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A Day at Tunbridge Wells
Where Beaus and City-Wives in Medley come, The Brisk Gallant supplies the Husband's room, Whilst dear harmless cuckold packs up Goods at home."
Thus Thomas Baker in 1703, in the prologue to his play, Tunbridge Walks, or, The Yeoman of Kent It is not surprising, therefore, that scandal should be the main topic of conversation, and even so early as the time of the visit of Catherine of Braganza to Tunbridge Wells, the Due de Cominges, the French Ambassador at the Court of St. James, who accompanied Her Majesty, should have declared, " They should be called the Wells of Scandal, for they have gone well-nigh to ruining the reputation of all the women and girls (I mean such as had not their husbands with them)."
An interesting account of the spa in the second decade of the eighteenth century is to be found in the now almost entirely forgotten Familiar Letters of Edward Ward, author of the London Spy, and to this, strangely enough, neither Burr nor Amsinck made any allusion. " The chief est pastimes, next the old trade of Basket-making, are the four following : Bowling at Rusthall Green, where fools lose their money, and knaves win it; Dancing upon Southborough Green; Walking in the Grove
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