The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 24 October 1825
“Lambton, 24th Oct, 1825.
“. . . Altho’ our King Jog did receive me so graciously yesterday . . . the
sunshine was of very limited duration. You must know by a new ordinance livery
servants are proscribed the dining-room; so our Michael and Frances
[Taylor] were none the better for their two Cantley footmen, and this was the
case too with Mrs. General Grey, whom I
handed out to dinner. . . . Soup was handed round—from where, God knows;
but before Lambton stood a dish with one small haddock and
three small whitings in it, which he instantly ordered off the table, to avoid
the
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| 92 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch. IV. |
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trouble of helping. Mrs. Grey and
myself were at least ten minutes without any prospect of getting any servant to
attend to us, altho I made repeated application to
Lambton, who was all this time eating his own fish as
comfortably as could be. So my blood beginning to boil, I
said:—‘Lambton, I wish you would
tell me what quarter I am to apply to for some fish.’ To which he
replied in the most impertinent manner:—‘The servant, I
suppose.’ I turned to Mills and said pretty
loud:—‘Now, if it was not for the fuss and jaw of the thing,
I would leave the room and the house this instant’; and I dwelt
on the damned outrage. Mills said:—‘He
hears every word you say’; to which I said: ‘I hope he
does.’ . . . It was a regular scene. . . .”
Charlotte Grey [née Des Voeux] (1789 c.-1882)
The daughter of Sir Charles Philip Vinchon Des Voeux, first baronet; in 1812 she married
General Sir Henry George Grey, son of General Charles Grey, first Earl Grey.
Frances Ann Taylor [née Vane] (d. 1835)
Whig hostess, the daughter of Sir Henry Vane, first baronet (1729–1794); in 1789 she
married the politician Michael Angelo Taylor.
Michael Angelo Taylor (1757 c.-1834)
Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was MP (1784-34) for a variety of
constituencies; originally a Tory he gravitated to the Whigs over the course of his long
career.
