Perhaps the pride of the princess would not permit a doubt to be thrown upon her supreme happiness. Her brother Frederick strove to mar it by raising a quarrel, on a slight, but immensely absurd, foundation. He reproached her for the double fault of presuming to be married before him, and of accepting a settlement from her father when _he_ had none. He was ingenious in finding fault; but there may have been a touch of satire in this, for Anne was known to have been as groundlessly angry with her brother for a circumstance which he could not very well help, namely, his own birth, whereby the princess royal ceased to be next heir to the crown. The prince, however, was not much addicted to showing respect to anybody, least of all to his mother. It was because of this miserable want of respect for the Queen that the King, in an interview forced on him by his son, refused to settle a fixed annuity upon him--at least till he had manifested a more praiseworthy conduct towards the Queen. The anxiety of Frederick on this occasion was not unnatural, for he was deeply in debt, and of the 100,000_l._ granted to the prince by parliament out of the civil list, the King allowed him only 36,000_l._ The remainder was appropriated by the King, who doubtless made his son’s conduct the rule of his liberality, measuring his supplies to the prince according as the latter was well or ill behaved. It was a degrading position enough, and the degradation was heightened by the silent contempt with which the King passed over his son’s application to be permitted to join in active service. Throughout these first family quarrels, the Queen preserved a great impartiality, with some leaning, perhaps, towards serving her son. Nothing, however, came of it; and, for the moment, Frederick was fain to be content with doing the honours of the metropolis to his ungraceful brother-in-law. The congratulatory addresses which were presented on the occasion of the marriage had a mordantly satirical tone about them. It is wonderful how George and Caroline, whose unpopularity was increasing at this time, continued to preserve their equanimity at hearing praises rung on the name and services of ‘Orange’--the name of a prince who had become King of England by rendering the questionable service to _his father-in-law_ of turning him off the throne.