The immediate danger of a Jacobite rising was thus warded off, but so long as James and his two sons lived the House of Hanover could not enjoy undisputed title to the throne of England. In these early days, as Caroline knew well, it behoved the princes of the new dynasty to walk warily and court the popular goodwill, for there was always an alternative king in James, who by a turn of Fortune’s wheel might find himself upon the throne of his fathers. Though the official world and most of those in high places were all for the Hanoverian succession, and though Walpole had the means to corrupt members of Parliament and buy constituencies as he would, yet the heart of the people remained very tender towards the exiled royal family and felt a profound compassion for their misfortunes. The excitement consequent on the new reign continued for some months, and the King, not having had time to make himself enemies, was, to outward semblance, popular. A good deal was due to interested motives. The court was crowded with personages struggling for place. Lord Orrery wrote to James inveighing bitterly against “the civility, ignorance and poor spirit of our nobility and gentry, striving who shall sell themselves at the best price to the court, but resolved to sell themselves at any”. Yet he is constrained to add: “There do not appear to be many discontented people”.[6] Pope, too, who was now quite out of favour at court, wrote to a friend that the new reign “has put the whole world into a new state; but,” he adds enviously, “the only use I have, shall, or wish to make of it, is to observe the disparity of men from themselves in a week’s time; desultory leaping and catching of new modes, new manners and that strong spirit of life with which men, broken and disappointed, resume their hopes, their solicitations, their ambitions”. The political Jeremiahs of the time bewailed the wholesale trafficking in places, and the universal corruption. The King himself did not set a high example of public or private honesty; he had wrung the highest sum he could from Parliament for his Civil List, and at one of his early Councils he distinguished himself by an act which can only be described as dishonest. The timid and time-serving Archbishop of Canterbury, old Dr. Wake, produced the late King’s will, which had been entrusted to him, and handed it to George, fully expecting him to open it and read it to the Council. The King took it without a word, put it into his pocket, and walked out of the room. The Archbishop was so taken aback at this proceeding, that neither he nor the other privy councillors present raised a word in protest. George probably burnt the will after reading it, in any case it was never seen again. But the old King, who probably feared that some such fate would befall his testament, had taken the precaution to make a second copy, which he entrusted to the safe keeping of his cousin, the Duke of Wolfenbüttel.