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 Pendarves, who was much like what middle-aged squires were in those not very refined days. Mr. and Mrs. Pendarves 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 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. 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 there to embarrass her. 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, grandfather 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 headache they must 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 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. One of the most pleasing features in the Queen’s routine of daily life was to be found in this exemplary practice of hers. 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 the 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 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 graphically does she describe the German officer there who was in waiting on the Queen’s brother, Prince Charles of Mecklenburgh: ‘He could never finish a speech he had begun, if a new dish made its appearance, without stopping to feast his eyes upon it, exclaim something in German, and suck the inside of his mouth; but all so openly, and with such perfect good-humour, that it was diverting without being distasteful.’ The old ceremonious forms had not yet become quite extinct at court. Men did not kneel on serving the Queen, but they never sat down in her presence. How they contrived to dine comfortably at the royal table defies conjecture, if the following paragraph is to be taken literally: ‘I find it has always belonged to Mrs. Swellenburgh and Mrs. Haggerdorn to receive at tea whatever company the King or Queen invite to the lodge, as it is only a very select few that can eat with their Majesties, and those few are only ladies; no man, of what rank soever, being permitted to sit in the Queen’s presence.’ The royal table must then have been the dullest in the palace; and no wonder it is that bishops, peers, officers, and gentlemen enjoyed themselves so thoroughly, in less dignity and more comfort, with the maids of honour and ladies of less official greatness.

Nothing was, indeed, more homely and hearty than the promenades made by the illustrious couple, their children all about them, on the terrace, of an evening, or when they assembled in the concert-room, where ‘nothing was played but Handel.’ The time was a transition time; feudality was growing faint, and the best of kings were losing their prestige of infallibility. Still there was much of ceremony both at bed and board; that of the latter has been already mentioned. That at bed-time was not so cumbersome as the ceremony observed at the coucher of Marie Antoinette, but it was still of a high and ponderous, yet affectionate, formality. The Queen was handed into her dressing-room by the King, followed by the Princess Royal and the Princess Augusta. The King, on leaving the room, kissed his daughters, who in their turn ceremoniously kissed their royal mother’s hand, and bade her ‘good-night.’ This done, the Queen placed herself in the hands of her ‘women,’ who, in as brief a time as was consistent with the dignity of her whom they tended, fitted the royal lady for repose. The Queen paid, with a formal curtsey, every sign of respect, by whomsoever offered her, as she passed along.

It is said that Burnet introduced the fashion of high-partitioned pews in the Chapel Royal to prevent the flirting that was constantly going on between the officers and maids of honour. Upon some plea for decorum, rather than because of offence, Queen Charlotte had appointed separate tables for the ladies and gentlemen in waiting; but as she did not forbid them to invite each other, or, as was very often the case with the gentlemen, to invite themselves, the division of tables was only nominally maintained.

The Queen’s ‘dressing,’ deprived as it was of some of the ceremonies of an olden time, was nevertheless not without its formality. Her new ‘dresser,’ Miss Burney, was not always in time, disliked at first, but wisely got over her dislike, being summoned by a bell, and was so nervous as to mar her services. No maid was permitted to remain in the apartment during the time the Queen was ‘tiring.’ One lady dresser handed to the other the portions of dress required. ‘’Tis fortunate for me,’ says Miss Burney, ‘I have not the handing of them. I should never know which to take first, embarrassed as I am, and should run a prodigious risk of giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before the neck-kerchief.’

The actual ‘dressing for the day’ took place at one o’clock, and included the then elaborate matter of powdering. Till the hair-dresser was admitted for the completion of this last matter, the Queen, while being dressed, read the newspapers; but when the powderer came she dismissed the attendants, who had previously covered her up in a peignoir, and was then left alone with the artist, who must have looked very ridiculous in casting, as the Queen must have looked in receiving, the impenetrable clouds of powder which he continued to fling at and about the royal head. But there was another sort of powder patronised by the Queen—the mother of George IV. condescended to take snuff. In the admixture and scent of this she was curiously learned; and Miss Burney filled her boxes and damped the contents when they had got too dry, to her great satisfaction.

