As the royal palaces of Windsor, Hampton Court and Kensington were now closed to the Prince and Princess of Wales, it was necessary that they should have some country house, and Richmond was fixed upon as their summer residence. Richmond Lodge, situated in the little, or old park of Richmond, had been the residence of Ormonde before his flight, and he had lived here in great luxury. “It is a perfect Trianon,” says a contemporary writer; “everything in it, and about it, is answerable to the grandeur and magnificence of its great master.” The house itself was not very large; it is described as “a pleasant residence for a country gentleman,” but the gardens were beautiful. Ormonde’s estates were forfeited for high treason, and Richmond Lodge came into the market. The Prince of Wales bought it for £6,000 from the Commissioners of the Confiscated Estates Court, though not without difficulty, for the King endeavoured to prevent his obtaining it. Richmond was much more in the country then than now, and there were very few houses between it and Piccadilly, except Kensington Palace. The road thither was lonely, and infested with highwaymen and dangerous characters. At night it was very unsafe. Bridget Carteret, one of the maids of honour, when attending the Princess on one of these journeys, had her coach stopped by highwaymen, and was forced to give up all her jewels.[96] The Princess gave her a diamond necklace and gold watch in place of the trinkets she had lost. There were other drawbacks, too, for we read: “Richmond Lodge having been very much pestered with vermin, one John Humphries, a famous rat physician, was sent for from Dorsetshire by the Princess, through the recommendation of the Marchioness of Hertfordshire, who collected together five hundred rats in his Royal Highness’s Palace, which he brought alive to Leicester House as a proof of his art in that way”.[97] He must have been a veritable Pied Piper of Hamelin. Richmond Lodge soon became quite as gay as Leicester House; a great number of the nobility drove down by road on their coaches, or came by water in their barges, during the summer months. Lady Bristol, who was one of the Princess’s ladies, writes from here: “Yesterday there was a horse race for a saddle, etc., the Prince gave; ’twas run under the terrace wall for their Royal Highnesses to see it. There was an infinite number of people to see them all along the banks; and the river full of boats with people of fashion, and that do not come to court, among whom was the Duchess of Grafton and Mr. and Mrs. Beringer. They all stayed, until it was late, upon the water to hear the Prince’s music, which sounded much sweeter than from the shore. Every one took part in the Prince and Princess’s pleasure in having this place secured to them when they almost despaired of it, and though such a trifle, no small pains were taken to disappoint them.”[98]