The ceremony was marked by a dramatic incident which crowned Lady Sarah’s revenge, and of which her son tells the following story.  Among the courtiers assembled to pay homage to the new Queen was the half-blind Lord Westmorland, one of the Pretender’s most devoted adherents.

“Passing along the line of ladies, and seeing but dimly, he mistook my mother for the Queen, plumped down on his knees and took her hand to kiss.  She drew back startled, and deeply colouring, exclaimed, ’I am not the Queen, sir.’  The incident created a laugh and a little gossip; and when George Selwyn heard of it he observed, ’Oh! you know he always loved Pretenders.’”

But if Lady Sarah had lost a crown there was still left a dazzling array of coronets, any one of which was hers for the taking.  Her beauty which was now in full and exquisite flower drew noble wooers to her feet by the score; but to one and all—­including, as Walpole records, Lord Errol—­she turned a deaf ear.  Picture then the amazement of the world of fashion when, within a year of refusing a Queendom, she became the bride of a mere Baronet—­Sir Thomas Bunbury, who had barely reached his majority, and who, although he was already a full-blown Member of Parliament and of some note on the Turf, was scarcely known in the circles in which Lady Sarah shone so brilliantly.

More disconcerting still, Lady Sarah was avowedly happy with her baronet-husband.

“And who the d——­,” she wrote to her bosom-friend, Lady Susan, “would not be happy with a pretty place, a good house, good horses, greyhounds for hunting, so near Newmarket, what company we please in the house, and L2,000 a year to spend?  Pray now, where is the wretch who would not be happy?”

And no doubt she was happy, with her dogs and horses, her peacocks and silver-pheasants, and her genial sport-loving husband who simply idolised her.  Even after five years of this rustic life she wrote to Lady Susan, who was now also a wife: 

“Good husbands are not so common, at least I see none like my own and your description of yours, from which I reckon that we are the two luckiest women living.  As for me, I should be a monster of ingratitude if I ever made a single complaint and did not thank God for making me the happiest of beings.”

It was fortunate that she had an idolatrous husband; for even in Arcadia she could not, or would not, keep her coquetry within decent bounds.  She flirted outrageously with the neighbouring squires and with such men of rank as drifted her way; but the baronet saw no cause for alarm or resentment.  He was frankly delighted that his wife had so many admirers.  He basked genially in the reflected glory of his wife’s conquests!

And Lady Sarah might have lived and died the baronet’s adored wife had not Lord William Gordon crossed her path.  Lord William was young, handsome, full of romance, a dangerous rival to the bucolic and stolid baronet, under whose unobservant eyes he carried on an open flirtation with his wife.  Before Lady Sarah realised her danger, she had drifted into a liaison with the handsome Scot, which could only have one termination.  One morning in February 1769 Sir Thomas awoke to find his nest empty.  Lady Sarah had flown, and Lord William with her.