Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GEORGE THE SECOND. N the afternoon of the 14th of June, 1727, two horsemen might have been perceived galloping along the road from Chelsea to Richmond. The foremost, cased in the jackboots of the period, was a broad- faced, jolly-looking, and very corpulent cavalier; but, by the manner in which he urged his horse, you might see that he was a bold as well as a skilful rider. Indeed, no man loved sport better; and in the hunting-fields of Norfolk, no squire rode more boldly after the fox, or cheered Ringwood and Sweettips more lustily, than he who now thundered over the Richmond road. He speedily reached Richmond Lodge, and asked to see the owner of the mansion. The mistress of the house and her ladies, to whom our friend was admitted, said he could not be introduced to the master, however pressing the business might be. The master was asleep after his dinner; he always slept after his dinner: and woe be to the person who interrupted him! Nevertheless, our stout friendof the jackboots put the affrighted ladies aside, opened the forbidden door of the bedroom, wherein upon the bed lay a little gentleman; and here the eager messenger knelt down in his jackboots. He on the bed started up, and with many oaths and a strong German accent asked who was there, and who dared to disturb him ?
I am Sir Robert Walpole, said the messenger. The awakened sleeper hated Sir Robert Walpole.
I have the honour to announce to your Majesty that your royal father, King George I., died at Osnaburg, on Saturday last, the loth inst.
Dat is one big lie! roared out his sacred Majesty King George II.: but Sir Robert Walpole stated the fact, and from that day until three and thirty years after, George, the second of the name, ruled over England. How the King made away with his father’…
