After some of the first troubles of his reign had been got over, the King visited Hanover, where he invested his brother, the Duke of York, and Prince Frederick with the Order of the Garter. He even partook of the pleasures of the chase in the woods around Ahlden; but except ordering a more stringent rule for the safe-keeping of his consort, he took no further notice of Sophia Dorothea. He returned to London on the 18th of January 1716–17, and on that day week, hearing that the episcopal clergy of Scotland continued to refuse to pray for him, he issued a decree, which compelled many to fly the country or otherwise abscond. The English clergy experienced even harsher treatment for less offence. I may mention, as an instance, the case of the Rev. Laurence Howell, who, for writing a pamphlet called ‘The State of Schism in the Church of England truly stated,’ was stripped of his gown by the executioner, fined 500_l._, imprisoned three years, and was sentenced to be twice publicly whipped by the hangman! On the first absence of the King from England, the Prince of Wales was appointed regent, but he was never entrusted with that high office a second time. ‘It is probable,’ says Walpole, ‘that the son discovered too much fondness for acting the king, as that the father conceived a jealousy of his having done so. Sure it is, that on the King’s return, great divisions arose in the court, and the Whigs were divided--some devoting themselves to the wearer of the crown and others to the expectant.’ So that, in the second year of his reign, the King not only held his wife in prison, but his son and heir was banished from his presence.