In the Prince’s next move for popularity Doddington played a passive part. He was generally understood to represent the Prince in the House of Commons, and when therefore he declined to speak in the House in favour of the excise, it was regarded as a proof of the Prince’s lukewarmness; and when another favourite, Townshend, who was the groom of the bedchamber to the Prince, actually voted against the scheme, it was understood that the Prince was hostile to it. Wyndham emphasised this in one of his attacks on Walpole. He denounced corruption and tyranny, and recalled certain unworthy king’s favourites of former times: “What was their fate?” he asked. “They had the misfortune to outlive their master, and his son, as soon as he came to the throne, took off their heads.” The Prince of Wales was sitting under the gallery listening to the debate, and the allusion was cheered to the echo by the Opposition. The Prince’s attitude was further shown by his exceeding graciousness to Lord Stair, who had told the Queen his mind, and to Lord Chesterfield, who had offended her past forgiveness. The King was exceedingly angry, and threatened to turn Townshend out of the little appointment he held under the Prince, but Walpole counselled letting him alone. Walpole would have punished Doddington had he dared, for he regarded him as the chief instigator of the Prince’s rebellious conduct. This was most unfair, for Doddington’s advice was always on the side of caution, and his influence had more than once prevented the Prince from rising in open revolt against his parents. Walpole forgot for the moment that behind the Prince was one much greater than Doddington whose enmity never slept, and that one was Bolingbroke. Though debarred from his seat in the House of Lords, and unable to raise his voice or vote, Bolingbroke yet, by his genius for intrigue, the vigour of his political writings and his consummate power of organisation, had done more than any man to stir up public feeling against the excise, and to bring Walpole within measurable distance of his fall. Most of the Opposition were puppets moved by this master mind, Wyndham was his mouthpiece, even Pulteney at this time was wholly under his spell. And under the ordinary working of the Constitution, Bolingbroke would have led his hosts to victory had not the King and Queen, unconstitutionally, it must be admitted, retained their Prime Minister.