There is a fashion in country-towns observed by ladies who go out in chairs to parties, consisting in their carrying with them some portion of their dress, to be adjusted at the locality where they are about to spend the evening. This fashion, too, is a relic of the days of Queen Charlotte. ‘On court days,’ says Miss Burney, ‘the Queen dresses her head at Kew, and puts on her drawing-room apparel at St. James’s. Her new attendant dresses all at Kew, except tippet and long ruffles, which she carries in paper to save from dusty roads.’ It was the etiquette at St. James’s that the finishing of the Queen’s dressing there should be the work of the bedchamber-woman. It consisted of little more than tying the necklace, handing the fan and gloves, and bearing the Queen’s train as she left the room. This she did alone, only as far as the anteroom; there the lady of the bedchamber became the ‘first trainbearer,’ and the poor Queen had two annoyances to put up with instead of one.

From the cumbrous ceremonies of St. James’s the Queen was glad enough to escape to Kew. At the latter place, indeed, ceremony, as far as the royal family was concerned, was left outside the gates. The sovereigns were thoroughly ‘at home,’ and the Queen enjoyed a ‘country life,’ not as Marie Antoinette did, a dairymaid in diamonds, at Trianon, but as a simple English country lady. The foreigners who visited the court at this time were disgusted by the republican look which it wore. It was simple and plain enough, at Kew that is, to have pleased even Franklin. The King was really there what he was popularly called everywhere, ‘Farmer George;’ the Queen was his true dame, the plainest of the plain things around her. The children—that is, the younger portion of them—were as unaffected as their parents, and the little Princess Amelia was the fairy of the place, if one may speak of a fairy in connection with farming. However grave the King might look, through pressure of public events, the little hand of the Princess Amelia, placed by the Queen in his, always touched his heart, and a look into the child’s eyes ever brought a smile into his own. Never daughter more closely nestled in a father’s heart than Amelia did in that of George III. The Queen loved, but the King adored her. At Kew, father and child appeared more unrestrained in the hearty demonstrations of their love than elsewhere. Indeed, everything at Kew was free and unrestrained; and it was no offence there if any of the attendants did pass a room the door of which was open and somebody royal within. In France, they who desired to enter an apartment in which the Queen was, scratched, but never knocked, at the door. In England, at least in Queen Charlotte’s time, the etiquette was also not to knock at, but to shake the handle of, the door. Another ceremony was observed in order to avoid ceremony. When royal birthdays occurred during the Queen’s stay at Windsor the family walked on the terrace, which was crowded with people of distinction, who took that mode of showing respect, to avoid the trouble and fatigue of attending at the following drawing-room. Here is a scene on the birthday of the Princess Amelia, drawn by one who was present:—

‘It was really a mighty pretty procession. The little Princess, just turned three years old, in a robe-coat covered with fine muslin, a dressed closed cap, white gloves, and a fan, walked on alone and first, highly delighted in the parade, and turning from side to side to see everybody as she passed; for all the terracers stand up against the walls to make a clear passage for the royal family the moment they come in sight. Then follow the King and Queen, no less delighted themselves with the joy of their little darling.’2

The Princess Royal, at this time, is said to have shown more respect and humility to her parents than any of the other children of the family. She passed on in this birthday procession, accompanied by ladies, and her sisters, similarly accompanied, followed her. Happy were they to whom Queen or King addressed a few words as they stopped on their way; and astounded were the adorers of etiquette when they saw the little Princess Amelia, on recognising Miss Burney, not only go up to kiss her, but actually kissed by her. The Queen herself was probably more surprised than pleased. But it was a birthday! At other seasons etiquette was so rigidly observed (always excepting at Kew) that the children of the royal family never spoke in the presence of the King and Queen, except to answer observations made to them. The Queen, too, as well as she was able, watched over the religious education of her daughters, and always assembled them around her to listen to a course of religious reading by herself. This she did with gravity and good judgment, as became indeed a woman of ordinary good sense.

