Robert Walpole, the third son of a Norfolk squire, Walpole of Houghton, was born in 1676. His family had belonged to the landed gentry of England since the days of William the Conqueror, but they had never distinguished themselves in any way. Walpole was educated at Eton, where he had as his school-fellow his future rival, Bolingbroke, and thence proceeded to King’s College, Cambridge. On quitting the university he went back to Houghton with a view to becoming a country squire as his father was. The future statesman spent his days at cattle fairs and agricultural shows, with fox-hunting and hard drinking thrown in by way of recreation. Old Squire Walpole was of a very hospitable turn of mind, and kept open house to his neighbours, who often assembled around his jovial board. “Come, Robert,” he used to say, “you shall drink twice to my once; I cannot permit my son, in his sober senses, to be a witness of the intoxication of his father.” Walpole was married at the age of twenty-five to the beautiful and accomplished Catherine Shorter, a daughter of John Shorter, of Bybrook, Kent. His domestic life was not a model one, both husband and wife arranging to go much as they pleased. Walpole, like his enemy Bolingbroke, was profligate and fond of wine and women, and his young wife also had her intrigues. She had one particularly with Lord Hervey, and her second son (Horace Walpole the younger) was said to be really the son of Lord Hervey. He closely resembled the Herveys in his tastes, appearance and manner; especially in his effeminacy, which was characteristic of the men of the Hervey family. He was quite unlike his reputed father, Walpole, who was a burly county squire, with a loud voice, heavy features and no refinement of manner or speech. Walpole’s wife also (so Lady Cowper says) had an intrigue with the Prince of Wales, and Walpole was cognisant of it, if he did not even lend himself to it, with a view to obtaining the goodwill of the Prince. Both Robert Walpole and his wife were often at Leicester House.