[Page Head: THE KING IN ST. JAMES'S STREET.]
All this was very well; no great harm in it; more affable, less dignified than the late King; but when this was over, and he might very well have sat himself quietly down and rested, he must needs put on his plainer clothes and start on a ramble about the streets, alone too. In Pall Mall he met Watson Taylor, and took his arm and went up St. James's Street. There he was soon followed by a mob making an uproar, and when he got near White's a woman came up and kissed him. Belfast (who had been sworn in Privy Councillor in the morning), who saw this from White's, and Clinton thought it time to interfere, and came out to attend upon him. The mob increased, and, always holding W. Taylor's arm, and flanked by Clinton and Belfast, who got shoved and kicked about to their inexpressible wrath, he got back to the Palace amid shouting and bawling and applause. When he got home he asked them to go in and take a quiet walk in the garden, and said, 'Oh, never mind all this; when I have walked about a few times they will get used to it, and will take no notice.' There are other stories, but I will put down nothing I do not see or hear, or hear from the witnesses. Belfast told me this in the Park, fresh from the scene and smarting from the buffeting he had got. All the Park was ringing with it, and I told Lady Bathurst, who thought it so serious she said she would get Lord Bathurst to write to the Duke directly about it. Lord Combermere wanted to be made a Privy Councillor yesterday, but the Duke would not let it be done; he is in a sort of half-disgrace, and is not to be made yet, but will be by-and-by.
I came and established myself here last night after the Duchess of Bedford's ball. Lady Bathurst told me that the Queen spoke to her yesterday morning about the King's walk and being followed, and said that for the future he must walk early in the morning, or in some less public place, so there are hopes that his activity may be tamed. He sent George Fitzclarence off from dinner in his silk stockings and cocked hat to Boulogne to invite the King of Würtemberg to come here; he was back in fifty-six hours, and might have been in less. He employs him in everything, and I heard Fitzclarence yesterday ask the Duke of Leeds for two of his father's horses to ride about on his jobs and relieve his own, which the Duke agreed to, but made a wry face. Mount Charles has refused to be Lord of the Bedchamber; his wife can't bear it, and he doesn't like to go to Windsor under such altered circumstances. I hardly ever record the scandalous stories of the day, unless they relate to characters or events, but what relates to public men is different from the loves and friendships of the idiots of society.