The christening of this infant gave rise to an open rupture. The Prince, anxious to invest the occasion with every dignity, asked the King and his uncle the Duke of York to stand as godfathers. The King consented, but, at the eleventh hour, commanded the Duke of Newcastle to stand in the place of the Duke of York. The Duke of Newcastle was a mean-spirited and ill-favoured nobleman, whose eccentricities rendered him the laughing-stock of the Court, and he had made himself especially obnoxious to the Prince and Princess of Wales. All this the King knew full well, and to appoint him godfather to the Prince’s child was a studied insult. The Prince of Wales was furious, but his royal sire refused to give way, and the christening took place, as arranged, in the bedroom of the Princess of Wales at St. James’s. The Princess remained in bed, not so much because she was unable to get up, as because it was the custom. The Prince of Wales and the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting were grouped on one side of the bed, the King, the Duke of Newcastle and the godmother on the other. The Archbishop of Canterbury, standing at the foot of the bed, baptised the infant, and gave him the names of George William. There was an air of suppressed excitement in the royal bedchamber throughout the ceremony, the Prince with difficulty restraining his indignation. No sooner was the service over and the King retired from the room, which he did before the concluding prayers, than the Prince ran round the bed, and going up to the duke shook his fist in his face, and shouted in great rage: “You are von rascal, but I shall find you”. There was a great scene; the Archbishop, who had scarcely closed his book, remonstrated, the Princess half rose from her bed, the ladies huddled together in a fright and the pages tittered. The duke, who considered himself grossly insulted, went at once to report what had happened to the King; the Prince, meanwhile, regardless of his wife’s condition, stamped and strutted about the room, swearing that he would be revenged for the indignity put upon him.