During the progress of the King’s illness, while all was sombre and silent at Kew, political intrigue was loud and active elsewhere. The voice of the Queen herself was not altogether mute in this intrigue. She had rights to defend, she had spirit to assert them, and she had friends to afford her aid in enabling her to establish them. CHAPTER VIII. THE ‘FIRST GENTLEMAN’ AND HIS PRINCIPLES. Inconsistency of the Whigs--The Tories become radical reformers --Party spirit--A restricted Regency scorned by the Prince --Compelled to accept it--The King’s rapid recovery-- Incredulity of the Princes in regard to the King’s recovery-- A family scene at Kew--Ball at White’s Club on the King’s recovery, and unbecoming conduct of the Princes--Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s--Indecent conduct of the Princes--Grief of the King--Expectations of the Prince disappointed--Caricatures and satires. When the Queen first changed her apartments at Windsor, her exclamation, as she entered her new abode, was an assertion of her desolate helplessness, and a deploring hesitation as to what course she was bound to take. She was soon stirred to action. Her eldest son was active in the field against her, and her spirit was speedily aroused to protect and further her own interests. The Parliament had been made acquainted with the condition of the King, by a report from the privy council. With this the legislature was not satisfied. Parliamentary committees sat, before which bodies the King’s physicians made detailed depositions, whereby the King’s existing incapacity to transact public business was established beyond doubt. Upon this the Whigs, with Fox at their head (he had hurried home from Italy, deplorably ill, to perform this service for the Prince of Wales), declared that the royal incapacity caused the government of the kingdom to fall, as a matter of right, upon the heir-apparent. This assertion, which is a full and complete embracing of the law of divine right, and a trampling under foot of the authority of the parliament, was made in 1788, just one hundred years after the grandfathers of these very Whigs had established the authority of the people in parliament above that of the crown, and made the King who reigned and did not govern, merely the first magistrate of a free people. On the other hand the Tories, with Pitt for their leader, declared that thus to annihilate the sovereignty of the people in parliament was treason against the constitution, which, in a juncture like the present, bestowed on the people’s representatives the right of naming by whom they would be governed. Thus the Tories were in truth radical reformers; and, in truth, quite as serious, both parties being equally insincere, fighting only for place, and caring little for aught beyond.