“The quadrille table is well known, and there is a large table surrounded by my master (the Prince of Wales), the Princesses, the Duke of Cumberland, the bedchamber ladies, Lord Lumley, and all the belle-assemblée, at a most stupid game, to my mind, lottery ticket. £100 is sometimes lost at this pastime. The maids play below with the King in Mrs. Howard’s apartment, and the moment they come up, the Queen starts up and goes into her apartment.... T’other night Lord Grantham and the Queen had a dispute about going to a room without passing by the backstairs; she bade him go and see; he did, and came back as positive as before. ‘Well,’ says she, ‘will you go along with me if I show you the way?’ ‘Yes, madam,’ says he. Up she starts, and trots away with one candle, and came back triumphant over my Lord Grantham. The belle-assemblée was in an uproar, thinking the King was ill, when I told them ’twas a wager between the Queen and my Lord Grantham.”[37]
The Queen was fond of these little jokes, for on another occasion we find Peter Wentworth writing: “Sunday, in the evening the Queen commanded me to order her a chaise and one horse, and a coach and six to follow, for Monday, at six o’clock in the morn, and six Life Guards and two Grenadiers, and your humble servant a-horseback, which was to be kept a great secret. When I had put her Majesty into her chaise with Princess Mary, she bid me ride and tell the Colonel of the Guard not to beat the drum as she passed out [of St. James’s]. We drove to the foot ferry at Kew, where there was a barge of four oars which carried her Majesty, Princess Mary, Mrs. Purcell and I to the Queen’s house at Kew. The whole joke of keeping this a secret was upon Lord Lifford, who had said ’twas impossible for her Majesty to go out at any time but he should know it. When we came there, therefore, the Queen sent for the other Princesses, Lord Hervey and Lord Lifford to breakfast with her. Lord Hervey, Princess Caroline and Princess Louisa came before ten; the Queen, Mrs. Purcell and I walked twice round the garden before they came. We had a fine breakfast, with the addition of cherries and strawberries we plucked from the garden, some of which the Queen gave me with her own hand; and said to Lord Hervey C’est un très bon enfant, and repeated it several times, Lord Hervey assenting. I never suspected she spoke of me, which she, perceiving, said in English: ‘We are speaking of you; you know I love you, and you shall know I love, I do really love you’. I made low bows, but had not the impromptu wit nor assurance to make any other answer.”[38]
And again:—
“On Saturday when the Queen was at Kew, the Blue Horse Guards in stocks stood sentry there. As she goes up the court she says to Lord Lifford and me: ‘I’ll lay you what you will he of the right is a Scotsman, and he of the left an Englishman and a Yorkshireman’. When she came up to them, she asked him of the right, who was a handsome young fellow and a gentleman volunteer: ‘What countryman are you?’ ‘A Scotsman, your Majesty.’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Hamilton.’ ‘Of what family?’ ‘The dukes of that name.’ ‘How long have you been in the regiment?’ ‘Ever since it has been the Duke of Argyll’s.’ Then she turns to t’other man, and asks what countryman he was? ‘An Englishman, your Majesty.’ ‘Your name?’ ‘Hill.’ ‘What county?’ ‘Yorkshire.’ The Queen was pleased and so was I, for I would always have her pleased, and turned about to my lord and me, and said: ‘N’est-ce pas que j’ay dit vray? Je connais bien la physiognomie.’”
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER IV:
[27] Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth.
[28] Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth.
[29] Memoirs of Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth.
[30] Wilhelmina states in her Memoirs that the whole thing was a plot of George II., who wished to find an excuse for keeping his son away from England altogether, but the candour of the Queen of Prussia spoilt it all. But there is nothing to support this statement.
[31] Daily Post, 5th December, 1728.