Walpole’s reflections on his ride to Chiswick must have been bitter indeed. Well might he exclaim, as his fallen rival, Bolingbroke, had done under a similar reverse: “What a world is this and how does Fortune banter us!” For years he had been Prime Minister with almost absolute power, enjoying to the full the confidence of his Sovereign. Suddenly he was stripped of every shred of authority, and dismissed (for the King’s bidding him go to Compton was tantamount to a dismissal) without the slightest consideration, like a dishonest servant. Walpole knew that George the Second owed him a grudge for not having kept his promises at the reconciliation, and disliked him, as he disliked all who enjoyed the late King’s favour. But the Prime Minister hoped that time and Caroline’s influence would put things right. He did not know that Pulteney had repeated certain remarks he had incautiously made soon after the reconciliation, when Pulteney asked him what terms he had got for the Prince of Wales. Walpole answered with a sneer: “Why, he is to go to court again, and he will have his drums and guards, and such fine things”. “But,” said Pulteney, “is the Prince to be left Regent as he was when the King first left England?” Walpole replied, “Certainly not, he does not deserve it, we have done more than enough for him; and if it were to be done again, we would not do so much”.[1] George the Second’s little mind resented slights of this kind more than greater wrongs, and he now took his revenge. Sir Spencer Compton, to whom the disconcerted Minister sadly made his way, had been Speaker of the House of Commons, Treasurer of the Prince of Wales’s Household, and Paymaster of the Army. Compton was much more of a courtier than a politician. He was a man of the mediocre order of ability that often makes a good and safe official; he knew all about forms, procedure, and precedents, but he was not a leader of men, and he was quite unprepared for, and quite unequal to, the great position now thrust upon him. Walpole, who knew the man with whom he had to deal, felt towards Compton no personal resentment. He acquainted him briefly with George the First’s death, gave him the new King’s commands, and added on his own behalf: “Everything is in your hands; I neither could shake your power if I would, nor would if I could. My time has been, yours is beginning; but as we all must depend in some degree upon our successors, and as it is always prudent for these successors, by way of example, to have some regard for their predecessors, that the measure they mete out may be measured to them again--for this reason I put myself under your protection, and for this reason I expect you will give it. I desire no share of power or business, one of your white sticks,[2] or any employment of that sort, is all I ask, as a mark from the Crown that I am not abandoned to the enmity of those whose envy is the only source of their hate.”[3]