dame von Kielmansegg, however, was of another mind. If her great rival
would not go, she would; and after giving the Elector a day's start, she
raced after him, caught him up, and, to her delight, was welcomed with
open arms. The moment Von der Schulenburg heard of the trick "that
Kielmansegg woman" had played on her, she, too, packed her trunks, and,
taking her "nieces" with her, also set out in hot pursuit of her Royal
lover and tool, and overtook him just as he was on the point of
embarking for England.

George was now happy and reconciled to his fate, for his retinue was
complete. And what a retinue! When the King landed at Greenwich with his
grotesque assortment of Ministers, his hideous Turks, his two
mistresses--one a gaunt giant, the other rolling in billows of fat--and
his "nieces," the crowds thronging the landing-place and streets greeted
the "menagerie" with jeers and shouts of laughter. They nicknamed
Schulenburg the "Maypole," and Kielmansegg the "Elephant," and pursued
the cavalcade with strident mockeries and insults.

"Goot peoples, vy you abuse us?" asked the Maypole, protruding her gaunt
head and shoulders through the carriage window. "Ve only gom for all
your goots." "And for all our chattels, too, ---- you!" came the
stinging retort from a wag in the crowd.

But Schulenburg soon realised that she could afford to smile and shrug
her scraggy shoulders at the insolence of those "horrid Engleesh." She
found herself in a land of Goshen, where there were many rich plums to
be gathered by far-reaching and unscrupulous hands such as hers. If she
could not love the enemy, she could at least plunder them; and this she
set to work to do with a good will, while the plastic George looked on
and smiled encouragement. There were pensions, appointments,
patents--boons of all kinds to be trafficked in; and who had a greater
right to act as intermediary than herself, the King's _chere amie_ and
right hand?

She sold everything that was saleable. As Walpole says, "She would have
sold the King's honour at a shilling advance to the best bidder." From
Bolingbroke's family she took L20,000 in three sums--one for a Peerage,
another for a pardon, and the third for a fat post in the Customs. Gold
poured in a ceaseless and glittering stream into her coffers. She
refused no bribe--if it was big enough--and was ready to sell anything,
from a Dukedom to a Bishopric, if her price was forthcoming. She made
George procure her a