An especially turbulent class were the footmen, chairmen, and body-servants of the aristocracy. They quarrelled and wrangled and rioted in the open streets, often in the precincts of the royal residence, as when a number of them created a disturbance outside Leicester House during a drawing-room held by the Princess of Wales. The Footmen’s Riot at Drury Lane Theatre, which occurred in 1737, was a still more serious affair. It had long been the custom to admit “the parti-coloured tribe,” as the licensed lacqueys are called in contemporary accounts, to the upper gallery of that Theatre gratis, out of compliment to their masters on whom they were in attendance. Thus established among the gods, they comported themselves with extraordinary license; they impudently insulted the rest of the audience, who, unlike themselves, had paid for admission, and “assuming the prerogative of critics, hissed or applauded with the most offensive clamour.” Finding the privilege of free entrance thus scandalously abused, Mr. Fleetwood, the manager, suspended the free list. This gave great offence to the footmen, who proceeded to take the law into their own hands. “They conceived,” as it was stated in ‘Fog’s Weekly Journal,’ “that they had an indefeasible hereditary right to the said gallery, and that this expulsion was a high infringement of their liberties.” Accordingly, one Saturday night a great number of them--quite three hundred, it was said--assembled at Drury Lane doors, armed with staves and truncheons, and “well fortified with three-threads and twopenny.”[167] The night selected was one when the performance was patronized by royalty, and the Prince and Princess of Wales, with other members of the royal family, were in the theatre. The rioters attacked the stage door and forced it open, “bearing down all the box-keepers, candle-snuffers, supernumeraries, and pippin women that stood in the way.” In this onslaught some five-and-twenty respectable people were desperately wounded. Fortunately Colonel de Veil, an active Westminster justice, happened to be in the house, and at once interposed. He ordered the Riot Act to be read, but “so great was the confusion,” says the account, “that they might as well have read Cæsar’s ‘Commentaries’.” Colonel de Veil then got the assistance of some of the guards, and with them seized several of the principal rioters, whom he committed to Newgate. These prisoners were looked upon as martyrs to the great cause, and while in gaol were liberally supplied with all luxuries by the subscription of their brethren. They were, however, brought to trial, convicted of riot, and sentenced to imprisonment. This did not quite end the disturbance. Anonymous letters poured into the theatre, threatening Fleetwood and vowing vengeance. The following is a specimen:-- “SIR,