In 1816, the public distress was very great, and those in high places were unpopular, often for no better reason than that they _were_ in high places, and were supposed to be indifferent to the sufferings of the more lowly and harder tried. The Queen came in for some share of the popular ill-will, but she met the first expression of it with uncommon spirit; a spirit indeed which gained for her the silent respect of the mob, who had begun by insulting her. As her Majesty was proceeding to hold her last drawing-room, in the year 1815, she was sharply hissed, loudly reviled, and insultingly asked what she had done with the Princess Charlotte. She was so poorly protected that the mob actually stopped her chair. Whereupon, it is reported, she quietly let down the glass, and calmly said to those nearest to her: ‘I am above seventy years of age; I have been more than half a century Queen of England; and I never was hissed by a mob before.’ The mob admired the spirit of the undaunted old lady, and they allowed her to pass on without further molestation. Her son, the Prince Regent, sent several aides-de-camp to escort his mother from St. James’s to Buckingham House, but she declined their attendance. They told her that, having had the orders of the Regent to escort her safely to her residence, they felt bound to perform the office entrusted to them by the Prince. ‘You have left Carlton House by his Royal Highness’s orders,’ said Queen Charlotte; ‘return there by mine, or I will leave my chair and go home on foot.’ She was, of course, carefully watched, in spite of her commands, but the cool magnanimity she displayed was quite sufficient to procure respect for her from the crowd.