"A notion has prevailed," says Nicholls, "that the Earl of Bute had suggested political opinions to the Princess Dowager, but this was certainly a mistake. In understanding, the Princess Dowager was far superior to the Earl of Bute; in whatever degree of favour he stood with her, he did not suggest, but he received, her opinions and her directions."[67] As a matter of fact, the Princess Dowager was a woman of very sound understanding up to a certain point, but her training at the Court of Saxe-Gotha, where the Duke was practically a despot, unfitted her for the task of bringing up a future King of England. Constitutional monarchy was beyond the range of her experience, and she could never accept the doctrine in force in this country that, while a sovereign may choose his ministers, having chosen them he should either be guided by their advice or change them. "Be a King, George," she preached to the heir-apparent; and in her eyes to be a king was to be omnipotent. [67] Nicholls: _Recollections and Reflections_. Though well-meaning and shrewd enough, the Princess Dowager's outlook on life was narrow; she had many prejudices, and in the light of these planned the education of her children so far as it lay in her power. She was so afraid lest George should be influenced by the vulgarity and immorality of the Court, that she tied him to her apron-strings. "The Prince of Wales lived shut up with his mother and Lord Bute; and must have thrown them into some difficulties: their connexion was not easily reconcilable to the devotion which they had infused into the Prince; the Princess could not wish him always present, and yet dreaded him being out of her sight. His brother Edward, who received a thousand mortifications, was seldom suffered to be with him; and Lady Augusta, now a woman, was, to facilitate some privacy for the Princess, dismissed from supping with her mother, and sent back to cheese-cakes, with her little sister Elizabeth, on pretence that meat at night would fatten her too much."[68] The result of this treatment was not only that the children were miserable, but that they were all too well aware of their state of mind. When the Princess Dowager, struck one day by the silence of one of her sons, asked if he were sulking, "I was thinking," the lad replied, "what I should feel if I had a son as unhappy as you make me." [68] Walpole: _Memoirs of George II_.