While the Stuarts were losing ground Caroline was working hard and incessantly to make the Hanoverian family acceptable to the English nation. By birth a foreign princess, one who did not arrive upon these shores until well into middle life, she could not boast that she was “entirely English” like Queen Anne, but it is remarkable, considering the great and obvious disadvantages under which she laboured, how well she succeeded in impressing her personality upon the English people. She was careful to express herself in public in warm admiration of the laws, customs and constitution of this country; she often declared that England owed everything to its liberties. Yet sometimes when the King abused England, as he invariably did after a visit to Hanover, speaking of the English people as “king-killers” and “republicans,” and grumbling at their riches as well as their rights, she would fall into his vein, and rail against the limited powers of the Crown, which rendered the King “a puppet of sovereignty” and a servant of Parliament. It is probable that she chafed against the limitations to the power of the Sovereign, for she was a woman who loved to rule; but in theory she was all for liberty and tolerance. But whatever her predilections, she clearly understood, and acquiesced in, the only possible terms by which the Hanoverian family were allowed to reign in England. As she could not increase the limited power of the Crown in political matters, she determined to increase its unlimited influence in other directions, and to this end she encouraged everything which helped to promote the well-being and prosperity of the people, especially those movements which had a national origin. This was especially the case with home industries. For example, we read:-- “On Saturday last a considerable body of dealers in bone-lace from the counties of Bucks, Northampton and Bedford, waited upon her Majesty with a petition on behalf of their manufacture, and carried with them a parcel of lace to show the perfection they had brought it to, and when her Majesty showed her royal intention to encourage the British manufacturer by receiving them very graciously, and bought a considerable quantity of lace for the use of the Royal Family, and several ladies followed her example, the said dealers in lace had the honour to kiss her Majesty’s hand.”[58] And again: “On Wednesday last some of the Trustees for Georgia and Sir Thomas Loombe waited upon her Majesty with the Georgia silk, which is to be wove into a piece for her Majesty’s wear, from a beautiful pattern which her Majesty chose, and she, in a most gracious manner, expressed satisfaction at the British Colonies having produced so fine a silk.”[59]