A few weeks after this rupture the illustrious Queen Caroline died, to the great grief of the King and the nation. Her death widened the breach in the royal family, for the King considered that his son's undutiful conduct had hastened his mother's death. Frederick now ranged himself in open opposition to the King and the government, and gathered around him the malcontent politicians, who saw in Walpole's fall, or Frederick's accession to the throne, their only chance of rising to power. The following year, 1738, a son and heir (afterwards George III.) was born to the Prince and Princess of Wales at Norfolk House. This event strengthened the position of the Prince, especially as the King's health was reported to be failing. Frederick removed his household to Leicester House in Leicester Fields. It was here, eleven years later, that his posthumous daughter Caroline Matilda was born. Leicester House was built by the Earl of Leicester in the reign of James I. There was a field before it in those days, but a square was subsequently built around the field, and Leicester House occupied the north-east corner of what was then Leicester Fields, but is now known as Leicester Square. It was a large and spacious house, with a courtyard in front, and the state rooms were admirably adapted for receptions and levees, but as a residence it was not so satisfactory. Frederick chiefly made use of Carlton House and Kew for his family life, and kept Leicester House for entertaining. His court there offered a curious parallel to the one his father had held within the same walls in the reign of George I., when the heir to the throne was also at variance with the King. Again Leicester House became the rallying place of the opposition, again its walls echoed with the sound of music and dance, again there flocked to its assemblies ladies of beauty and fashion, elegant beaux, brilliant wits, politicians and pamphleteers. Frederick's intelligence has been much abused, but he was intelligent enough to gather around him at this time much of what was best in the social life of the day, and his efforts were ably seconded by his clever and graceful wife. [Illustration: LEICESTER HOUSE, WHERE QUEEN MATILDA WAS BORN.]