Yet there was no secrecy concerning the paternity of the Countess, and it was, of course, well-known in the German Courts.

Further, it was overlooked that in the patent of nobility in 1721 there is a reference to the royal blood of the recipient of the title, and actually the patent, in addition to the Great Seal, had a miniature of the King and the arms of the houses of Platen, Kielmansegg, and Great Britain (Brunswick-Lueneburg) with the bar-sinister.[2] [Footnote 2: Refutation of the scandal is to be found in a work published in Hanover in 1902: "_Briefe des Hertzogs Ernst August zu Braun schweig-Lueneburg an Johann Franz Diedrich von Wendt aus dem Jahren 1705 bis 1726_," edited by Erich Graf Kielmansegg.] All this at this time must have been very distressing to Lady Darlington, for she was very careful of her reputation, as the following amusing incident, given in Lady Cowper's Diary (February 4, 1716) indicates: "Madame Kielmansegg had been told that the Prince, afterwards George II, had said that she intrigued with all the men at Hanover.

She came to complain of this to the Princess, who replied, she did not believe the Prince had said so, it not being his custom to speak in that manner.
Madame Kielmansegg cried and said it had made her despised, and that many of her acquaintance had left her upon that story, but that her husband had taken all the care she could to vindicate her reputation, and thereupon she drew forth a certificate under her husband's hand, in which he certified, in all the due forms, that she had always been a faithful wife to him, and that he had never had any cause to suspect her honesty.

The Princess smiled, and said she did not doubt it at all, and that all the trouble was very unnecessary, and that it was a very bad reputation that wanted such a support." In appearance, Lady Darlington was a contrast to the Duchess of Kendal.
She was in her youth a good-looking woman, but as the years passed she became immensely corpulent, and Horace Walpole, who saw her at his mother's when he was a child, thus described her: "Two fierce black eyes, large and rolling between two lofty arched eye-brows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed, and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays." He christened her "Elephant and Castle." For a while, Lady Mary was popular also with the Prince of Wales, who was attracted by her looks and her vivacity.

It is recorded that on one occasion when Lady Mary appeared in a gown more than usually becoming the Prince called his wife from the card table to admire her.