According to common report, James I. shuddered at the sight of a drawn sword, and Sir Kenelm Digby, in his “Powder of Sympathy,” says that when James knighted him he very narrowly escaped having the sword thrust into his eyes, his Majesty turning away his face to avoid the sight of the naked weapon--a peculiarity which he attributes to the fright occasioned to his unhappy mother by the assassination of Rizzio in her presence. In a caricature of the time King James was exhibited with an empty scabbard, and in another as having his sword so firmly fixed in the scabbard that it was impossible to draw it out. William III. had an intense hatred of mourning. When the King of Denmark died, September 4, 1698, Prince George expressed a wish that on this account his Majesty would allow the Princess and himself to congratulate him on his birthday, November 4, without doffing their sable weeds, under the impression that the favour would be granted, as “the late kings, Charles II. and James II., never wished any persons in recent mourning for their relatives to change it for coloured clothes on such occasions.” King William’s ideas, however, respecting mourning were more consonant with those of Henry VIII.; and his Majesty, although Christian V. of Denmark was a near relative of his own, “signified his pleasure that their Royal Highnesses were to visit him in gay Court dresses, or to keep away.”[38] To such an extent did George II. carry his love of exactness, even in the minutest affairs of life, that it is said he never even allowed his pleasures to interfere with it. For some years after he had ascended the throne, writes Mr. Jesse,[39] his custom was to visit his mistress, Lady Suffolk, every evening at nine o’clock. Sometimes he was dressed and in readiness before the prescribed time, and “on these occasions he used to pace his apartment for ten minutes together with his watch in his hand, waiting till the moment of departure had arrived.” George II., too, in moments of fretfulness and impatience would vent his feelings by kicking his hat about the room. “When incensed either with his Ministers or his attendants,” writes Wraxall, “he was sometimes not master of his actions, nor attentive to preserve his dignity. On these occasions his hat, and it is asserted his wig, became frequently the objects on which he expended his anger.”