A score of years after Caroline’s death, he continued to speak of her only with emotion. His vanity, however, disposed him to be considered gallant to the last. In 1755, being at Hanover, he was waited upon by the Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and all her unmarried daughters. The provident and maternal duchess had an object, and she was not very far from accomplishing it. The King considered all these young ladies with the speculative look both of a connoisseur and an amateur. He was especially struck by the beauty of the eldest, and he lost no time in proposing her as a match to his grandson and heir-apparent, George, Prince of Wales, then in his minority. The prince, at the prompting of his mother, very peremptorily declined the honour which had been submitted for his acceptance, and the young princess, her mother, and King George were all alike profoundly indignant. ‘Oh!’ exclaimed the latter with ardent eagerness, to Lord Waldegrave, ‘oh, that I were but a score of years younger, this young lady should not then have been exposed to the indignity of being refused by the Prince of Wales, for I would then myself have made her Queen of England!’ That is to say, that if the young Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel could only have been introduced to him while he was sitting under the shadow of the great sorrow which had fallen upon him by the death of Caroline, he would have found solace for his grief by offering her his hand. However, it was now too late, and the gay old monarch, taking his amber-headed cane, feebly picked his way to Lady Yarmouth and a game at ombre.