Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

COURT SCANDALS 223
rooms on the ground-floor of the Fountain Court —
where years before he could often be seen, watch in
hand, waiting for the exact moment of his visit to
Lady Suffolk— and was playing commerce. The
Queen sat in her rooms playing quadrille, and with
her " the Princess Emily at her commerce-table, and
the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey at cribbage,
just as usual." And meanwhile the poor Princess was
hurried down the staircase from her apartments, which
were at the end of the east front beyond the Queen's
and separated from them by the public dining-room,
into a coach without any one knowing.
They kept early hours in those days, for the royal
party separated at ten, and every one went to bed by
eleven. At half-past one the King and Queen were
awoke, and told of what was happening, and by four
o'clock the Queen with her daughters, the Duke
of Grafton and Lord Hervey, was at Saint James's
and saw the " little rat of a girl," her new-born grandchild.
When she had seen it, she walked across the
court to Lord Hervey's rooms and took chocolate,
and she was back at Hampton by eight o'clock.
The extraordinary story, almost incredible as we
read it in Lord Hervey's calmly realistic Memoirs,
is not out of keeping with the amazing character of
the court life at that day. The vice, and meanness,
and brutality, the wit, and charm, and politeness, make
a picture difficult to realise. Caroline on her deathbed,
piteous sight, while George is sobbing out before
her "J'aurai des mattresses," is hardly more human