The drinking habits of William III. are well known, and the banqueting-house at Hampton Court, which was used by him as a smoking and drinking room, has been described as a royal gin-temple. Among his drinking companions were Lord Wharton and the Earl of Pembroke. In one of his moments of hilarity he said to the former: “I know, Tom, what you wish for: you wish for a republic. I shall bring over King James’s son.” To which Lord Wharton replied, “That is as your Majesty pleases.” William, having been warned that the Earl of Pembroke was quarrelsome over his cups, said, “I will defy any one to quarrel with me, as long as I can make the bottle go round.” But the King was mistaken, for that night Pembroke used language personally offensive to him, and was carried drunk from the apartment to bed. The next morning, alarmed at his conduct, he hastened to the palace to ask forgiveness. “Make no apologies,” replied the King. “I was told you had no fault in the world but one, and I am glad to find it is true, for I dislike people who have no faults.”[19] The scandal of the time, too, accused the Queen of fondness for drink, but it is certain that her physicians warned her against a strong spiritual cordial which, when ill, she was in the habit of taking in large quantities. One of the failings laid to the charge of Queen Anne was a love of strong drink; but, as it has been remarked, “the supposition that she was in the habit of having secret recourse to the bottle, as affording the means of adventitious excitement, seems to rest on the widespread scandal of the period and a few contemporary lampoons.” In some verses, “On Queen Anne’s Statue in St. Paul’s Churchyard,” this allusion is made:-- “Here mighty Anna’s statue placed we find, Betwixt the darling passions of her mind; A brandy-shop before, a church behind. But why the back turned to that sacred place, As thy unhappy father’s was--to Grace? Why here, like Tantalus, in torments placed, To view those waters which thou canst not taste; Though, by thy proffered Globe, we may perceive, That for a dram thou the whole world wouldst give.”[20] And again:-- “When brandy Nan became our queen, ’Twas all a drunken story; From noon to night I drank and smoked, And so was thought a Tory. Brimful of wine, all sober folk We damned, and moderation; And for right Nantes we pawned to France Our goods and reputation.”[21] But the Duchess of Marlborough, despite her hostility to the Queen’s memory, defends her character from this aspersion: “I know,” says she, “that in some libels she has been reproached as one who indulged herself in drinking strong liquors, but I believe this was utterly groundless, and that she never went beyond such a quantity of strong wines as her physicians judged to be necessary for her.”