards in the public rooms at Bath, a general officer took a pinch from her box, the Princess showing her sense of the liberty he had taken by ordering an attendant to throw the contents of the box into the fire.
But the Princess’s addiction to play was the cause of comment even in the royal circle. Doddington was once conversing with the widow of Frederick Prince of Wales respecting the tastes of her eldest son—afterwards George III.—when “she began by saying that she liked the Prince should now and then amuse himself at small play, but that princes should never play deep, both for example, and because it did not become them to win great sums.” From thence, says Doddington, she told me that “it was highly improper the manner in which the Princess —— behaved at Bath; that she played publicly all the evening very deep.” I asked, with whom? She said, “With the Duke and Duchess of Bedford; that it was prodigious what work she made with Lord Chesterfield; that when his lordship was at Court she would speak to him; but that now at Bath she sent to inquire of his coming before he arrived; and when he came she sent her compliments to him, expecting him at all her parties at play, and that he should always sit by her in the public rooms that he might be sure of a warm place.” Numerous anecdotes of this kind have been recorded illustrative of the gambling tastes of the Princess; and yet notwithstanding the prosecution of her favourite occupation, which frequently kept her from rest till a very late hour, she continued an early riser throughout her life.[88]