The address of the Lords to the Queen, especially congratulating the mother on the marriage of her daughter, was rendered painful instead of pleasant by its being presented, that is spoken, to her by Lord Chesterfield. Caroline had never seen this peer since the time he was dismissed from her husband’s household, when she was Princess of Wales. He had not been presented at court since the accession of the present Sovereign, and the Queen was therefore resolved to treat as an utter stranger the man who had been impertinent enough to declare he designed that the step he took should be considered as a compliment to the Queen. The latter abhorred him, nevertheless, for his present attempt to turn the compliment addressed to her by the Lords into a joke. Before he appeared, Caroline intimated her determination not to let the peer’s cool impertinence awe or disconcert her. He really did find what she declared he should, that ‘it was as little in his power for his presence to embarrass her as for his raillery behind her back to pique her, or his consummate skill in politics to distress the King or his ministers.’[9] The Queen acted up to this resolution. She received Lords Chesterfield, Scarborough, and Hardwicke, the bearers of the address, in her bedchamber, no one else being present but her children and Lord Hervey, who stood behind her chair. The last-named nobleman, in describing the scene, says: ‘Lord Chesterfield’s speech was well written and well got by heart, and yet delivered with a faltering voice, a face as white as a sheet, and every limb trembling with concern. The Queen’s answer was quiet and natural, and delivered with the same ease that she would have spoken to the most indifferent person in her circle.’ Caroline, however, had more serious matters to attend to during this year than affairs of marriage. Of these we will now briefly speak. Sir Robert Walpole’s celebrated Excise scheme was prolific in raising political agitations and exciting both political and personal passions. The Peers were, strangely enough, even more resolute against the measure than the Commons; or perhaps it would be more correct to say, that a portion of them took advantage of the popular feeling to further thereby their own particular interests and especial objects. It is again illustrative of the power and influence of Caroline, and of the esteem in which she was held, that a body of the peers delegated Lord Stair to proceed to the Queen, at Kensington, and remonstrate with her upon the unconstitutional and destructive measure, as they designated the Excise project.