gracious form as, "Now I will let you go; or on occasion Schwellenberg might say in her odd English, "When you have done from the queen, come to my room.”

On feast days, birthdays, and such occasions, trifling presents, according to the German fashion, were interchanged and expected. With a native simplicity, the princesses showed what they had received with great enjoyment. There were whisperings and mystery as to the present from mamma. They took the form of etwees, purses and the like. The queen often gave her ladies handsome gowns when they were attending her on some visit of state.

In the matter of improving and altering their many palaces, the royal family showed great energy and enterprise. At one time they were anxious to repair and inhabit the picturesque old building at Richmond, and attempted some negotiations with the local authorities for purchasing additional land. These approaches, however, were not favourably received, and the king and queen turned their thoughts to the improvement of Windsor and Kew. The Richmond folk then saw their mistake and consented to give the ground, but it was too late.1

Lady Mary Coke supplies some lively sketches of the court life at this time. The queen, she tells us, wore an

1 Richmond even now retains much of its court tone and flavour. The striking "Maid of Honour Row" still stands, the fragment of the palace has been well restored, and is inhabited, but the old theatre and manager's house is levelled.

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English nightgown, and ordered Lady Charlotte Finch to do the same. She looked sharply after all the ladies, and was very strict in etiquette and ceremonial. She would come rather late to prayers at St. George's Chapel, and would be extra vigilant as to the attendance of others. On one occasion when she complained that she did not see Lady Mary there, the latter in her lively way said, "I am sure I made my curtsey as soon as I rose from my knees. I could not get up during the Lord's Prayer."

The good fortune of the queen was not without its effect in attracting numbers of her family to London, and in about a year or two after the marriage we find two of her Majesty's brothers enjoying all the pleasures of the metropolis. A house was taken for one in Pall Mall at the queen's expense, who was eager in her inquiries after all her old friends, Madame de Grabow, Pastor Gensner, and the rest. She was not so pleased when there arrived from Strelitz, in the following year, 1764, a grotesque countess, one Mme. de Yerbsen, whose appearance and behaviour excited the ridicule of the courtiers. It was reported that she had once boxed the King of Prussia's ears! The queen was rather ashamed of her compatriot, but her remark was quoted as clever: "This is not the sort of dress we have at Strelitz; this lady always dresses herself as capriciously there as your Duchess of Queensberry does here."

Her rather impoverished family by-and-by gave trouble to their great connection. The queen's brothers,

as we have seen, continued to pay visits to London; the head of the family was seriously embarrassed. His debts, owing to these excursions, were said to reach thirty thousand pounds, and the good-natured queen had often to assist her impecunious relatives out of her own pocket. When Lord Halifax died we are told that she exerted her influence to get Lord Suffolk appointed in his place. This nobleman had taken interest in her family and engaged to arrange their embarrassed affairs, which he did. One of the family, Prince Ernest, became attached to a very wealthy heiress, and was eager to marry, but the royal family had objections, and the plan came to nothing.

But the wise queen took care, on the whole, not to furnish ground for any charges of undue "nepotism," though she did not neglect her relatives. Any distinctions they received were of an honorary kind. The Duke of Mecklenburg was thus made a Knight of the Garter, his brother Charles became governor of the little town of Zell, and Prince George, after waiting long in England, received a commission in the Hanoverian army. But in her private capacity she was always generous to them, making them handsome presents.

Large as was the king's family and many as were the alliances to be made by his sisters and brothers and his own numerous children it was a strange thing that so few of them turned out well or could be considered prosperous. Some careers were absolutely of the most disastrous kind, and brought disaster to those with whom they were connected.

Thus, the marriage of the king's sister, Caroline Augusta, to the King of Denmark took place under the fairest auspices, and the alliance was considered "a good match," as it is called. But for the interposition of the king her brother, the unfortunate lady would have fared ill, and perhaps lost her life. Some frigates were despatched to carry her away, and she was allowed to choose a retreat at Zell in Hanover. Her story is certainly one of the most romantic and interesting kind, and though Sir M. Wraxall and others have given minute accounts of the affair, the mystery has never been wholly cleared up. There were many schemes for her release or rescue, which she did not live long enough to profit by, for she died on May 10th, 1775, of a malignant fever, after an illness of five days. Her strange husband had been recently in London, exciting much attention by his capricious doings.

Meanwhile the king was harassed and worried by political difficulties. Ministers, politicians and the revolutionary "patriots" joined to make his life a burden. The ministers, presuming on his youth, treated him with an insolent dictation. Wilkes was displaying his almost ferocious hostility, while the princess-mother and her favourite were exciting public odium. It was not surprising that in 1765 the harassed young monarch became seriously ill. The nature of this illness was carefully concealed. His ministers, when he was recovering, found his manner "a good deal estranged." But the truth leaked out that it was a light form of the mental disorder that afflicted him some twenty years later.

He was seized with a feverish attack, with " a humour

on his breast," and had to be blooded four times. He however recovered, and the incident showed in what a perilous position the sovereignty was: for in the case of his demise, no provision had been made for providing for carrying on the government. The real and secret alarm was, that it would fall to the ambitious princessmother and her creature, Lord Bute. A Regency Bill was at once brought forward, which, owing to the struggles and jealousies of the factions, underwent the most singular changes before it could be passed. The king's object was to secure all power for the queen at first. All the five princes were put aside. The regency was to be in petto, with four secret nominations. Then, as jealousies arose, the princes were introduced into the Bill and the queen was named as Regent. Awkward questions were then raised as to whether the queen had been naturalized, and how was even the term Royal Family to be defined. It was finally carried that the Princess Dowager should be excluded, altogether, a great affront to one who was the queen's mother. The queen was named Regent and the matter finally settled.

During this crisis the princess and Lord Bute tried to keep from the queen the knowledge that the king's mind was affected, and to keep her from his side. The queen herself became seriously ill from anxiety and trouble, but deeply resented the treatment she had met with from her mother-in-law. On his recovery the king returned to her and was hers more than ever.

Under this treatment it was natural that the queen's spirits sank, and at the play it was remarked how dejected