James was so unpopular in England at this time, even among his own supporters, that societies were formed to discuss the propriety of transferring their allegiance to his son, Prince Charles Edward, and reports were persistently circulated that the young Prince was to be taken from his father’s guardianship and brought up in the religion of the Church of England. This plan was at first supported by Bolingbroke, who did his utmost to bring it about, and it gained so much credence that in 1733 Sir Archer Croft declared in the House of Commons that “The Pretender was the more to be feared because they did not know but that he was then breeding his son a Protestant”.[56] Had this been true it would have been the severest possible blow for the Hanoverian family. It would have done away with their reason for occupying the throne, and though they could not have been expected to abdicate of their own free will, yet the personal unpopularity of the King after the Queen’s death was so great that the rising of ’45 would probably have had a different ending. But it was not true, for in matters of religion James was as great a bigot as his father, and Atterbury’s death put an end to all such plans. The Duchess of Buckingham often went to Paris to have conferences with Atterbury on this question, and the Bishop used his influence with her to prevent the Duke of Berwick from giving a Roman Catholic tutor to her son, the young duke. The duchess pretended that her interviews with Atterbury were wholly connected with her son’s education, but Walpole knew that was only a pretext to hide her Jacobite intrigues. The duchess had a great position in England as head of the Jacobite ladies; she was in fact a sort of Jacobite Duchess of Marlborough, and a rival of that illustrious dowager, whom in arrogance and pride she strongly resembled. Like her she possessed enormous wealth, and Buckingham House vied in magnificence with Marlborough House across the park. Both the duchesses disliked and despised the Hanoverian family, though from different reasons, and both masked their dislike, and occasionally did the King and Queen the honour, as they considered it, of attending their drawing-rooms. The two duchesses were on friendly terms, but occasionally had their differences. The Duchess of Buckingham lost her son, and his remains were brought from Rome to be interred in Westminster Abbey with great pomp. She sent to her neighbour across the park, the Duchess Sarah, to ask the loan of the funeral car which had borne the body of the great Duke of Marlborough to St. Paul’s. Sarah spurned this request with contumely: “It carried my Lord Marlborough,” she sent word to say, “and it shall never be used for any meaner mortal.” “I have consulted the undertaker,” wrote back the other duchess, “and he tells me I can have a finer for twenty pounds.”