The house derived its name from Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton who probably built it, and who dying unmarried in 1725, it passed to his nephew, Lord Burlington, who gave it to his mother, from whom the Prince bought it. The Prince must at this time have had some idea of making a home for himself, and again in 1735 when he altered and much enlarged it. But while Carlton House was being repaired he looked around for a temporary residence, and at first thought of Southampton House, which stood in a court and garden between what are now Bloomsbury and Russell Squares: the site is at the present time covered with houses. This residence was refused him by the owner, the Duke of Bedford, who was afraid to offend the King and Queen. He then turned his attention to Norfolk House in St. James’s Square, but here again the owner, the Duke of Norfolk, had fears of getting into hot water, and sent the Duchess to Hampton Court to interview the Queen on the subject. Finding there were no difficulties in the way, the Duke of Norfolk placed his house at the Prince’s disposal, and the latter shortly moved into it with his family. It may here be mentioned that it was in Norfolk House, in an old very ordinary looking bed with green hangings, that George the Third of England was born on the 4th June following, less than eleven months after the birth of his sister. At Norfolk House the Prince, though he materially reduced his expenses and “farmed his tables”--_i.e._, was catered for at so much a head--yet soon gathered around him a Court, small, but brilliant. The Prince’s wit and great amiability, and the beauty and youth of his Princess, very naturally formed an attraction to many, and those principally of the most refined circle of the aristocracy, and their followers, the men of letters. The King had previously expressed his opinion of his son’s supporters when they had gathered round him at Kew after his expulsion, and had added in anger and some jealousy: “They will soon be tired of the puppy.” But still the Prince drew around him all the rising young men of the Tory Party and many of the wits of the day. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, thus speaks of him at this time:-- “There is a great deal of very good company goes to Norfolk House, but if I were to advise, I would have more play, to make more people easy by sitting down, as it used to be in all the Courts, that ever I knew, either by a basset-table, or at other games, letting people of quality go halves. But they begin, to my thinking, with the same forms the late Queen did, only to leave room to entertain a few of the town ladies, and I think it don’t lessen one’s greatness, but the contrary, to make everybody, one can, easy.” There was an incident one night at a theatre which caused the King and Queen much chagrin. The play was “Cato,” and the Prince of Wales and his party were present; and the lines: “When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honour is a private station.”