The King, who disliked state and ceremonial, after the first year of his reign appeared at the drawing-rooms at St. James’s only for a brief time, leaving the honours to be done by the Princess of Wales. He liked best to spend his evenings quietly in the apartments of one of his mistresses, smoking a pipe and drinking German beer, or playing ombre or quadrille for small sums. To these parties few English were ever invited. “The King of England,” says the Count de Broglie, “has no predilection for the English nation, and never receives in private any English of either sex.”[58] But to this rule there were two notable exceptions. One was the younger Craggs, and the other Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose beauty and vivacity, and free and easy manners and conversation, made her peculiarly acceptable to Schulemburg and the King. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was the eldest daughter of the wealthy and profligate Duke of Kingston, was one of the most remarkable women of her time. Her upbringing had given an impetus to her natural originality; she had lost her mother when she was a child, and had grown up under the care of her father, who made much of her, but who was far from a judicious guardian. As a girl Lady Mary was allowed to run wild among the stables and kennels, but her sense and thirst for knowledge prevented her from abusing her freedom. She read widely anything and everything, taught herself Latin, and acquired a thorough knowledge of Greek and French. Her father was very proud of her, and proposed her as a toast to the famous Kit-Cat club, at one of their festive gatherings at a tavern in the Strand. The members demurred on the ground that they had never seen her. “Then you shall!” said the duke with an oath, and he forthwith sent his man home to say that Lady Mary was to be dressed in her best and brought to him at once. The child, for she was then only eight years old, was received with acclamations by the assembled company whom she delighted with her ready answers; her health was drunk with enthusiasm, and her name engraved upon the glasses. Lady Mary afterwards declared that this was the proudest moment of her life; she was passed from the knee of a poet to the arms of a statesman, and toasted by some of the most eminent men in England. While she was still quite young Lady Mary fell in love with Edward Wortley Montagu, who was a young man of good presence, good family, well mannered and well educated. She was never much in love with him, and she showed herself quite alive to his defects, but she clung to him with a curious persistency. The old duke peremptorily forbade the marriage, but after many difficulties Wortley Montagu persuaded Lady Mary to elope with him, and they were privately married by special licence.