In these early days the Hanoverian family were especially anxious to show their conformity to the Church of England, and the King and the Prince and Princess of Wales made a point of regularly attending the Sunday morning service at the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, attended by a numerous following. The Princess of Wales brought in her train a whole bevy of beauties, who were not so attentive to their devotions as they ought to have been, for the Chapel Royal soon became the fashionable resort of all the beaux of the town, and a great deal of ogling and smiling and tittering went on, especially during the sermon. At last Bishop Burnet complained to the Princess of the ill-behaviour of her maids of honour. He dared not complain to the King, as his Majesty was the most irreverent of all, habitually going to sleep through the sermon, or carrying on a brisk conversation in an audible voice. In justification he could have pleaded that Burnet’s prosy homilies were exceptionally long, and he did not understand a word of them. The Princess expressed her contrition to the Bishop and rebuked her ladies, but as the gallants still continued to come and to gaze, she at last consented to Burnet’s suggestion that the pew of the maids of honour should be boarded up so high that they could not see over the top. This excited great indignation on the part of the imprisoned fair and their admirers, and in revenge one of the noblemen about the Court, it was said Lord Peterborough, wrote the following lines:-- 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 preaching 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 laugh’d at his reasons, allow’d his request; And now Britain’s nymphs in a Protestant reign Are box’d up at prayers like the virgins of Spain. Rhyming was the vogue in those days, and all fair ladies had poems composed in their honour. Of course King George and the Prince and Princess of Wales were not forgotten by the bards. The poet Young hailed the King on his arrival as follows:--