’The people of this town are, at present, in great consternation upon a report they have heard from London, which, if true, they think will ruin them.  They are informed, that considering the vast consumption of these waters, there is a design laid of excising them next session; and, moreover, that as bathing in the sea is become the general practice of both sexes, and as the kings of England have always been allowed to be masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be gauged, and pay so much per foot square, as their cubical bulk amounts to.’

In 1733, Lord Chesterfield married Melusina, the supposed niece, but, in fact, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I. This lady was presumed to be a great heiress, from the dominion which her mother had over the king.  Melusina had been created (for life) Baroness of Aldborough, county Suffolk, and Countess of Walsingham, county Norfolk, nine years previous to her marriage.

Her father being George I., as Horace Walpole terms him, ’rather a good sort of man than a shining king,’ and her mother ‘being no genius,’ there was probably no great attraction about Lady Walsingham, except her expected dowry.

During her girlhood Melusina resided in the apartments at St. James’s—­opening into the garden; and here Horace Walpole describes his seeing George I., in the rooms appropriated to the Duchess of Kendal, next to those of Melusina Schulemberg, or, as she was then called, the Countess of Walsingham.  The Duchess of Kendal was then very ’lean and ill-favoured.’  ‘Just before her,’ says Horace, ’stood a tall, elderly man, rather pale, of an aspect rather good-natured than august:  in a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over all.  That was George I.’

[Illustration:  A ROYAL ROBBER.]

The Duchess of Kendal had been maid of honour to the Electress Sophia, the mother of George I. and the daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia.  The duchess was always frightful; so much so that one night the electress, who had acquired a little English, said to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk,—­glancing at Mademoiselle Schulemberg—­’Look at that mawkin, and think of her being my son’s passion!’

The duchess, however, like all the Hanoverians, knew how to profit by royal preference.  She took bribes:—­she had a settlement of L3,000 a year.  But her daughter was eventually disappointed of the expected bequest from her father, the king.[24]

In the apartments at St. James’s Lord Chesterfield for some time lived, when he was not engaged in office abroad; and there he dissipated large sums in play.  It was here, too, that Queen Caroline, the wife of George II., detected the intimacy that existed between Chesterfield and Lady Suffolk.  There was an obscure window in Queen Caroline’s apartments, which looked into a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at night.  One Twelfth Night Lord Chesterfield, having won a large sum at cards, deposited it with Lady Suffolk, thinking it not safe to carry it home at night.  He was watched, and his intimacy with the mistress of George II. thereupon inferred.  Thenceforth he could obtain no court influence; and, in desperation, he went into the opposition.