The truth was that the Prince shrunk from being congratulated upon his prospects as a husband, seeing that he was about to separate himself for ever from the society of his wife. The latter had caused the removal of Lady Jersey from her household. This was effected by the hearty intervention of him whom the Scottish papers not inaptly called that ‘decent man, the King.’ The intimation of the Prince’s desire for a separation was conveyed to the Princess of Wales by Lady Cholmondeley. Her Royal Highness made only two remarks--first, that her husband’s desire should be conveyed to her directly from himself in writing; and that, if a separation were now insisted on, the former intimacy should never under any circumstances be resumed. If his Royal Highness had acceded to all his consort’s wishes with the alacrity with which he fulfilled this one in particular, there would have been more happiness at their hearth. In his letter to her he said: ‘Our inclinations are not in our power, nor should either of us be answerable to the other, because nature has not made us suitable to each other. Tranquillity and comfortable society are, however, in our power; let our intercourse, therefore, be restricted to that.’ It is what Froissart might call ‘sadly amusing’ to find him offering tranquillity when he was predisposed to persecute, and recommending that their intercourse should take the character of a ‘comfortable society,’ when he was about to turn her out of her home, and without any greater fault laid to her charge than that she had outlived his liking. With regard to the Princess’s expressed determination that, if there were a separation now, it must be ‘once and for ever,’ he agreed to it with alacrity; ‘even in the event,’ he said, ‘of any accident happening to my daughter, which I trust Providence in its mercy will avert, I will not infringe the terms of the restriction by proposing, at any period, a connection of a more particular nature.’ Her Royal Highness, in her reply, acknowledged that his conduct during the year of their married life saved her from being surprised by the communication addressed to her. She does not complain, desires it only to be publicly understood that the arrangement is not of her seeking, and that ‘the honour of it belongs to you alone;’ and appeals to the King, as her protector, whose approbation, if he can award as much to her conduct, would in some degree console her. ‘I retain,’ she thus concludes, ‘every sentiment of gratitude for the situation in which I find myself enabled, as Princess of Wales, by your means, to surrender myself unconstrainedly to the exercise of a virtue dear to my heart-- I mean charity. It will be my duty, also, to be influenced by another motive--desire to give an example of patience and resignation under every trial.’