It is to the credit of the Princess Caroline that she took in such good part all that Lord Malmesbury told her, and that she was desirous of having him appointed her lord chamberlain; a prematurely expressed desire which did her honour, gratified the object of it, and was never realised. She, no doubt, respected him, for the advice he gave her was not only parental, but much of it might have come from a tender and affectionate mother. But _her_ mother was a coarse-minded, weak-hearted woman, who had little regard for propriety, was not affected by the disregard of it in her husband, and who told stories at table, in her daughter’s presence, that would have called up a blush of shame, if not of indignation, on the cheek of a dragoon. It was after such stories that Lord Malmesbury particularly enjoined the Princess, if she cared to please, to commune much with herself, and to think deeply before she spoke. Her family was a strange one, but not stranger, in many respects, than that into which she was going. Her admission there, indeed, at all, was perhaps a consequence of hate rather than love. Prince William, Duke of Clarence, had been among the first to speak of the Princess Caroline of Brunswick as a wife for the Prince of Wales. He had been led to do this because he hated the Duchess of York, knew that the Princess and Duchess hated each other, and felt sure that the marriage of the former with the heir to the throne would be wormwood to the Duchess. The Duke of Clarence was, ultimately, one of the bitterest and the most unreasonable of the enemies of this very Princess whom he had helped to drag up to greatness.