“The Qn. (as I
found on going to her house at 20 minutes before six this morning) started at a
quarter past five, and drove down Constitution Hill in the
mulberry—Lady A[nne]
H[amilton] and Lady Hood
sitting opposite. Hesse (in uniform) and Lord H[ood] in another carriage went before. I
followed on foot and found she had swept the crowd after her: it was very
great, even at that hour. She passed thro’ Storey’s Gate, and then
round Dean’s Yard, where she was separated from the crowd by the gates
being closed. The refusal was peremptory at all the doors of the Abbey when she
tried, and one was banged in her face. . . . She was saluted by all the
soldiery, and even the people in the seats, who had paid 10 and 5 guineas down,
and might be expected to hiss most at the untimely interruption, hissed very
little and applauded loudly in most places. In some they were silent, but the
applause and waving handkerchiefs prevailed. I speak from hearsay of various
persons of different parties, having been obliged to leave
| 18 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch I. |
“About ½ past six [a.m.] she had finished her walks and calls at the doors, and got into the carriage to return. She came by Whitehall, Pall Mall and Piccadilly. The crowd in the Broad Street of Whitehall was immense (the barriers being across Parlt. St. and King St.). All, or nearly all followed her and risked losing their places. They crammed Cockspur Street and Pall Mall, &c., hooting and cursing the King and his friends, and huzzaing her. A vast multitude followed her home, and then broke windows. But they soon (in two or three hours) dispersed or went back.
“I had just got home and she sent for me, so I went and breakfasted with her, and am now going to dine, which makes me break off; but I must add that the King was not well received at all—silence in many places, and a mixture of hisses and groans in others. However, there were some bounds kept with him. For Wood and Waithman—a division of hissing and shouting—for the Atty. and Solr. Gen. an unmixed hissing of the loudest kind. This verdict is really of some moment, when you consider that the jury was very much a special, if not a packed, one. The general feeling, even of her own partisans, was very much agt. her going; but far more agt. their behaviour to her. I still can’t see it in that light; and as she will go quietly back to B[randenburg] House,* avoiding all mob most carefully, she gains more than she loses, and I think her very lucky in being excluded. They put it on not being at liberty to recognise her or any one, except as ticket-bearers. Lord H[ood] shewed me one which they said of course would pass any one of the party, but she refused to go in except as Q. and without a ticket. The one Lord H. shewed me was the Beau’s,† and I have it as a memorial of the business. . . .”
