Note 155 — Chapter VI

She always affected, if anybody was present, to act (and he liked she should) the humble ignorant wife, that never meddled with politics. Even if Sir Robert Walpole came in to talk of business, which she had previously settled with him, she would rise up, curtsey, and offer to retire; the King generally bad her stay, sometimes not. She and Sir Robert played him into one another’s hands. He would refuse to take the advice of the one, and then when the other talked to him again upon the same point, he would give the reasons for it which had been suggested to him: nay, he would sometimes produce as his own, at another conversation to the same person, the reasons which he had refused to listen to when given him. He has said to Sir Robert, on the curtseys of the Queen, “There, you see how much I am governed by my wife, as they say I am! Hoh! hoh! it is a fine thing indeed to be governed by one’s wife!” “Oh! sir,” replied the Queen, “I must be vain indeed to pretend to govern your Majesty!”