For many days ere they received clear demonstration of the Chancellor's deceit, the other members of the cabinet suspected that he was acting disingenuously, and when his double-dealing was brought to their sure knowledge, their indignation was not even qualified with surprise. The story of his exposure is told in various ways; but all versions concur in attributing his detection to an accident. Like the gallant of the French court, whose clandestine intercourse with a great lady was discovered because, in his hurried preparations for flight from her chamber, he appropriated one of her stockings, Thurlow, according to one account, was convicted of perfidy by the prince's hat, which he bore under his arm on entering the closet where the ministers awaited his coming. Another version says that Thurlow had taken his seat at the council-table, when his hat was brought to him by a page, with an explanation that he had left it in the prince's private room. A third, and more probable representation of the affair, instead of laying the scene in the council-chamber, makes the exposure occur in a more public part of the castle. "When a council was to be held at Windsor," said the Right Honorable Thomas Grenville, in his old age recounting the particulars of the mishap, "to determine the course which ministers should pursue, Thurlow had been there some time before any of his colleagues arrived. He was to be brought back to London by one of them, and the moment of departure being come, the Chancellor's hat was nowhere to be found. After a fruitless search in the apartment where the council had been held, a page came with the hat in his hand, saying aloud, and with great _naivete_, 'My lord, I found it in the closet of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.' The other Ministers were still in the Hall, and Thurlow's confusion corroborated the inference which they drew." Cannot an artist be found to place upon canvas this scene, which furnishes the student of human nature with an instructive instance of "That combination strange--a lawyer and a blush?" For some days Thurlow's embarrassment and chagrim were very painful. But a change in the state of the king's health caused a renewal of the lawyer's attachment to Tory principles and to his sovereign.