It is not certain how far Caroline’s influence was exercised in the removal of Lady Suffolk, whom the Queen, according to some authors, requested to continue some time longer in her office of mistress of the robes. Nor is it important to ascertain. Caroline had higher duties to perform. She continued to serve her husband well, and she showed her opinion of her son, the Prince of Wales, by her conduct to him on more than one occasion. Thus, on New Year’s Day the prince attended his royal sire’s _levée_, not with any idea of paying his father the slightest measure of respect, but, suspecting that the King would not speak to him, to show the people with what contempt the homage of a dutiful son was met by a stern parent. When Caroline heard of the design, she simply persuaded the King to address his son kindly in public. This advice was followed, and the filial plot accordingly failed. The Queen was as resolute in supporting the King against being driven into settling a permanent income upon the prince. She spoke of the latter as an extravagant and unprincipled fool, only less ignorant than those who were idiots enough to give opinions upon what they could not understand. ‘He costs the King 50,000_l._ a-year, and till he is married that may really be called a reasonable allowance.’ She stigmatised him as a ‘poor creature,’ easily led away, but not naturally bad-hearted. His seducers she treated as knaves, fools, and monsters. To the suggestion that a fixed allowance, even if it should be less than what the King paid out for him every year, would be better than the present plan, Caroline only replied that the King thought otherwise; and so the matter rested. The tact of the Queen was further displayed in the course adopted by her on an occasion of some delicacy. Lord Stair had been deprived of his regiment for attempting to bring in a law whereby the commissions of officers should be secured to them for life. The King said he would not allow him to keep by favour what he had endeavoured to keep by force. Thereupon Lord Stair addressed a private letter to the Queen, through her lord-chamberlain, stuffed with prophetic warnings against the machinations of France and the designs of Walpole.