At a little before two o’clock in the morning, Mrs. Tichborne entered the royal bedchamber, when the Queen, waking in alarm, asked her if the palace was on fire. The faithful servant intimated that the prince had just sent word that her royal highness was on the point of becoming a mother. A courier had just arrived, in fact, with the intelligence. The Queen leaped out of bed and called for her ‘morning gown,’ wherein to hurry to the room of her daughter-in-law. When Tichborne intimated that she would need a coach as well as a gown, for that her royal highness had been carried off to St. James’s, the Queen’s astonishment and indignation were equally great. On the news being communicated to the King, his surprise and wrath were not less than the Queen’s, but he did not fail to blame his consort as well as his son. She had allowed herself to be outwitted, he said; a false child would despoil her own offspring of their rights; and this was the end of all her boasted care and management for the interests of her son William! He hoped that Anne would come from Holland and scold her. ‘You deserve,’ he exclaimed, ‘anything she can say to you.’ The Queen answered little, lest it should impede her in her haste to reach London. In half an hour she had left the palace accompanied by her two daughters, and attended by two ladies and three noblemen. The party reached St. James’s by four o’clock. As they ascended the staircase, Lord Hervey invited her Majesty to take chocolate in his apartments after she had visited the princess. The Queen replied to the invitation ‘with a wink,’ and a significant intimation that she certainly would refuse to accept of any refreshment at the hands of her son. One would almost suppose that she expected to be poisoned by him.