The king was soon convinced, Sir Robert was reappointed prime minister, and Sir Spenser was made president of the council. Not only did Sir Robert secure the promised sum for the queen, but he persuaded parliament to add a hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year to the king's revenue besides. This made him a most popular officer with the royal couple, of course. At the queen's first drawing-room, before the office of prime minister had been decided upon, Lady Walpole was among the guests; but as her husband was not supposed to be a candidate for royal favor, nobody made way for her, as they had done on previous occasions, when he occupied his lofty position, and she could not approach her majesty nearer than the third or fourth row. With her usual amiability, Queen Caroline no sooner espied Lady Walpole, than she said, aloud: "Ah, there I am sure I see a friend!" Thereupon the crowd made way for the lady, who declared that, "as she came away, she might have walked over their heads had she pleased." When George I. died he left a will which he certainly supposed his successor would respect; but he made a mistake; for when Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, appeared before the king with the precious document that {072}had been intrusted to him, and prepared himself to hear the instructions contained therein, George II. astonished him by quietly putting the paper in his pocket without looking at it, and then walking out of the room. Afterwards he dropped it into the fire. This was only following the example of his sire, who had treated in like manner the wills of the Duke of Zell and Sophia Dorothea. George I. must have suspected that his son would imitate him in this matter, for he left two copies of his will in Germany, but both were in course of time secured by the son and consigned to the flames, as the original had been. When George II. ascended the throne he was very popular, being generally regarded as a man of honor and integrity. There is little doubt that had his poor injured mother lived until that time he would have called her to England, for when Lady Suffolk entered the new queen's room, on the day after the king died, she was surprised to see the full-length portrait of a beautiful lady in royal robes, and over the bed in the adjoining apartment a smaller picture of the same person. These Queen Caroline told her were portraits of her husband's mother, that had been kept concealed so long as George I. lived. Who can help regretting that the poor lonely prisoner of Ahlden did not stay on earth long enough to enjoy her son's society and affection? It is certain that he loved her a great deal better than he ever did his father, and very little doubt can be entertained that it was the knowledge of that fact which increased the enmity the old king felt towards his son. The new sovereigns were duly crowned, and every part of the ceremony was performed on a scale of magnificence that had not been seen for many years.