vey had seen a good deal of the prince in old days. They had
had friendships and quarrels and final estrangement, and he knew his
prince pretty well.

What Hervey had predicted came to pass, but in a worse way than he had
ventured to predict. The Queen kept urging Walpole to send the King's
order to the prince. Walpole kept putting it off. For one reason, the
{106} minister had been told the confinement was to be expected in
October, and this was only July. It is very likely, too, that he
shared Hervey's scepticism alike as to the supposititious child and the
possibility of keeping the prince's wife at Hampton Court against the
prince's will. The Royal command was never sent.

[Sidenote: 1737--Neighbors requisitioned]

On Sunday, July 31, 1737, the Prince of Wales and the princess dined
publicly with the King and Queen in Hampton Court Palace. Not a word
was said to any one about an early approach of the confinement. The
princess seemed in her usual condition. The two sets of royal
personages did not talk with each other at this time, although they
thus had ceremonial meetings in public. The Queen called the attention
of some one near her to the princess's appearance, and insisted that
she was not going to have a child at all. When dinner was over, the
prince and princess went back to their own apartments, and later that
evening the princess was taken with the pains of labor. Then followed
what has hardly ever happened in the story of the life of a poor
washer-woman or a peasant's wife. The unfortunate princess was far
gone in her agony before any one had time to think; and before those
around them had much time to think the Prince of Wales had determined
to carry her off, groaning in labor as she was, and take her ten miles
to London. The whole story is a shocking one; and we shall put it into
a very narrow compass. But it has to be told somehow. By the help of
an equerry and a dancing-master, the writhing princess was hoisted
down-stairs and got into a carriage. The dancing-master, Dunoyer, was
a hanger-on and favorite of the prince; and, being employed to teach
dancing to the younger children of George the Second, acted as a kind
of licensed spy, so Hervey says, on the one family and the other. In
the carriage with the prince and princess came Lady Archibald Hamilton,
who was understood to be the prince's mistress. No royal movement in
those days would seem to be thought quite complete without th