AT HERRENHAUSEN AND ST.

JAMES (1714-1716) The Elector George Lewis not delighted at his accession to the British throne--A greater man in Hanover than in London--Lady Mary modifies her first impression of the King--She is in high favour at Court--An amusing incident at St.James's--The early unpopularity of George I in England generally, and especially in the capital--The Hanoverians in the Royal Household--The Duchess of Kendal--The Countess of Darlington--Lady Mary's description of the Hanoverian ladies--The Duchess of Kendal's passion for money--Her influence with the King in political matters--Count de Broglie--The scandal about Lady Darlington refuted--Lady Mary and the Prince of Wales--The King and the Prince of Wales--The poets and wits of the day--Gay's tribute to Lady Mary--Pope's verses on her--"Court Poems." It is beyond question that the accession to the British throne gave no thrill of pleasure to the King.

He was fifty-four years of age, and had no desire to change his state.

It was necessary for him, as the present writer has said elsewhere, now to go from a country where he was absolute, to another where, so far from being supreme, when King and people differed on a matter of vital importance, the monarch had to give way--the price of resistance having been fixed, at worst at death, at best exile or civil war.

He had to go from a country where he was the wealthiest and most important personage to another where he would be merely regarded as a minor German princeling set up as a figurehead, and where many of the gentry were wealthier than he.