The Queen, notwithstanding all these studied slights and petty insults, was determined not to quarrel with her son, and regularly asked the Prince and Princess to dine with her once or twice a week, and sometimes invited them to music and cards in the gallery at Hampton Court in the evening. The Princess came now and then to these latter functions, the Prince never, though they both were obliged to come to dinner when the Queen asked them. These dinners could not have been pleasant to either side; they certainly were not to the Queen, who, after they were over, used to declare that the dulness of her daughter-in-law and the silly jokes of her son gave her the vapours, and she felt more tired than “if she had carried them round the garden on her back”. Meanwhile the King at Hanover was enjoying himself with his enchantress, who had presented him with a fine boy, which it suited her purpose to declare was his son.[116] The King, who was now fifty-three years of age, firmly believed her, and his affections became riveted to Madame Walmoden more firmly than ever. Yet he might well have doubted, for the lady had many friends to console her in his absence, and a suspicious incident occurred this summer even while George was at Hanover. The King was staying, according to his custom, at Herrenhausen, and Madame Walmoden was living in the apartments set apart for her by the King in the Leine Schloss. She spent most of her time with the King at Herrenhausen, returning to the Leine Schloss at night, where she was sometimes visited by the King. The Leine Schloss was very different then to what it is now, for it was fronted by extensive gardens on both banks of the Leine, the gardens through which poor Sophie Dorothea used to steal, disguised, to Königsmarck’s lodgings. The Walmoden’s bedchamber was on the garden side of the palace, and one night a gardener chancing to walk round the palace in the small hours found a ladder placed immediately under Madame Walmoden’s window. The man thought this must be the attempt of a burglar, who had come to steal the lady’s jewels, and made a careful search round the garden. He presently discovered a man hiding behind a bush, whom he immediately seized, and, shouting for the guard, had him placed under arrest. To every one’s astonishment, the prisoner proved to be no thief, but an officer in the Austrian service, named Schulemburg, a relative of the Duchess of Kendal’s, who was on a visit to Hanover in connection with some diplomatic mission. Schulemburg protested against the indignity put upon him, which he said would be resented not only by himself, but by his master, the Emperor, and made such a fuss that the captain of the guard released him at once.