The fall of Townshend was in part due to the treachery of Stanhope and Sunderland, but was chiefly the work of the Hanoverian Ministers and mistresses. Bothmar and Bernstorff were anxious to obtain English peerages and sit in the House of Lords, which would involve a repeal of the Act of Settlement, for that act would not allow aliens, even if naturalised, to become peers. This Townshend refused, as well as Schulemburg’s demand to become an English peeress. He had also earned the Hanoverians’ hatred by repeatedly complaining of the scandal attending the sale of offices. Loudly therefore did they rejoice at his downfall, but they gained little by the change. Stanhope had neither the power, nor the will, to repeal the Act of Settlement, but he was so far complaisant as to permit the King to make Schulemburg a peeress of Ireland with the titles of Baroness of Dundalk, Countess of Dungannon and Duchess of Munster. This did not satisfy the lady, who wished to become a peeress of Great Britain, but the King pacified her by saying that in these things it was necessary to proceed by degrees. Kielmansegge also requested to be created a peeress, but for the present she was left out in the cold. The remaining mistress, Platen, was quieted by a large grant from the King’s privy purse (English money of course), and as she had no wish to meddle in English politics, she was content to stay in Hanover, and await the King’s comings and goings, which he assured her would be more frequent henceforth. Leibniz, another suppliant for the royal favour, was not so fortunate. On this, the King’s first visit to Hanover after his accession, he renewed his prayers to be allowed to come to England. Caroline had held out hope to him, and it had formed the subject of many letters between them. But Leibniz could not have chosen a worse moment to approach the King. George was furious with the Prince and Princess, and he remembered that Leibniz had aided them and the Electress Sophia to cabal against him in the old days. He was determined that they should not have so able an advocate in England, so he repulsed Leibniz with brutal rudeness, and turned his back upon him at a levée at Herrenhausen. This treatment broke the old man’s heart; he went back to his house in Hanover, and never left it again. He died a few weeks later, neglected and alone. The King took no notice of his death, the courtiers followed suit, and only his secretary followed him to his grave. “He was buried,” said an eye-witness, “more like a robber than what he really was, an ornament to his country.” Leibniz had worked harder than any man for the House of Hanover, and this was his reward. Truly his career was an object-lesson of the old truth, “Put not your trust in princes”.