His mind had been extraordinarily excited at this period by an agitation which was being carried on against the Church, and in favour of the emancipation of the Romanists. The King had strong views of what he was bound to by the coronation oath, and the idea became the rooted torment of his mind. ‘The King, on Monday,’ writes Lord Malmesbury, ‘after having remained many hours without speaking, at last, towards the evening, came to himself, and said, “I am better now, but will remain true to the Church.” This leaves little doubt as to the idea uppermost in his mind. And the physicians do not scruple to say that, although his Majesty certainly had a bad cold, and would under all circumstances have been ill, yet that the hurry and vexation of all that has past was the cause of his mental illness, which, if it had shown itself at all, would certainly not have declared itself so violently, or been of a nature to cause any alarm, had not these events taken place.’ They were events which were weighing on the mind of George III., just as the loss of the American colonies had done in the preceding century. The Duke of York at this juncture is said to have behaved with great propriety towards Queen Charlotte and the Princesses. How his elder brother behaved is thus recorded: ‘The Prince of Wales, on Sunday, the 22nd of February, the second day of the King’s illness, and when he was at his worst, went in the evening to a concert at Lady Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne, the rascally French ex-minister, “Savez vous, M. de Calonne, que mon père est aussi fou que jamais?”’ Later we have it recorded, that ‘the King at Windsor, about 6th or 7th instant (March), read his coronation oath to his family;--asked them whether they understood it? and added, If I violate it I am no longer legal sovereign of this country, but it falls to the house of Savoy.’ Subsequently, Lord Malmesbury writes: ‘Lady Salisbury said the King was quite well enough to have the Queen and Princesses at dinner. _Qui prouve trop ne prouve rien._ Any degree of fever could render this improper in anybody, and if you take away the fever, you have the intellectual derangement without a cause or hopes of recovery. I fear there is so much fever that his life is in imminent peril. The Duke of York deeply affected, and worn out with his assiduous attentions at the Queen’s House.’