good reason for
his conduct, I would not have him; for if he is so weak
as to be governed by everybody, I shall have but a bad
time of it."

A few days later, the Royal betrothal was made public. At the wedding
Lady Sarah tasted the first fruits of revenge, when she was by common
consent, the most lovely of the ten beautiful bridesmaids who, in robes
of white velvet and silver and with diamond-crowned heads, formed the
retinue of George's homely little bride. During the ceremony George had
no eyes for any but the vision of peerless beauty he had lost, who,
compared with his ill-favoured bride, was "as a queenly lily to a
dandelion."

The ceremony was marked by a dramatic incident which crowned Lady
Sarah's revenge, and of which her son tells the following story. Among
the courtiers assembled to pay homage to the new Queen was the
half-blind Lord Westmorland, one of the Pretender's most devoted
adherents.

"Passing along the line of ladies, and seeing but dimly,
he mistook my mother for the Queen, plumped down on his
knees and took her hand to kiss. She drew back startled,
and deeply colouring, exclaimed, 'I am not the Queen,
sir.' The incident created a laugh and a little gossip;
and when George Selwyn heard of it he observed, 'Oh! you
know he always loved Pretenders.'"

But if Lady Sarah had lost a crown there was still left a dazzling array
of coronets, any one of which was hers for the taking. Her beauty which
was now in full and exquisite flower drew noble wooers to her feet by
the score; but to one and all--including, as Walpole records, Lord
Errol--she turned a deaf ear. Picture then the amazement of the world of
fashion when, within a year of refusing a Queendom, she became the bride
of a mere Baronet--Sir Thomas Bunbury, who had barely reached his
majority, and who, although he was already a full-blown Member of
Parliament and of some note on the Turf, was scarcely known in the
circles in which Lady Sarah shone so brilliantly.

More disconcerting still, Lady Sarah was avowedly happy with her
baronet-husband.

"And who the d----," she wrote to her bosom-friend, Lady
Susan, "would not be happy with a pretty place, a good
house, good horses, greyhounds for hunting, so near
Newmarket, what company we please in the house, and
L2,000 a year to spend? Pray now, where is the wretch who
would not be happy?"

And no doubt she was h