The son just alluded to was George IV. Under the pretence of being about to repair Buckingham House, he applied to the Commons to afford the necessary supplies. These were granted under the special stipulation that repairs (and not rebuilding) were intended. The King and his architect, Nash, however, went on demolishing and reconstructing until the fine old mansion disappeared, and a hideous palace took its place, at a tremendous cost to the public. Neither of the children of Charlotte who lived to ascend the throne resided in this palace. The old building was the property of a queen-consort, the new one was first occupied by a Queen-regnant, the daughter of Charlotte’s third son, Edward. The first great event in Queen Charlotte’s life, after she became mistress of Buckingham House, was her becoming the mother of him who destroyed it--George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales. In 1762 Horace Walpole says: ‘The King and Queen are settled for good and all at Buckingham House, and are stripping the other palaces to furnish it. In short, they have already fetched pictures from Hampton Court, which indicates their never living there; consequently Strawberry Hill will remain in possession of its own tranquillity, and not become a cheese-cake house to the palace. All I ask,’ says the cynic in lace ruffles, ‘all I ask of princes is not to live within five miles of me.’ Even thus early in the reign, the King’s health gave rise to some disquietude. ‘The King,’ writes Walpole to Mann, ‘had one of the last of those strong and universally epidemic colds, which, however, have seldom been fatal. He had a violent cough, and oppression on his breast, which he concealed, just as I had; but _my_ life was of no consequence, and having no physicians in ordinary, I was cured in four nights by James’s powder, without bleeding. The King was blooded seven times and had three blisters. Thank God, he is safe, and we have escaped a confusion beyond what was ever known on the accession of the Queen of Scots. Nay, we have not even a successor born. Fazakerly, who has lived long enough to remember nothing but the nonsense of the law, maintained, according to its wise tenets, that, as the King never dies, the Duke of York must have been proclaimed King; and then be unproclaimed again on the Queen’s delivery. We have not even any standing law for the regency; but I need not paint you all the difficulties there would have been in our situation.’