Lastly, the private journals of Sir N. W. Wraxall have been laid under contribution to a great extent. It was made known by the publication of the "Post-humous Memoirs" that he had been connected with the Queen of Denmark, but it was only during last year that I discovered how much my grandfather knew of the affair, and how well he had kept silence on the subject. I have ransacked his journals, correspondence, &c., in the interests of the present work, and these have enabled me, I hope, to bring together much not hitherto known, or, if known, forgotten. As a humble follower of Lord Macaulay, I have also recognised the value of pamphlets and chap-books, and have been able to obtain, with some cost and trouble, nearly everything published on the palace revolution during 1772 and 1773, in Germany, Denmark, and England. I have also considered it my duty to consult every work at all connected with the subject, and do not think that any one has been omitted. Whether it has been in my power to prove the innocence of the Queen of Denmark is a question for my readers to decide. I, however, take some credit to myself for publishing for the first time the letter which she wrote on her death-bed to her brother. This letter passed through the hands of the late King of Hanover to the Duchess of Augustenburg, from whom my copy is derived. Lastly, I have to return my hearty thanks to the many kind friends, at home and abroad, who have aided me in my researches, or directed me where to make them. I should be most ungrateful if I did not single out MR. EMANUEL DEUTSCH, of the British Museum, who examined the MSS. department thoroughly on my behalf, even though he drew a blank. The same, I regret to say, proved the case at the State Paper Office, while the Foreign Office, where there was a prospect of a successful find in the despatches of Messieurs Gunning and Keith, remained hermetically closed to me. It was some compensation for this refusal to find SIR AUGUSTUS PAGET, our envoy at Copenhagen, at all times ready to assist me, and even to procure me scarce books from the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is but fair to add, that all the officials of our Foreign Office to whom I applied in turn for admission to their archives, deplored their inability to break through a rule which, for the interests of honest literary research, would be far more honoured in the breach than in the observance. LASCELLES WRAXALL. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. AUGUSTA, PRINCESS OF WALES. PAGE Death of the Prince of Wales--His Character--His Epitaph--The Eighteenth Century--Birth of Caroline Matilda--Lord Bute--Melcombe's Diary--The Great No-Popery Cry--Character of George III.--Majority of the Prince of Wales--Court Cabals--Miss Chudleigh--Horace, Prince of Scandalia 1 CHAPTER II. MARRIAGE OF CAROLINE MATILDA.