We have already, incidentally, noticed the attempt made upon the life of the King by Margaret Nicholson. The attack was not known to the Queen till it was announced to her by the King in person. As soon as the poor mad woman had been arrested, the Spanish ambassador posted down to Windsor, to be in readiness to inform her Majesty of the truth, in case of any exaggerated reports reaching her ear. When the King entered the Queen’s apartment at Windsor, on his return from London, he wore a rather joyous air, and exclaimed, in a naturally joyous tone, ‘Well, here I am, safe and well, though I have had a very narrow escape of being stabbed.’ The consternation in the family circle was great; several of the ladies burst into tears, for every one was fond of George III., albeit he was accused of Stuart fondness for the exercise of kingly prerogative. The Queen alone did not at first weep, but pale and agitated she turned round to those who did, and said that she envied them. The relief of tears, however, soon comparatively restored her, and she was enabled, with some outward show of calmness, to listen to the King’s details of the occurrence. Into these he entered with the hilarity of a man whose feelings are naturally not very finely strung, but who is strongly persuaded that escape from assassination is rather a matter to be jocund than solemn over. He did not want for a sense of gratitude at his escape, but nothing could prevent his being gay over it. He told the details, therefore, as though they partook something of a joke. He noticed that the knife had slightly cut or grazed his waistcoat; and said he, ‘It was great good luck that it did not go further. There was nothing beneath it but some thin linen and a good deal of fat.’

The matter, however, pressed heavily upon the spirits of the Queen. She dreaded lest this attempt should be only a part of a great conspiracy, and feared that the conspirators would not rest satisfied with the mere attempt. The idea was natural at the time, for democracy then was daily barking at, if not biting, kings; and so universally spread was the feeling through one class throughout Europe that the King of England had no cause to deem himself specially exempt from such attempts. George III. had the courageous spirit common to most of the princes of his house, and would not stand aloof from his people because the princes of other houses were at issue with their people. The Queen felt greater distrust, but she was partially reassured by the tone taken by the English papers. The pulpit and the press spoke out in tones which showed that, however the country might be divided upon questions connected with politics, it would not tolerate the idea of regicide. These things were known to Queen Charlotte, and comforted the poor lady, who, for a time, could not think of her husband being in London without a spasmodic horror. She pored over the English papers, in order to draw from them comfort and consolation; and it was when reading one of the warmly loyal articles therein, beginning with the words of the coronation anthem, ‘Long live the King! may the King live for ever!’ that she shed the most copious tears that yet had fallen from her, and drew comfort from what she read. Perhaps the words brought back to her recollection the period, a quarter of a century before, when she had listened to that anthem for the first time, and, glancing back over the long period that had since then elapsed, she perhaps dared to hope that the protection which had been so far vouchsafed would be continued. Another quarter of a century indeed was vouchsafed before the splendour of the reign began to wane in the mental gloom which settled around the King; but already had begun those domestic troubles which were inflicted upon her by the unfilial conduct of her heartless eldest son.

At present, however, she could only think of, and be grateful for, the escape of the King. Loyalty visited her somewhat oppressively in its congratulations, and the next drawing-room was so crowded, and its ceremonies so long, that the Queen was half dead with fatigue before it was over. She found rest and welcome sympathy at ever-pleasant Kew. There the inhabitants welcomed their royal patrons with a zeal, warmth, beer-drinking, and fireworks such as had not been exceeded in any part of the empire. But it was a sort of honour-festival in which the Queen could partake without fatigue. She enjoyed it heartily; and more emphatically than was her wont, even when most pleased, she exclaimed, ‘I shall love little Kew for this as long as I live!’

When Charlotte, on her first visit to the City, charmed even the eyes of the fair Quakeresses who surrounded her at the Barclays’ by the splendour of her diamonds, she already had the reputation of possessing a desire for acquiring precious stones. Such desire was at one time a mere fashion, like the mania which squandered thousands on a flower, or the madness which at a later period prevailed to be possessed, at whatever cost, of porcelain.

