Royalty in All Ages: The Amusements, Eccentricities, Accomplishments, Superstitions and Frolics of the Kings and Queens of EuropeThiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
Royalty in All Ages: The Amusements, Eccentricities, Accomplishments, Superstitions and Frolics of the Kings and Queens of Europe
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Europe -- Kings and rulers
The father of the last Duke of Mantua, Charles III., loved to go abroad
in the dirtiest of disguises, and “accompanied by an escort of equally
ill-clad bullies for his defence.” It was his sport, when so engaged,
“to assail all he met in the coarsest terms, and when some person
assaulted, more impatient than others, fell upon him in return with
tongue or cudgel, he would laugh till he was sore, and then his escort
came to the rescue. On other occasions he would enter the shops of
vendors of very breakable materials, and taking up mirror or drinking
glass, or any other fragile matter that came to hand, he would let it
fall to the ground, and find double provocation to laughter in the ruin
he had committed, and in the expressions of unrestrained abuse which
were showered on him in consequence.”[80]
Gustavus III. in his incognito travels assumed the name of Count Haga,
and one of his adventures, on his way to Italy in 1783, was amusing. It
appears that he had long promised a visit to the little Court of
Schwerin. Accordingly, as soon as the Duchess of Mecklenburg heard of
his landing in Germany, she prepared two fêtes in his honour--one in her
capital, the other at Ludwigslust; but Gustavus, who “rather disdained
these petty German Courts, thought it a good joke, instead of going
himself to Schwerin, to send two of his attendants--a page named Peyron,
and Desvouges, a _valet-de-chambre_, who had formerly been an actor.
These two personated Count Haga and his minister, Baron Sparre, and
sustained the characters throughout; accepted all the homage meant for
their master, danced with all the Mecklenburg ladies who were presented
to them, and Peyron went even so far as to ask one of them for her
portrait. Meantime Gustavus was taking his pleasure at Ludwigslust, and
the mistake lasted long enough for him fully to enjoy the
mystification.”[81]
The disguise adopted by Anne of Warwick, the sad and unfortunate
girl-widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, who fell beneath the Yorkist
daggers after the fatal field of Tewkesbury, to elude Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, was one of the most romantic incidents in our history.
Richard was anxious to make her his wife, but, in order to conceal from
him her whereabouts, she put up with every privation, and, with the
privity of her brother-in-law, Clarence, she went so far as to descend
from the rank of Princess of Wales to the disguise of a servant--a
scullery-maid--in a mean house in London, under which servile condition
the future Queen-Consort was eventually discovered. The incident, as
told by the Latin chronicler, is thus recorded: “Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, wished to discover Anne, the youngest daughter of the Earl
of Warwick, in order to marry her; this was much disapproved by his
brother, the Duke of Clarence, who did not wish to divide his wife’s
inheritance; he therefore hid the young lady.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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