Many office-seekers at first paid their court to the Prince of Wales, but they soon perceived that the King allowed him no voice in appointments, except the purely personal ones of his own household. The Prince thus early found interested friends among the English nobility who were willing to urge his claims to a larger share in the regality--for a consideration. His love of intrigue induced him to lend a ready ear, and he soon had a trustworthy ally in the person of his consort Caroline, who had now set out from Hanover. “The Princess, Consort to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,” writes a Hanoverian gazette, “having received letters from the Prince whereby he desires her to follow him immediately to England, has resolved to send her baggage forward next Saturday for Holland, and on Monday following two of the Princesses, her daughters, will set out at the Hague, and she herself will depart Thursday following, in order to go to England. The Duchess of Celle is expected at Herrenhausen to-morrow night, and the Duchess of Wolfenbüttel the next day, to take their leave of her Royal Highness.”[49] Caroline arrived at the Hague a few days later, and was formally received by the Earls of Strafford and Albemarle and their countesses, and by the deputies who were appointed by the States of Holland to welcome her and attend her during her stay. She was accompanied by two of her children, the Princesses Anne and Amelia; the youngest, Princess Caroline, had been left behind on account of indisposition, and her eldest child, Prince Frederick, by command of the King remained at Hanover. Caroline was in the highest spirits at the realisation of her hopes, and began with zest to play her new rôle of Princess of Wales. That night, tired from her long journey, she supped in private, but the next morning she received a deputation from the States-General, and in the afternoon, the weather being fine, she drove in the Voorhout, or fashionable promenade, attended by a numerous train of coaches. In the evening the Princess held a drawing-room, which was largely attended by all the persons of distinction at the Hague. On the morrow she gave audience to the French Ambassador and other foreign ministers, and to many lords and ladies, who, we are told, “could not enough applaud the agreeable reception they found, and the admirable presence of mind of her Royal Highness. The two Princesses, her daughters, were not less the subject of admiration for the excellent behaviour they showed, much above what their age could promise, one being but three and a half and the other but five years old.”[50]