On November 7, Sir Henry Halford, Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Baillie were called in, and, with the approval of the Queen, in spite of his Majesty's known wish, Dr. Willis was sent for. Prayers were publicly offered for his recovery, and though once or twice he was a little better, there was little or no hope of permanent improvement and on December 21 Perceval introduced a Regency Bill, which became law on February 4, 1811. Hitherto all the attacks had been of short duration, none of them continuing much beyond six months, but when deprived of his reason in 1810, he was never again in a fit state to be entrusted with the cares of sovereignty. He had made his last appearance at a social function at Windsor on the anniversary of his accession in 1810, haggard, infirm, nearly blind and almost deaf, leaning on the arm of the Queen, and speaking in the hurried, almost unintelligible manner that was an invariable sign of a forthcoming illness. On May 20, 1811, he was seen for the last time by any one outside his immediate family and _entourage_. "On Sunday night, May 20, our town was in a fever of excitement at the authorized report that the next day the physicians would allow his Majesty to appear in public," an inhabitant of Windsor wrote. "On that Monday morning it was said that his saddle-horse was to be got ready. This truly was no wild rumour. We crowded to the park and the castle-yard. The favourite horse was there. The venerable man, blind but steady, was soon in the saddle, as I had often seen him, a hobby groom at his side with a leading rein. He rode through the Little Park to the Great Park. The bells rang. The troops fired a _feu de joie_. The King returned to the Castle within an hour. He was never again seen without those walls."[322] [322] Quoted by Fitzgerald Molloy in _Court Life below Stairs_. It was thought that the King could not long survive. "The general opinion is that the King will die before the 22nd inst., (the date to which Parliament was prorogued),"[323] Creevey wrote on July 12; and a fortnight later Lord Grenville expressed the same opinion when writing to Lord Auckland: "It is, I believe, certainly true that the King has taken for the last three days scarcely any food at all, and that, unless a change takes place very shortly in that respect, he cannot survive many days."[324] Lord Buckinghamshire, however, was able to state on August 13, "The King, I should suppose, is not likely to die soon, but I fear his mental recovery is hardly to be expected."[325] [323] _Creevey Papers._ [324] _Auckland Correspondence._ [325] Byron: _Letters and Journal_.