Caroline had little affection for this child, whom she would have willingly defrauded of his birthright. At one time she appears to have been inclined to secure the Electorate of Hanover for William, and to allow Frederick to succeed to the English throne. At another time she was as desirous, it is believed, of advancing William to the crown of England and making over the Electorate to Frederick. How far these intrigues were carried on is hardly known, but that they existed is matter of notoriety. The law presented a barrier which could not, however, be broken down; but, nevertheless, Lord Chesterfield, in his character of the princess, intimated that she was busy with this project throughout her life. Frederick was not permitted to come to England during any period of the time that his parents were Prince and Princess of Wales. An English title or two may be said to have been flung to him across the water. Thus, in 1717, he was called rather than created Duke of Gloucester. The Garter was sent to him the following year. In 1726 he became Duke of Edinburgh. He never occupied a place in the hearts of either his father or mother. It is but fair to the character of the Princess of Wales to say that, severe as was the feeling entertained by herself against Lord Macclesfield--a feeling shared in by her consort--neither of them ever after entertained any ill feeling against Philip Yorke, subsequently Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who defended his friend Lord Macclesfield, with great fearlessness, at the period of his celebrated trial. Only once, in after life, did George II. visit Lord Hardwicke with a severe rebuff. The learned lord was avaricious, discouraging to those who sought to rise in their profession, and caring only for the advancement of his own relations. He was once seeking for a place for a distant relation, when the husband of Caroline exclaimed, ‘You are always asking favours, and I observe that it is invariably in behalf of some one of your family or kinsmen.’ We shall hereafter find Caroline making allusions to ‘Judge Gripus’ as a character in a play, but it was a name given to Lord Hardwicke, on account of his ‘meanness.’ This feeling was shared by his wife. The expensively embroidered velvet purse in which the great seal was carried was renewed every year during Lord Hardwicke’s time. Each year, Lady Hardwicke ordered that the velvet should be of the length of one of her state rooms at Wimpole. In course of time the prudent lady obtained enough to tapestry the room with the legal velvet, and to make curtains and hangings for a state bed which stood in the apartment. Well might Pope have said of these:-- Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? Look but on Gripus and on Gripus’ wife.