It was during the sojourn of the Princess Anne in England that she heard the details of the withdrawal of Lady Suffolk from court. Everybody appeared to be rejoiced at that lady’s downfall, but most of all the Princess Anne. The King thought that of all the children of himself and Caroline, Anne loved him best. This dutiful daughter, however, despised him, and treated him as an insufferable bore, who always required novelty in conversation from others, but never told anything new of his own. In allusion to the withdrawal of Lady Suffolk from court, this amiable child remarked, ‘I wish with all my heart he would take somebody else, that Mamma might be a little relieved from the occasion of seeing him for ever in her room!’ In November the Princess Anne once more proceeded to Harwich, put to sea, and was so annoyed by the usual inconveniences that she compelled the captain to land her again. She declared that she should not be well enough for ten days to go once more aboard. This caused great confusion. Her father, and indeed the Queen also, insisted on her repairing to Holland by way of Calais, as her husband had thoughtfully suggested. She was compelled to pass through London, much to the King’s annoyance, but he declared that she should not stop, but proceed at once over London Bridge to Dover. He added, that she should never again come to England in the same condition of health. His threat was partly founded on the expense, her visit having cost him 20,000_l._ Her reluctance to proceed to her husband’s native country was founded, it has been suggested, on her own ambitious ideas. Her brothers were unmarried, and she was anxious, it is thought, that her own child should be English born, as it would stand in the line of inheritance to the throne. However this may be, the Queen saw the false step the daughter had already taken, and insisted on the wishes of her husband, the prince, being attended to; and so the poor foiled Anne went home to become a mother, very much against her will. The Princess Amelia observed to Mrs. Clayton, the Queen’s bedchamber-woman, that her brother, Prince Frederick, would have been displeased if the accouchement of the princess had taken place in England. To this, Mrs. Clayton, as Lord Hervey observes, very justly remarked, ‘I cannot imagine, madam, how it can affect the prince at all where she lies in; since with regard to those who wish more of your royal highness’s family on the throne, it is no matter whether she be brought to bed here or in Holland, or of a son or a daughter, or whether she has any child at all; and with regard to those who wish all your family well, for your sake, madam, as well as our own, we shall be very glad to take any of you in your turn, but none of you out of it.’ But the Queen had other business this year wherewith to occupy her besides royal marriages, or filial indispositions. In some of these matters her sincerity is sadly called in question. Here is an instance.