But the Princess’s addiction to play was the cause of comment even in the royal circle. Doddington was once conversing with the widow of Frederick Prince of Wales respecting the tastes of her eldest son--afterwards George III.--when “she began by saying that she liked the Prince should now and then amuse himself at small play, but that princes should never play deep, both for example, and because it did not become them to win great sums.” From thence, says Doddington, she told me that “it was highly improper the manner in which the Princess ---- behaved at Bath; that she played publicly all the evening very deep.” I asked, with whom? She said, “With the Duke and Duchess of Bedford; that it was prodigious what work she made with Lord Chesterfield; that when his lordship was at Court she would speak to him; but that now at Bath she sent to inquire of his coming before he arrived; and when he came she sent her compliments to him, expecting him at all her parties at play, and that he should always sit by her in the public rooms that he might be sure of a warm place.” Numerous anecdotes of this kind have been recorded illustrative of the gambling tastes of the Princess; and yet notwithstanding the prosecution of her favourite occupation, which frequently kept her from rest till a very late hour, she continued an early riser throughout her life.[88] George IV., when Prince of Wales, surpassed all his predecessors in his gambling propensities, having lost, it is said, not much less than £800,000 before he was twenty-one years of age--a habit which he probably contracted through his intimacy with Fox. “It was with the view,” it is said, “and in the hope that marriage would cure his love of the gaming table, that his father was so anxious to see him united to Caroline; and it was solely on account of his marriage with that princess constituting the only condition of his debts being paid by the country that he agreed to marry her.” Indeed, George IV. was, as Thackeray says,[89] “a famous pigeon for the play-men;” they lived upon him. Egalité Orleans, it was believed, punished him severely. A noble lord is said to have mulcted him in immense sums. He frequented the clubs where play was almost universal, and, as it was known his debts of honour were sacred, whilst he was gambling, Jews waited outside to purchase his notes of hand.