54 KEW GARDENS 



Prince's conduct. The doctors attending the 

 King had been threatened with popular violence 

 if his illness proved fatal. Their case was a 

 hard one, as not only would the royal patient 

 not always take their remedies nor even see 

 them, but they were treating a complaint then 

 ill understood even by physicians who professed 

 special experience in it It is said that poor 

 George was put in a strait -waistcoat, chained 

 to the wall, and actually struck by one of 

 his keepers, which would be quite after the 

 practice of that day. But the stories of his 

 harsh treatment are somewhat dubious, for the 

 notion that he was being ill-used often figured 

 among his delusions. 



At the end of November the doctors deter- 

 mined on removing him to Kew, where he could 

 get exercise in the privacy of the Gardens. The 

 King angrily refused to leave Windsor, and had 

 to be coaxed away by a promise that he should 

 see his wife and children, gone on before him. 

 "Princes, equerries, physicians, pages all con- 

 ferring, whispering, plotting and caballing, how 

 to induce the King to set off!" noted Miss 

 Burney, who accompanied her mistress on their 

 hasty flitting to Kew House, where the Prince 



