Pitt, however, having no access to the King and being anxious to communicate with him directly, made overtures elsewhere. On October 21, the palace was disturbed by an unwonted agitation. Pages and lackeys were seen in sudden perturbation calling to each other that Mr. Pitt had arrived to see my Lady Yarmouth. Lady Yarmouth's position was singular enough. She had once been the declared mistress of George the Second; 'My lady Yarmouth the comforter,' wrote a ribald wit.[344] She still lived under his roof, when it was her business to keep him amused, if possible, during the long dull evenings. But from being a favourite, she had developed into an institution. Her apartment, immediately below the King's, was little less than an office. There, it was said, peerages or bishoprics might sometimes be bought, and some patronage was perhaps facilitated or dispensed. On the other hand, Lord Walpole declared at an earlier period that she asked for nothing, and that one of her principal charms with the King was that she did not importune him for favours. At any rate, persons wanting anything did well to write to her. Thither, too, a circumstance of much significance, Ministers repaired before or after their audience with the King, to anticipate the royal disposition or to report the royal utterances. 'I went below stairs,' was the phrase. They took close counsel with the lady, she told them her impressions of the King's real views, and usually added some shrewd observations of her own. Her action seems to have been wholly beneficial; she appeased jealousies, conciliated animosities, administered common sense, spoke ill of nobody, and, so far as we can judge, was eminently good natured in the best sense of that tortured epithet. Perhaps her most useful function was that of acting as a conciliatory channel for those who had something to say to the King which they could not say themselves. Both Fox and Newcastle had at once hurried to her, as we have seen, when the crisis took place. And so Pitt now found it necessary to pay his first visit to her.