in his need, in Lord Egmont. By the two a paper was hurriedly drawn up in proper form, and submitted to the council. The collective wisdom of the latter pronounced the claim to be good, and that Irish peeresses might walk in the royal marriage procession immediately after English peeresses of their own rank, if invited to do so. The verdict was not worth much, but it satisfied the claimants. If the whole Irish peerage, the female portion of it at least, was not at the wedding, it was fairly represented, and when Lord Charlemont returned to Dublin, the ladies welcomed him as cordially as the nymphs in the bridal of Triermain did the wandering Arthur. They showered on him flowers of gratitude, and their dignity was well content to feel assured that they might all have gone to the wedding if they had only been invited. At seven o’clock the nobility began to flock down to the scene of the marriage in the royal chapel. The night was sultry, but fine. At nine, and not at twelve, the ceremony was performed by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; and perhaps the most beautiful portion of the spectacle was that afforded by the bride’s-maids, among whom Lady Sarah Lennox, Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel were distinguished for their pre-eminent attractions. During the whole ceremony, it is said that the royal bridegroom’s eyes were kept fixed on Lady Sarah especially. That the Queen could not have been so perfectly unpossessed of attractive features as some writers have declared her, may be gathered from a remark of Walpole’s, who was present, and who, after praising the beauty of the bride’s-maids, and that of a couple of duchesses, says: ‘Except a pretty Lady Sunderland, and a most perfect beauty, an Irish Miss Smith, I don’t think the Queen saw much else to discourage her.’ The general impression was different. What this was may be understood by a passage in a letter addressed to Mrs. Montagu’s brother, the Rev. William Robertson, by a friend, in October 1761: ‘The Queen seems to me to behave with equal propriety and civility; though the common people are quite exasperated at her not being handsome, and the people at court laugh at her courtesies.’ All the royal family were present at the nuptials. The King’s brother, Edward, Duke of York, was at his side; and this alleged witness of the King’s alleged previous marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, says Lady Anne Hamilton, ‘used every endeavour to support his royal brother through the trying ordeal, not only by first meeting the princess in her entrance into the garden, but also at the altar.’ The Queen was in white and silver. ‘An endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet,’ says Walpole, ‘lined with crimson, and which, attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes half-way down her waist.’