But, in spite of this admiration, the King did not stop at Holyhead. That battered warrior, the Marquis of Anglesey, took him across the island to Plas Newydd. The next day died Queen Caroline, at Hammersmith, and the news by incredible efforts reached the squadron lying off Holyhead the day after. The King was freed at last from the wife he hated, and his feeling towards her was sufficiently marked by the facts that the squadron did not fire the salute of minute-guns usual on such occasions, and that the trip to Ireland, with its attendant banquets and rejoicings, was not interrupted. The winds that could in those days detain a fleet, and kept the King’s yacht and his escort swinging for days idly at their anchorage, made a vast difference to Holyhead. The _Times_ correspondent on that occasion tells how scarce provisions grew, and to what extravagant prices ordinary articles of food rose. Eggs, he wails, were sixpence each, and for neither love nor money could he obtain any Welsh mutton for his dinner. He was, accordingly, truly thankful when the squadron sailed and plenty reigned once more. The King left, however, before his escort. He had observed how the Dublin new steam-packets crossed, irrespective of weather, and took passage on the 12th, aboard the _Lightning_, named afterwards, in honour of the occasion, the _Royal George the Fourth_. When, in 1851, Borrow walked into Holyhead, he stayed at the “Railway Hotel,” a “noble and first-rate” house. All others were described to him as “poor places, where no gent puts up.” What, then, had become of the several mentioned in the works of Cary and Paterson; the hostelries that had been sufficient for the needs of coaching times? Only four years had then passed since the last coach was driven off these ultimate miles, and yet Maran’s Hotel, the “Royal,” the “Hibernian,” the “Eagle and Child,” and others, were already dismissed among those unmentionable “poor places.” Possibly travellers by coach put up with a great deal more than railway passengers would tolerate. An illuminating side-light on these matters is shed by Jack Williams’ recommendation of the Holyhead inns, quoted by Colonel Birch-Reynardson; and certainly Jack Williams, who drove the Mail between Bangor and Holyhead, should have been an authority.