But there were other maids-of-honour only a little less charming. There was Margaret Bellenden, of whom Gay wrote.[14] Mary’s sister or cousin, almost as beautiful, and Mary Lepel who was raved about by such excellent critics as Gay, Pope and Voltaire, not to mention the courtiers Chesterfield and Bath. She appears to have been of a more stately style of beauty than Mary Bellenden, and of a more staid disposition. Then there was Bridget Carteret, niece of Lord Carteret, who was fair and _petite_. The oldest of them all was “prim, pale Margaret Meadows,” who seems to have done her best to keep them all in order, but had terrible difficulty with giddy Sophia Howe, who was the daughter of John Howe by Ruperta, a natural daughter of Prince Rupert, brother of the old Electress Sophia, which fact was probably the reason of her appointment as maid-of-honour to the Princess of Wales. She was up to all sorts of mischief, and among other enormities was given to laughing in church, which is not to be wondered at when we consider that the King and the other Royalties were accustomed to talk all the time. Sophia Howe was, however, reproached for her laughing by the Duchess of St. Albans, who told her “she could not do a worse thing.” To this she pertly answered--and one can almost hear her saying it--“I beg your Grace’s pardon, I can do a great many worse things.” This conduct of the maids-of-honour--accompanied by much ogling and smiling at gallants, however, at last aroused the ire of Bishop Burnet, who complained to the Princess of Wales, and requested that their pew should be _boarded up_ so that they could not see over. This from the Bishops importunity being at last done, provoked the following verses in retaliation from one of the young ladies’ admirers, supposed to be Lord Peterborough: Bishop Burnet perceived that the beautiful dames Who flocked to the Chapel of hilly St. James On their lovers alone their kind looks did bestow, And smiled not on him while he bellowed below. To the Princess he went with pious intent, This dangerous ill to the Church to prevent; “Oh, Madam,” he said, “our religion is lost, If the ladies thus ogle the knights of the toast. These practices, Madam, my teaching disgrace, Shall laymen enjoy the first rights of my place? Then all may lament my condition so hard, Who thrash in the pulpit without a reward. Then, pray, condescend such disorders to end, And to the ripe vineyard the labourers send To build up the seats that the beauties may see The face of no bawling pretender but me.” The Princess by rude importunity press’d, Though she laughed at his reasons, allowed his request; And now Britain’s nymphs in a Protestant reign Are box’d up at prayers, like the virgins of Spain.