The people were reminded of the Queen’s fondness for diamonds at the period when the name of Warren Hastings began to be unpleasantly canvassed in England. The return of that remarkable personage from India was preceded by that of his scarcely less remarkable wife. Soon after her arrival Mrs. Hastings appeared at court, and nothing could exceed the graciousness of the reception she met with from Queen Charlotte. The popular tongue soon wagged audaciously, if not veraciously, on this royal welcome to a lady who was commonly said to have come to England with a lapful of diamonds. For such glittering presents it was said that Queen Charlotte sold her favour and protection. There was, no doubt, much exaggeration in the matter; but the supposed protection of the court, and the alleged manner in which it was said to have been purchased, were as injurious to Hastings as any of the invectives thundered against him by Burke. At the time that the monster impeachment was going on, a present from the Nizam of the Deccan to the King arrived in England. It was a splendid diamond, and was consigned, for presentation, to Warren Hastings, who handed it over to Lord Sydney, but who was present himself at the time when that nobleman duly offered the glittering gift to the King. Its ready acceptance, at a time when Hastings was on his trial, was misconstrued; and that popular voice which so often errs, notwithstanding the assertion that when uttered it is divinely inspired, immediately concluded that at least a bushelful of diamonds, presented to the King and Queen, had bought impunity for the alleged great offender. Ridicule, satire, caricature, violent prose, and execrable rhyme were levelled at both their Majesties in consequence. According to those who were about the person of the Queen, she had better jewels in her virtues than in caskets of precious gems. Miss Burney, in her portrait of the Queen, may be said to contemplate her through pink-coloured spectacles. But, setting aside what predilection induces her to say, enough remains to satisfy an unprejudiced person that there was much amiability, penetration, and good sense in the character of Charlotte. She was more dignified in her visits at the houses of subjects than any of her predecessors had been. She preferred reading the ‘Spectator’ to reading novels, and indeed had very little regard for novel-writers, and none at all for Madame de Genlis, with whom she very wisely counselled Miss Burney not to correspond.

Of the affection which existed between the Queen and her husband here is a pretty incident:—‘The Queen had nobody but myself with her one morning, when the King hastily entered the room with some letters in his hand, and addressing her in German, which he spoke very fast, and with much apparent interest in what he said, he brought the letters up to her and put them into her hand. She received them with much agitation, but evidently of a much pleased sort, and endeavoured to kiss his hand as he held them. He would not let her, but made an effort, with a countenance of the highest satisfaction, to kiss her. I saw instantly in her eyes a forgetfulness at the moment that any one was present, while, drawing away her hand, she presented him her cheek. He accepted her kindness with the same frank affection that she offered it, and the next moment they both spoke English, and talked upon common and general subjects. What they said I am far enough from knowing; but the whole was too rapid to give me time to quit the room, and I could not but see with pleasure that the Queen had received some favour with which she was sensibly delighted, and that the King, in her acknowledgments, was happily and amply paid.’3

This sort of incident, it may be said, is of commonplace frequency in private life, short of the hand-kissing; but it also serves to show that there was an affection existing at this period which, happily, is not a rare one in common life. And Charlotte could condescend to the level of that so-called common life, and to them who belonged to it exhibit her natural goodness. Witness for her the directions which she sent on a cold November morning to good old and parcel-blind Mrs. Delany. ‘Tell her,’ said she, ‘that this morning is so very cold and wet that I think she will suffer by going to church. Tell her, therefore, that Dr. Queen is of opinion she had better stay and say her prayers at home.’ She showed her concern still more when, after having lent to Miss Burney that abominable and absurd tragedy of Horace Walpole’s, ‘The Mysterious Mother,’ she presented her with Ogden’s Sermons, wherewith to sweeten her imagination. Perhaps Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, on his visit to Windsor this year, rather underrated the royal power to appreciate sermons. Mrs. Delany asked him for a copy of one which he had preached before their Majesties. The prelate answered that the sermon would not do at all for her. It was a mere plain Christian sermon, he said, made for the King and Queen, but it wouldn’t do for a bel esprit.

