Note 50 — Chapter VII

George Walpole, third Earl of Orford, grandson of Sir Robert Walpole. Lord Orford, whose intellects were never very sound, and which were afterwards much disordered, showed at no time a disposition to tread in the principles of his grandfather and family. He lived almost always in the country, and was chiefly influenced in politics, when he did take any part in them, by George Lord Townshend, who had deviated still more from the Whig principles of his grandfather; being poisoned by his mother, the celebrated Ethelreda, Lady Townshend. That lady had been very affected. She had a great deal of wit, which was seldom delicate, and had turned Jacobite on some disregard from the Duke of Cumberland. One day that she was very severe on the Royal Family, Margaret Cecil, Lady Brown, said to her, “Lady Townshend, it was very well, while you was only affected; but now you are disaffected, it is intolerable.” A famous bon mot of Lady Townshend on the Royal Family was occasioned by seeing them often at Ranelagh: she said, “This is the cheapest family to see, and the dearest to keep, that ever was.”