‘Lord Sundon is in great grief,’ says Walpole. ‘I am surprised, for she has had fits of madness ever since her ambition met such a check by the death of the Queen. She had great power with her, though the Queen affected to despise her; but had unluckily told her, or fallen into her power by, some secret. I was saying to Lady Pomfret, “To be sure she is dead very rich.” She replied with some warmth, “She never took money.” When I came home I mentioned this to Sir Robert. “No,” said he, “but she took jewels. Lord Pomfret’s place of master of the horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond ear-rings, of fourteen hundred pounds value.” One day that she wore them at a visit at old Marlbro’s, as soon as she was gone, the duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley, “How can that woman have the impudence to go about in that bribe?” “Madam,” said Lady Mary, “how would you have people know where wine is to be sold unless there is a sign hung out?” Sir Robert told me that in the enthusiasm of her vanity, Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite with her and govern the kingdom together: he bowed, begged her patronage, but, he said, he thought nobody fit to govern the kingdom but the King and Queen.’ That King, unsustained by his consort, appears to have become anxious to be reconciled with his son the Prince of Wales, at this time, when reports of a Stuart rebellion began to be rife, and when theatrical audiences applied passages in plays, in a favourable sense to the prince. The reconciliation was effected; but it was clumsily contrived, and was coldly and awkwardly concluded. An agent from the King induced the prince to open the way by writing to his father. This was a step which the prince was reluctant to take, and which he only took at last with the worst possible grace. The letter reached the King late at night, and on reading it he appointed the following day for the reception of Frederick, who, with five gentlemen of his court, repaired to St. James’s, where he was received by ‘the gruff gentleman’ in the drawing-room. The yielding sire simply asked him, ‘How does the princess do? I hope she is well.’ The dutiful son answered the query, kissed the paternal hand, and respectfully, as far as outward demonstration could evidence it, took his leave. He did not depart, however, until he had distinguished those courtiers present whom he held to be his friends by speaking to them; the rest he passed coldly by. As the reconciliation was accounted of as an accomplished fact, and as the King had condescended to speak a word or two to some of the most intimate friends of his son; and finally, as the entire royal family went together to the Duchess of Norfolk’s, where ‘the streets were illuminated and bonfired;’ there was a great passing to and fro of courtiers of either faction between St. James’s and Carlton House. Secker, who went to the latter residence with Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, to pay his respects, says that the prince and princess were