For what followed? Very soon the details of this affair began to leak out among the public, a series of scurrilous songs and pamphlets began to make their appearance: “Vanilla, or the Amours of the Court”; “Vanessi, or the Humours of the Court of Modern Gallantry”; and a particularly offensive one “Vanilla on the Straw.” Knowing as we do that Lord Hervey composed Miss Vane’s answer to the Prince’s message, that the copy of it was soon made public, and the Prince’s cruel message widely disseminated by Miss Vane, who apparently was at this time entirely under Lord Hervey’s influence, it is impossible to doubt for a moment that Hervey was striking a very heavy blow at the Prince’s popularity. At this juncture, however, the mature judgment of Pulteney, the leader of the Opposition, came to the Prince’s aid, as it did at a later time also, and under his advice Miss Vane received the provision which the Prince had originally intended for her, viz., a settlement of £1,600 a year for life, a gift of the house in Grosvenor Street in which she had resided since her dismissal from Court, and that which she doubtless prized more than all, the custody of her child. All this without any request to her to leave the country. And so the matter faded away, out of the public eye, and out of the public knowledge, for Miss Vane, with her child, went away to Bath, where very soon after both died; the child first, the mother after. Perhaps, as it is said, this poor girl had a true affection for the Prince, and the separation broke her heart; certainly after the death of the child she could have very little left to live for; forsaken by the man who had wronged her, robbed by death of the little one on whom possibly all her hopes and love were then centred. But it was not the poor broken-hearted mother who bore the whole of the sorrow at this little child’s death, the Queen, and the Princess Caroline, her daughter, both bear testimony “that they never believed it possible that the Prince of Wales could show such grief as he did at the death of the boy.” Perhaps a fitting conclusion to this chapter will be an Extract from the Register of Westminster Abbey, 26th February, 1735-6: “Fitz Frederick, natural child of the Prince of Wales by Anne Vane, daughter of Gilbert, Lord Barnard, buried, aged four.” FOOTNOTES: [26] Jane, daughter of Lord Abercorn, and wife of Lord Archibald Hamilton, was Mistress of the Robes to the Princess of Wales, and for some years governed absolutely at the Prince’s Court, and had planted so many of her relations about her that one day at Carlton House, Sir William Stanhope called everybody there whom he did not know “Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton.” Lady Archibald quitted that Court soon after Mr. Pitt accepted a place in the administration. Walpole’s Memoirs, vol. I., p. 75. [27] Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious,” vol. I. [28] She was undoubtedly very ill at this time. CHAPTER XI.