A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



who encouraged Pope and his literary friends, and 

 gained an ascendancy over the Prince of Wales 

 which she never entirely lost till she retired from 

 court in 1734.'" Her supper parties in the 

 rooms she occupied in the palace became cele- 

 brated. Her apartments were known to her 

 friends as the ' Swiss Cantons,' and herself as ' the 

 Swiss,' possibly from some political allusion.'" 



Lord Scarbrough, ' amiable and melancholy,' r(B 

 Charles Churchill, natural son of the Duke of 

 Marlborough's brother General Churchill, who 

 afterwards married a daughter of Sir Robert Wai- 

 pole, 4 Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Bathurst, as well 

 as Pope, Gay, Pulteney, Arbuthnot, and latterly 

 Swift, may be mentioned as among those who 

 added to the brilliancy of the court.' 64 The social 

 life at Hampton Court was a constant round of 

 amusement. In the morning it was the custom to 

 go on the river in barges, gaily decorated and hung 

 with silk curtains,' 66 rowed by oarsmen in royal 

 liveries. The prince and princess afterwards dined 

 in public with the whole court in the princess's 

 apartments. In the afternoon she received her 

 guests and read or wrote, and in the evening 

 walked for several hours in the garden. They 

 also visited the four pavilions that stood at each 

 corner of the bowling green, where chocolate 

 was served and ' ombre ' or ' commerce ' played. 

 Sometimes the princess would invite a party to 

 play cards in the ' Queen's Gallery,' or to sup 

 with her in the Countess of Buckenburgh's cham- 

 ber, though all the Germans who belonged to 

 the court disliked the English and abused them 

 roundly. 767 



It must not be supposed that business and 

 politics had no place at court. Sir Robert Walpole, 

 Lord Methuen, the Lord Chancellor Finch, Lord 

 Townshend, and Count Bothmar, George the First's 

 Hanoverian minister, were constantly in attendance. 

 Lord Sunderland, who was a friend of the king, 

 and Lord Townshend both seem to have distinguished 

 themselves by a want of consideration for the 

 princess. A story is told of her having a heated 

 controversy with Lord Sunderland in the Queen's 

 Gallery, during which she told him to ' walk next 

 the windows, for in the humour we both are, one 



of us must certainly jump out at the window, and 

 I'm resolved it shan't be me.' "* 



In October 1716 the court left the palace, 

 going by water in a barge, and did not return till 

 August in the following year, in attendance on the 

 king, whose presence did not add to their gaiety. 76 * 

 Pope wrote on 1 3 September 1717 that ' no lone 

 house in Wales, with a mountain and a rookery, 

 is more contemplative than this court ; and as a 

 proof of it, I need only tell you Miss Lepell 

 walked with me three or four hours by moon- 

 light, 7 and we met no creature of any quality but 

 the king, who gave audience to the vice-chamber- 

 lain (Hervey) all alone, under the garden wall. I 

 hear of no ball, assembly, basset-table or any place 

 where two or three were gathered together, except 

 Madam Kilmansegg's, to which I had the honour 

 to be invited, and the grace to stay away.' '" The 

 general state of ill-feeling between the king and his 

 son, and still more between the king and his 

 daughter-in-law, of whom he generally spoke as 

 ' cette diablesse la Princesse,' at this time developed 

 into an open quarrel, which attained such dimen- 

 sions, though the actual cause is unknown, that the 

 prince and princess departed from the palace in 

 October, leaving the king in possession, and shortly 

 afterwards the king put a notice in the Gazette 

 to the effect that the prince's friends would not be 

 received at court. 77 ' In 1718, when the king re- 

 turned to Hampton Court in the summer, the 

 prince was holding an opposition court at Rich- 

 mond. George I had commanded the ' King's 

 Company of Actors ' to perform plays before him 

 in the Great Hall twice a week during the summer, 

 but the theatre not being ready in time only seven 

 plays were acted in September and October. 7 " 

 Among them, on I October, Shakespeare's Henry 

 Pill was represented on the very spot where so 

 much of the action had really taken place. 774 



Richard Steele, who wrote a prologue for these 

 theatricals, when asked how the king liked the 

 play, replied, ' So terribly well, my lord, that I 

 was afraid I should have lost all my actors ; for I 

 was not sure the king would not keep them to fill 

 the posts at court that he saw them so fit for in the 

 play.' " 5 



" 61 Pope wrote in her honour the 

 well-known lines 'On a certain Lady 

 at Court.' 



6i Lady Suffolk' i Letters, i, 64, 411. 



" 63 Lady Sundon's Memoirs, \, 95. 

 He afterwards committed suicide. 



7M Ibid. He is here called the duke's 

 brother, but General Charles Churchill 

 died in 1714 ; Diet. Nat. Biog. 



; Hervey, Memoirs, \, p. xxxiii. 



7M Lady Cowper's Diary, in et seq.; 

 I.ady Suffolk's Letters, i, 376. 



"' Lady Co-wper's Diary, 125. 



" ra Lady Coivper's Diary, 123 ; Defoe, 

 Tour through Great Britain, i, 5. 



" Lady Suffolk's Letters, i, 1 5 ; Me- 

 moirs of Lady Sundon, i, 330. 



77 The maids of honour were on 

 terms of great familiarity with Pope. 

 They probably considered him as he was 

 described by Aaron Hill, 'The ladies' 

 plaything and the mulct' pride.' Her- 

 ve y, Memoirs, p. XX. 



"' Elwin and Courthope, Life of Pope, 

 ix, 272, 4. Lady Orkney is mentioned 

 as doing the honours both at Hampton 

 Court and St. James's, and in 1718 

 ' they had two plays and one ball every 

 week at Court.' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. 

 v, 568 ; xii, App. iii, 186 ; Letter from 

 Sir John Stanley to Vice-Chamberlain 

 Coke. 



"" Lady Suffolk's Letters, i, 18 ; Hist. 

 MSS. Com. Rep. v, 536 ; 'Newsletters, 1 

 14, 27 Nov. 1717. 



< 78 This company of actors, otherwise 

 known as the Drury Lane Company, 

 included Colley Cibber, Barton Booth, 

 Mills, Wilkes, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Por- 

 ter, and Miss Younger. They seem to 

 have found that the absence of laughter 

 or applause 'higher than a whisper' 

 had a melancholy effect upon their 

 acting j Colley Cibber, Apology for bit 

 Life. He gives an interesting account 

 of the arrangements and expenses. 



366 



" 4 Lysons, MM. Parishes, 67 ; 

 Colley Cibber, Apology far bit Life (ed. 

 '74), 447 i Lady Suffolk's Letters, i, 29; 

 Law, op. cit. iii, 223. 



" s Montgomery, Life of Steele, ii, 

 1 70. The stage was never used again 

 till 1731, when a performance was 

 given by order of George II, for the 

 entertainment of the Duke of Lorraine, 

 afterwards Emperor of Germany; Col- 

 ley Cibber, Apology for bis Life, 447, 

 456; Daily Advertiser, 18 Oct. 1731, 

 cit. Law, op. cit. iii, 240. The stage 

 remained till 1798, when James Wyatt, 

 Surveyor-General of the Board of Works, 

 obtained permission from George III to 

 have it removed j Lysons, Midd. 

 Parishes, 67. In 1733 Kent made a 

 design of the hall as it was in the time 

 of Henry VIII, with the idea of per- 

 suading George II to do away with the 

 disfigurement. 



