In addition to the attack of pleurisy, the Prince had during the previous year had a severe fall from his horse, which had left him ailing. It cannot be doubted that his constitution had been showing signs of breaking down for some months before the attack of pleurisy in the winter. However, on the 5th of March, 1751, he attended at the House of Lords to hear his father give his sanction to some Acts of Parliament. This ceremony concluded, the Prince left the hot Chamber, no doubt overcrowded and stuffy, and came out into the cold March wind, proceeding to Carlton House in his chair with the windows down. In other words sitting in a thorough draught. This was not sufficient; at Carlton House he took off his heavy ceremonial suit, and replaced it by light unaired clothing. He appears then to have hurried off to Kew, and there walked about the Gardens in a cold wind for three hours. Returning to Carlton House he lay upon a couch in a room without a fire, with the windows open. It appears that the Earl of Egmont, who was a member of his household, came into the room, and finding him there reasoned with him on the risk he was running, no doubt knowing full well that the Prince was in a weak state of health. Frederick simply laughed at the idea of danger, and finally went over to Leicester House. It is not surprising that when Mr. Doddington called there the next day, he found him very ill. But not so ill as to warrant him calling there again the day following. He went, however, on March 8th, and this is the entry he made of the visit in his diary: “March 8th. The Prince not recovered. Our passing the next week at Kew put off.” Doddington did not consider the Prince ill enough for a visit on the 9th, but he went there again on the 10th. “At Leicester House. The Prince was better and saw company.” Incredible as it may appear, the Prince seems to have gone out to supper at Carlton House on the 12th, and relapsed of course. Doddington did not go again until the 13th, and then he recorded the following:-- “At Leicester House. The Prince did not appear, having a return of a pain in his side.” And no wonder! This pain in his side was the worst symptom of the Prince’s illness, had the doctors but known it; but the diagnosis of a case in those days must have been a very rough and ready affair. It has been mentioned that some years before Frederick had received a blow on the chest from a cricket ball--some say a tennis ball--while playing on the lawn at Cliefden. It had caused him some pain, but, as usual, he had neglected it, and some trouble had formed there; trouble perhaps, fostered by the abundance of the _bons-pères_ the Prince was in the habit of drinking in the custom of the time. Now on the 13th of March Doddington records that the Prince had a return of a pain in his side. This was doubtless the old spot injured by the cricket ball.