So complete was the King’s deference to the will of his mother, that he blindly accepted the bride she had chosen for him; though, to the very day of the council, he carried on his courtship to Lady Sarah; and she did not doubt of receiving the crown from him, till she heard the public declaration of its being designed for another. Yet, in confirmation of the trust he had reposed in Lady Susan Strangways, himself appointed Lady Sarah to be one of the bridemaids to the Queen. Yet Lord Bute’s friends affected to give another turn to the story; and insisted that the King had never thought of Lady Sarah but for his mistress. All, they affirmed, he had said to Lady Susan was, to bid her ask Lady Sarah if she should like a place in the family of the new Queen; that she had accepted it; and that the King had destined her to be Mistress of the Robes. Her surprise and disappointment, however, were too strongly marked to make this legend credible. Lady Susan adhered to the truth of what she had reported, in various examinations by her father and uncle. And the resentment Lady Sarah expressed, and which caused, as the Court said, her not being placed about the new Queen, was proof enough on which side the truth lay. The Junto persuaded the King she was a bad young woman; but if she was, what hindered her becoming his mistress? Was it criminal to propose being his wife rather than his mistress? And what became of the King’s boasted piety, if he intended to place his mistress about his wife? Some coquet attempts, which Lady Sarah afterwards made to recover his notice, and her stooping to bear the Queen’s train as bridemaid, did her more prejudice than all that was invented against her. Pique and extreme youth might excuse both; and her soon after preferring a clergyman’s son to several great matches, gave evidence that ambition was not a rooted passion in her. In my own opinion, the King had thoughts of her as a wife; but wanted resolution to oppose his mother and Lord Bute. Fortunately, no doubt, in this instance; for the daughter of a subject, and the sister-in-law of so ambitious and exceptionable a man as Fox, would probably have been productive of most serious consequences. To avoid returning to this topic, I will only remember, that during the wedding-service, on mention of Abraham and Sarah, the King could not conceal his confusion. And the day following, when everybody was presented to the Queen, Lord Westmoreland,[101] old and dimsighted, seeing Lady Sarah in the rich habit of bridemaid, mistook her for Queen, and was going to kneel and kiss her hand.