Under the unlovely auspices of the dull old King and his duller mistresses, Hampton Court was a very different place to what it had been during the summer of the Prince of Wales’s regency. “Our gallantry and gaiety,” writes Pope to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, “have been great sufferers by the rupture of the two Courts, here: scarce any ball, assembly, basset-table or any place where two or three are gathered together. No lone house in Wales, with a rookery, is more contemplative than Hampton Court. I walked there the other day by the moon, and met no creature of quality but the King, who was giving audience all alone to the birds under the garden wall.”[104] The King tried to remedy this state of affairs by commanding the Drury Lane Company to come down to Hampton Court and give performances there. The magnificent Great Hall was fitted up as a theatre, and seven plays were performed, of which the favourite was _King Henry the Eighth_. Steele wrote a prologue, and Colley Cibber tells us that the King greatly enjoyed these plays, “as the actors could see from the frequent satisfaction in his looks at particular scenes and passages”.[105] In that case the King must have read translations beforehand, as he knew no English--certainly not Shakespeare’s English. The expenses of each representation amounted to only £50, but the King was so delighted that he gave the company £200 in addition, which the grovelling Cibber declares was “more than our utmost merit ought to have hoped for”.[106] Basking as he did in the sunshine of the royal favour, Colley Cibber was a stout upholder of the House of Hanover, and a contemner of the House of Stuart. In his comedy _The Non-Juror_, he roundly abused the Jacobites, and his dedication of it to the King will remain as one of the most fulsome dedications of a fulsome age. It began: “In a time when all communities congratulate your Majesty on the glories of your reign, which are continually arising from the prosperities of your people, be graciously pleased, dread Sire, to permit the loyal subjects of your theatre to take this occasion of humbly presenting their acknowledgements for your royal favour and protection”.