And now the day was appointed for bringing the Regency Bill regularly before Parliament--the 3rd of February--and the clauses were already under discussion when, a fortnight later, the lord chancellor (Thurlow) announced to the house that the King was declared by his medical attendants to be in a state of convalescence. When Prince Henry was detected in taking the crown from the head of his invalid and slumbering father, he met the reproof which ensued with tender expressions of sorrow and respect. There was little of similar depth of feeling when the Prince of Wales, with the Duke of York, saw his father for the first time after his recovery. Queen Charlotte alone was present with her husband and sons. The last entered the King’s room, and issued therefrom, without a trace of emotion upon their faces or in their bearing. The chagrin with which they saw the power which they had coveted slip from them, might have taught them wisdom, but it only drove them to wine, cards, masquerades, and the profligacy which goes in company therewith. They were not as men rejoicing that Heaven had been merciful to their father and King, but as men striving to forget, amid a hurricane of vicious pleasures, that their sire had really been the object of such mercy. The Prince had indeed some misgivings as to what George III. might think of his conduct during the King’s malady; but he affected to assert that it would meet with approbation, while that of Mr. Pitt, he thought, would receive from the monarch a strong reproof. The Duke of York was far less careful as to the paternal, and as little to the public, opinion. He ran up scores in open tennis-courts with well-known black-legs, and promised payment as soon as he had received from his father certain arrears of revenue due to him as Bishop of Osnaburg.