MARGARET GODOLPHIN, Queen getting separated from her party, her chair- men went away and left her alone, and much terrified, when she was obliged to return to Whitehall in a hackney coach, or according to others, in a cart. When the Court, in Sept. 1671, was sojourning at Audley End, the princely residence of the Earl and Countess of Suffolk, her Majesty determined to visit, incognita, the fair which was being held at the neighbouring town of Saffron Walden. The Duchess of Buckingham, and the Duchess of Richmond - the beautiful mad-cap card-castle builder, Frances Stewart, of former days-readily entered into the design ; and the trio disguised themselves in short red petticoats, waistcoats, and other articles forming the costume of (pictorial) country lasses. Each being mounted on a cart-horse behind a gay cavalier transformed into a bumpkin, they set forth in search ofromantic adventures. But they had all so over-done their disguises, that the moment they reached the fair, the peasants took them for antics rather than for rustics, and began to run after them, supposing that they were strolling players. At last, on the Queen going into a booth to buy " a pair of yellow stockings for her sweetheart," and her attendant Corydon, the brave old Cavalier, Sir Bernard Gas- coigne, asking for " a pair of gloves streaked with blue for his sweetheart," they were soon, " by their gibberish," found to be foreigners, which drew a still larger crowd round them. The Queen's Portu- guese, and Sir Bernard's attempts at imitating what 20
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