Hitherto the influence of the Princess-Dowager with her eldest son, and the intimate friendship that existed between her and Lord Bute, had been known only to the few, but now the Whigs found in these things weapons ready to their hands, and they did not scruple to use them. They instigated their agents in the press and in Parliament, and a fierce clamour was raised against the Princess as a threatener of popular liberties. Her name, linked with Lord Bute's, was flung to the mob; placards with the words "No Petticoat Government!" "No Scottish Favourite!" were affixed to the walls of Westminster Hall, and thousands of vile pamphlets and indecent ballads were circulated among the populace. Even the King was insulted. "Like a new Sultan," wrote Lord Chesterfield, "he is dragged out of the seraglio by the Princess and Lord Bute, and placed upon the throne." The mob translated this into the vulgar tongue, and one day, when the King was going in a sedan chair to pay his usual visit to his mother, a voice from the crowd asked him, amid shouts and jeers, whether he was "going to suck". [Illustration: JOHN, EARL OF BUTE. _From the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds at Wortley Hall, by permission of the Earl of Wharncliffe._] The Princess-Dowager was unmoved by the popular clamour, and her influence over the young King remained unshaken; indeed it was rather strengthened, for his sense of chivalry was roused by the coarse insults heaped upon his mother. Lord Bute continued to pay his visits to Carlton House as before, the only difference made was that, to avoid the insults of the mob, his visits were paid less openly. The chair of one of the Princess's maids of honour was often sent of an evening to Bute's house in South Audley Street, and he was conveyed in it, with the curtains close drawn, to Carlton House, and admitted by a side entrance to the Princess's presence. These precautions, though natural enough under the circumstances, were unwise, for before long the stealthy visits leaked out, and the worst construction was placed upon them.