At length, after a detention of five weeks at Helvoetsluys, the King arrived at Lowestoft. The Queen received information of his coming at four o’clock in the morning, after a sleepless night, caused by illness both of mind and body. When Walpole repaired to her at nine, she was still in bed; and the good Princess Caroline was at her side, trying to read her to sleep. Walpole waited until her Majesty had taken some repose; and meanwhile the Prince of Wales and the Princess Amelia (who was distrusted by her brother and by her mother, because she affected to serve each while she betrayed both) entered into a gossiping sort of conference with him in the antechamber. The prince was all praise, the minister all counsel. Walpole perhaps felt that the heir-apparent, who boasted that, when he appeared in public, the people shouted, ‘_Crown him! Crown him!_’ was engaging him to lead the first administration under a new reign. The recent prospect of such a reign being near at hand had been a source of deep alarm to Caroline, and also of distaste. She would have infinitely preferred that Frederick should have been disinherited, and his brother William advanced to his position as heir-apparent. The King arrived in town on the 15th of January 1737. He came in sovereign good humour; greeted all kindly, was warmly received, and was never tired of expatiating on the admirable qualities of his consort. An observer, indifferently instructed, would not have thought that this contemptible personage had a mistress, who was the object of more ardent homage than he ever paid to that wife whom he declared to be superior to all the women in the world. He was fervent in his eulogy of her, not only to herself but to Sir Robert Walpole; and indeed was only peevish with those who presumed to enquire after his health. The storm had something shaken him, and he was not able to open parliament in person; but nothing more sorely chafed him than an air of solicitude and enquiry after his condition by loyal servitors--who got nothing for their pains but the appellation of ‘puppies.’ He soon, however, had more serious provocation to contend with. The friends of the Prince of Wales compelled him, little reluctant, to bring the question of his income before parliament. The threat to take this step alarmed Walpole, by whose advice a message was sent from the King, and delivered by the lords of the council to the prince, whereby the proposal was made to settle upon him the 50,000_l._ a-year which he now received in monthly payments at the King’s pleasure, and also to settle a jointure, the amount of which was not named, upon the princess. Both their Majesties were unwilling to make this proposition; but Walpole assured them that the submitting it to the prince would place his royal highness in considerable difficulty. If he accepted it, the King would get credit for generosity; and if he rejected it, the prince would incur the blame of undutifulness and ingratitude.