The royal household was sometimes disturbed by family dissensions; thus in 1787 the Prince of Wales would not attend the birthday drawing-room of the Queen, but he sent her written congratulations on the return of the day. The coldness existing between mother and son kept the latter from court. ‘I fear it was severely felt by his royal mother,’ says Miss Burney, ‘though she appeared composed and content.’ Of party-spirit at this time, when party-spirit ran so high and was so fierce and bitter in quality, the Diarist last named asserts that the Queen had but little. She declares her Majesty to have been liberal and nobly-minded, ‘beyond what I had conceived her rank and limited connections could have left her, even with the fairest advancements from her early nature; and many things dropped from her, in relation to parties and their consequences, that showed a feeling so deep upon the subject, joined to a lenity so noble towards the individuals composing it, that she drew tears from my eyes in several instances.’

This year saw the reconciliation of the Prince with his parents, and a public manifestation of this reconciliation of the heir-apparent with his family took place on the terrace at Windsor Castle. The Prince appeared there, chiefly that by his presence he might do honour to a particular incident—the presentation of the Duchesse de Polignac and her daughter, the Duchesse de Guiche, to the King and Queen. The noble visitors themselves, to do honour to the occasion, repaired to the terrace, attired, as they thought, in full English costume—‘plain undress gowns, with close ordinary black silk bonnets.’ They were startled at finding the Queen and the Princesses dressed with elaborate splendour. For the spectators, however, the most interesting sight was that of the heir-apparent conversing cordially with his illustrious parents. The lookers-on fancied that all, henceforth, would be serene, and that ‘Lovely Peace’ would reign undisturbedly.

But a pleasanter scene even than this was witnessed shortly after in the Queen’s dressing-room. Her Majesty was under the hands of her hair-dresser, and in the room, during the ceremony, were Mr. de Luc, Mr. Turbulent (a pseudonym), and Miss Burney. The Queen conversed with all three. But the sacrilegious and well-named Turbulent, instead of fixing there his sole attention, contrived, ‘by standing behind her chair and facing me, to address a language of signs to me the whole time, casting up his eyes, clasping his hands, and placing himself in various fine attitudes, and all with a humour so burlesque that it was impossible to take it either ill or seriously.... How much should I have been discountenanced had her Majesty turned about and perceived him, yet by no means so much disconcerted as by a similar Cerberic situation; since the Queen, who, when in spirits, is gay and sportive herself, would be much farther removed from any hazard of misconstruction.’4 Nor was this the only ‘pleasant’ incident of the year. It was not long after the above that Lady Effingham, at Windsor, exclaimed to the Queen, ‘Oh, ma’am, I had the greatest fright this morning. I saw a huge something on Sir George’s throat. “Why, Sir George,” says I, “what’s that? a wen?” “Yes,” says he, “countess, I’ve had it three-and-twenty years.” However, I hear it’s now going about—so I hope your Majesty will be careful!’

One more court incident of this year will afford us a specimen of playfulness as understood by the Prince of Wales. The latter was at Windsor with the Duke of York, who had just returned from the Continent, after an absence from England of seven years. His return caused great joy both to the King and Queen; but it was not a joy of long enduring.

‘At near one o’clock in the morning, while the wardrobe-woman was pinning up the Queen’s hair, there was a sudden rap-tap at the dressing-room door. Extremely surprised, I looked at the Queen, to see what should be done; she did not speak. I had never heard such a sound before, for at the royal doors there is always a particular kind of scratch used, instead of tapping. I heard it, however, again, and the Queen called out, “What is that?” I was really startled, not conceiving who could take so strange a liberty as to come to the Queen’s apartment without the announcing of a page; and no page, I was very sure, would make such a noise. Again the sound was repeated, and more smartly. I grew quite alarmed, imagining some serious evil at hand, either regarding the King or some of the Princesses. The Queen, however, bid me open the door. I did; and what was my surprise to see there a large man, in an immense wrapping great-coat, buttoned up round his chin, so that he was almost hid between cape and hat. I stood quite motionless for a moment; but he, as if also surprised, drew back. I felt quite sick with sudden terror—I really thought some ruffian had broken into the house, or a madman. “Who is it?” cried the Queen. “I do not know, ma’am,” I answered. “Who is it?” she called aloud; and then, taking off his hat, entered the Prince of Wales. The Queen laughed very much, and so did I too, happy in this unexpected explanation. He told her eagerly that he only came to inform her there were the most beautiful northern lights to be seen that could possibly be imagined, and begged her to come to the gallery windows.’5