All access to the palace had been denied alike to the Prince of Wales and to those who frequented his court; but in the confusion which reigned at St. James’s some members of the prince’s family, or following, _did_ penetrate to the rooms adjacent to that in which lay the royal sufferer, under pretence of an anxiety to learn the condition of her health. Caroline knew of this vicinity, called them ‘ravens’ waiting to see the breath depart from her body, and insisted that they should not be allowed to approach her nearer. Ample evidence exists that the conduct of the Prince of Wales was most unseemly at this solemn juncture. ‘We shall have good news soon,’ he was heard to say, at Carlton House: ‘we shall have good news soon; she can’t hold out much longer!’ There were people who were slow to believe that a son could exult at the idea of the death of his mother. These persons questioned his ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, as to the actual conduct and language adopted by him; and at such questions the mature mistress would significantly smile, as she discreetly answered: ‘Oh, he is very decent!’ The prospect of the Queen’s recovery was quite illusory and short-lived. She grew so rapidly worse, that even the voices of those around her appeared to disturb her; and a notice was pinned to the curtain of her bed, enjoining all present to speak only in the lowest possible tones. Her patience, however, was very great: she took all that was offered to her, however strong her own distaste; and when operations were proposed to her, she submitted at once, on assurance from the King that he sanctioned what the medical men proposed. She did not lose her sprightly humour even when under the knife; and she once remarked to Ranby, when she was thus at his mercy, that she dared say he was half sorry it was not his own old wife he was thus cutting about. But the flesh will quiver where the pincers tear; and even from Caroline terrible anguish would now and then extort a groan. She bade the surgeons, nevertheless, not to heed her silly complaints, but to do their duty irrespective of her grumbling. All this time there does not appear to have been the slightest idea in the mind either of the sufferer or of those about her that it would be well were Caroline enabled to make her peace with God. The matter, however, _did_ occupy the public thought; and public opinion pressed so strongly, that, rather than offend it, Walpole himself recommended that a priest should be sent for. The recommendation was made to the Princess Amelia, and in the obese minister’s usual coarse fashion. ‘It will be quite as well,’ he said, ‘that the farce should be played. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Potter) would perform it decently; and the princess might bid him to be as short as she liked. It would do the Queen neither harm nor good; and it would satisfy all the fools who called them atheists, if they affected to be as great fools as they who called them so!’