At Hampton Court, as at St. James’s, the King and Queen dined in public on Sundays, and the people came in crowds to see the sight. On one of these occasions an absurd incident took place. “There was such a resort to Hampton Court last Sunday to see their Majesties dine,” writes a news-sheet, “that the rail surrounding the table broke, and causing some to fall, made a diverting scramble for hats and wigs, at which their Majesties laughed heartily.”[19] On private evenings at Hampton Court the only amusement was cards, but now and then the King and Queen held drawing-rooms, in the audience chamber.[20] Often in summer, when the nights were fine, the Queen and her ladies would go out and walk in the gardens. We may picture her pacing up and down the avenues of chestnut and lime in the warm dusk, or viewing from the gardens the beautiful palace bathed in the moonbeams. So little is changed to-day that it requires no great effort of the imagination to re-people Hampton Court with the figures of the early Georgian era. One of the most prominent personages at the Court of Queen Caroline was her favourite, Lord Hervey, whom she had now appointed her vice-chamberlain, and who enjoyed her fullest confidence. The Queen delighted to have him about her at all times, and would converse with him for hours together, asking him questions about a hundred and one things, and laughing at his clever talk. Lord Hervey was a man of considerable wit and ability, and undoubtedly an amusing companion. But he was a contemptible personality, diseased in body and warped in mind, incapable of taking a broad and generous view of any one or anything; ignorant of lofty ideals and noble motives himself, he was quite unable to understand them in others, and always sought some sordid or selfish reason for every action. The Queen, however, overlooking his faults, with which she must have been familiar, and his effeminacies and immoralities, of which she could not have been ignorant, believed that he was a faithful servant to her, and trusted him in no ordinary degree. As a sign of her favour she increased his salary as vice-chamberlain by £1,000 a year, allowed him considerable patronage, which was worth a good deal more, and made him many valuable presents. She treated him rather as a son than as a subject. “It is well I am so old,” she used to say (she was fourteen years Hervey’s senior), “or I should be talked of over this creature.” No one, however, ever talked scandal of her Majesty, though some doubted her judgment in choosing her friends, and it must be confessed that she was unwise in admitting Hervey to so many of her secrets. Notwithstanding that she heaped favours upon him, he repaid her with ingratitude, and when she was dead endeavoured to befoul her memory. But to the Queen’s face he was a fawning and accomplished courtier, and expressed the greatest zeal in her service.