Lord Henley, who manages the fête, and try to manage it, so that there shall be two distinct tables; one for the Prince, to which he is to invite, another for the Duke and Duchess, to which she is to invite her company." The dislike of Mrs. Fitzherbert for the Duchess of York was as determined as that entertained by the same lady against Fox, whom she never forgave for denying the fact of her marriage with the Prince. The Prince's pecuniary embarrassments pressed more heavily upon him than the troubles arising from his amours. The Prince, in his difficulties, again had recourse to the Queen. He revealed to her the amount of both his difficulties and debts, and reports credited him with having uttered a menace to the effect, that if the King failed to provide some means for the payment of those debts, there were state secrets which he would certainly reveal, whatever the consequences might be; as, suffering as he did from the treatment which he met at his father's hands, he was an object of suspicion or contempt to half the kingdom. The Queen would not engage herself by any promise, but she sent for Mr. Pitt. After this last interview the minister repaired to Carlton House, and the message he bore showed the amount of influence possessed by the Queen. The Prince was assured that means would be found for the discharge of his liabilities. The King promised an additional 10,000l. a-year out of the civil list, and parliament subsequently voted the sum of 161,000l. to discharge the debts of the Prince, with an additional sum of 20,000l. to finish the repairs of Carlton Palace. That mansion had been dull and silent, but it was soon again brilliant, and gaily echoing with the most festive of sounds.

CHAPTER VI.

COURT FORMS AND COURT FREEDOMS.

Loss of the American colonies-Political struggle-The King's health unsatisfactory-Life of the royal family at Windsor-Mrs. Delany-The Queen and the widow-Early service in the Chapel Royal at WindsorRev. Tom Twining and Miss Burney-Miss Burney's reception by the Queen-Promenade of the royal family on the terrace-The Queen's "dressing"-The Queen's partiality for snuff--Country life of the royal family at Kew-Princess Amelia; the King's great affection for herScene on the birthday of the Princess-Margaret Nicholson's attempt to assassinate the King-The Queen's dread-Her fondness for diamondsMrs. Warren Hastings-The present from the Nizam of the DeccanUnpopularity of the King and Queen-Their affection for each otherThe Queen's tenderness to Mrs. Delany-Reconciliation of the King and the Prince-A pleasant scene- -Another court incident.

THE loss of the American colonies, and the triumph of Lord North and Fox, two men whom the King hated, and who forced an administration upon him, had, in various degrees, a serious effect upon his health. He became dejected, but when Fox's India Bill was thrown out by the Lords, he had the firmness-a firmness suggested by the Queen-to turn the obnoxious cabinet out. Pitt succeeded as prime minister, and no one saw him in that post with greater pleasure than Charlotte.

She continued to support both King and Minister through the tremendous political struggle which followed, and during which, Pitt more than once expressed his determination to resign. "In such case, I must resign too," said the King; adding that he would sooner retire with the Queen to Hanover, than submit to a ministry whose political principles he detested. The public admired his firmness, and for a season he was again popular, popular, but not safe. His health was in an unsatisfactory state; and it was at a season when he required to be

kept in a state of composure, that an attempt was made to stab him, by an insane woman named Nicholson, as he was leaving St. James's Palace by the garden entrance, on the 2nd of August, 1786. As he received a paper which she presented, the woman stabbed at him, but with no worse result than piercing his waistcoat.

Before we show how the news of this attempt was received at Windsor, where the Queen was then sojourning, we may glance briefly at the nature of the life passed there. It was generally of a pleasing aspect.

The benevolence of the Queen and her consort was well illustrated in their conduct to Mrs. Delany. The lady in question was a Granville by birth, and in the first flush of her youth and beauty, had been married, against her inclination, to a middle-aged squire, named Pendarvis, who was much what middle-aged squires were in those not very refined days. Mr. and Mrs. Pendarvis passed much such a life as that described by the young Widow Cheerly as having been that of herself and the squire, her lord; and the lady, too, became a widow almost as early. She was, however, of mature age when she married her old and esteemed acquaintance, Dr. Delany, the friend of Swift. After being a second time a widow, she found a home with the Dowager Duchess of Portland, and when death deprived her of this friend also, she found a new home, and new friends in Queen Charlotte and King George. They assigned to her a house in the Windsor Park, in the fitting up of which both Queen and King took great personal interest, and the former settled upon her an annuity of 300l. a-year. When the good old lady went down to take possession of her new habitation, the King was there ready to receive her, like a son establishing a mother in a new home. His courtesy was felt, and it was of the right sort, for while it brought him there to welcome the new guest, it would not allow him to stay to embarrass her. A good act may be marred in the performance, but it was not so here. With similar delicacy, when the Queen came down to visit her new neighbour, she put her at once at her ease, by her own affability; and when, before leaving,

