[7] D’Alais’s Despatch. Hanover, 22nd June, 1714. Wilkins’ “Caroline.” [8] Wilkins’ “Caroline.” CHAPTER III. THE PRINCE AT THE AGE OF NINE. The new King, George the First of England, having departed with his train, and a month after the Princess Caroline--soon to become Princess of Wales--following with all the other children, little Frederick Louis, then in his eighth year, was left alone at Herrenhausen under the guardianship of his great-uncle Ernest Augustus and controlled by various governors and tutors. One can imagine the little lonely boy wandering through the deserted corridors of the Palace of Herrenhausen and picturing the figures of those dearest to him, those who had left him and whose faces he was not to see again for many a long year. In the early days of that separation one can picture the child in the orange walks of the beautiful grounds in the warm autumn time and looking and longing for his mother--she was a good and affectionate mother to him then--whose face he was not to see again for nearly fourteen years. During the next two years while the excitement of the Pretender’s invasion was passing in England, the little Prince lived the ordinary life of a child, but with the difference from ordinary children that he must have been an exceedingly lonely child. That he was without companions of his own age is quite certain from what followed. From his great-uncle it is unlikely that he received much sympathy, if that Prince partook of the nature of his brother the King-Elector George. But there was one left behind there who possibly showed him some kindness--although there is not a vestige of evidence to show that she did--and that was the beautiful Countess Platen, the mistress of the King who was left behind on account of the religion she professed, and because Bernstorff, the Hanoverian Prime Minister, was jealous of her influence over the King. So for two years the little Prince lived his child’s life and nothing was recorded of him. Then we hear of him from two sources: from Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, who visited Hanover in 1716, like many other English in the train of the King, and from his governor who reported upon his conduct to his mother about this time. The former of these who could be trusted--for Lady Mary was no Court sycophant and lied to no one--writes as follows of Frederick:--