“The entertainment was most superb, both as to the quantity and quality of the dishes. The supper was served up in eighty magnificent dishes, many of which were decorated with other smaller ones, filled with various delicious meats. To the service of fruit succeeded a most excellent course of confectionery, both those of Portugal and other countries famous for the choiceness of their sweetmeats. But scarcely was it set upon the table when the whole was carried off and plundered by the people who came to see the spectacle of the entertainment; nor was the presence of the King sufficient to restrain them from the pillage of these very delicate viands, much less his Majesty’s soldiers, armed with carbines, who guarded the entrance of the saloon, to prevent all ingress into the inside, lest the confinement and too great heat should prove annoying; so that his Majesty, to avoid the crowd, was obliged to rise from the table and retire to his Highness’s apartment.” An amusing little anecdote is told by Lady Marlborough of William III., who thus writes: “I give an instance of his worse than vulgar behaviour at his own table when the Princess dined with him. It was the beginning of his reign, and some weeks before the birth of the Duke of Gloucester. There happened to be just before her a plate of green peas, the first that had been seen that year. The King, without offering the Princess the least share of them, drew the plate before him, and devoured them all. The Princess Anne confessed when she came home, that she had so much mind for the peas that she was afraid to look at them, and yet could hardly keep her eyes off them.” Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, was renowned for his appetite, and for the bent of it towards pastry, which reminds us of the readiness with which Charles XII. was wont to swallow raspberry tarts, and Frederick II. Savoy cakes.