she placed in Mrs. Delany's hands the paper signed by the King, and authorising her to draw her first half-year of her little revenue, it was done with a grace which prevented the object of it from feeling that she was reduced to the condition of a pensioner.

These parties remained, as long as Mrs. Delany lived, on terms of as much equality as could exist between persons so different in rank. In Mrs. Delany's little parlour, the Queen would frequently take tea. It was a social banquet in which she delighted; and years afterwards, in her old age, she was as fond of going down to Datchet to take tea with Lord James Murray (afterwards Lord Glenlyon, father of the present Duke of Athol) as she was at this early period of enjoying the same "dish" with the fine old "gentlewoman," who was her most grateful pensioner. Queen and widow corresponded with each other, lived, as ladies in the country who esteem each other are accustomed to live; and when the doctor's relict had not what was to her, good old soul, the supreme bliss of entertaining the Queen, she enjoyed the inexpressible felicity of receiving at tea the young Princes and Princesses. A riotous, romping, good-natured group these made, and many a sore head-ache must they have inflicted on the aged lady, who was too loyal to be anything but proud of such an infliction incurred in such a cause.

The letters of Queen Charlotte to her "dear friend" are not of sufficient interest to bear quoting. They are on small subjects, expressed in a small way, and terminating with a mixture of condescension and dignity, with good wishes from "your affectionate Queen."

Mrs. Delany speaks in her own letters with well-warranted praise of one circumstance which marked the routine of royal life at Windsor. Every morning throughout the year, at eight o'clock, the Queen leaning on the King's arm, led her family procession to the Chapel Royal, for the purpose of attending early morning prayer. There are some persons who look upon these daily services as Popish; and, if these be lazily as well as lowly inclined, they denounce the early service as cruel. They

are doubtless sincere in their views and denunciations, but they are certainly as mistaken; and one of the most pleasing features in the Queen's routine of daily life, was to be found in this exemplary practice of hers, which showed to her people the first lady in the land earliest in her attendance at the altar of the Lord. It should be noticed too, and to her praise, that the Queen never forced any one to follow her example; she left it to the consciences of all. She was independent, too, in her opinions, and though she joined fervently with the King in the prayer," Give peace in our time, O Lord!" and acknowledged (with more truth than the stereotyped expression itself would seem to convey,-so illogical is it with its impertinent "because,") that none other fought for us but God alone, yet would she not remain silent, as the King invariably did, when the Athanasian Creed was being repeated. That awful and overwhelming judicatory denunciation at the close shocked the mind of a monarch whose own penal laws, however, were the most sanguinary in Europe. The Queen, as is the case with most ladies, in church matters, had less mercy, and she heartily joined in the sentence which so stringently winds up the creed which, after all, was not written by Athanasius.

When the Rev. Tom Twining heard that the celebrated Miss Burney was about to be dresser and reader to the Queen, he exclaimed, "What a fine opportunity you will have of studying the philosophy of the human capacity in the highest sphere of life!"-"Goodness me! madam ! he exclaims, admiringly, "are you to take care of the robes yourself?" Miss Burney hardly knew what she would have to do, or what her opportunities might be, but she was not long in acquiring the knowledge in question.

Indeed, she picked up much acquaintance with court routine on the first day of her arrival at the Queen's lodge. She found a royal mistress who was extremely anxious to calm the fluttering agitation of her new attendant; and who received her, if not as a friend, yet in no respect as a servant. Gracious as was the reception, the young lady was not sorry to escape to the dinner-table of the ladies and gentlemen in waiting. How