The Queen, at the time of the King’s illness, was assailed with unmeasured vituperation by the Opposition papers. Even her interviews with Pitt were made base account of, in order to raise the public odium against her. In the present year the ‘Hopes of the Party,’ a caricature so named, by Gillray, served to show the supposed wishes of the Opposition. The caricature represents many revolutionary horrors. Among them is what is termed ‘a pair of pendants,’ showing the Queen and prime minister each hanging from a lamp iron. ‘It is commonly believed,’ says Mr. Wright, in the History from which a passage has been already quoted, ‘that Pitt and Queen Charlotte were closely leagued together to pillage and oppress the nation; and she was far less popular than the King, whose infirmity produced general sympathy, and who had many good qualities that endeared him to those with whom he came in contact. In another part of Gillray’s picture the King is brought to the block, held down by Sheridan, while Fox, masked, acts as executioner. Priestley, with pious exhortations, is encouraging the fallen monarch to submit to his hard fate.’ Later in the year, in September, the Queen’s second son, Frederick Duke of York, married Frederica, eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. The marriage was solemnised on Michaelmas Day, at Berlin. The bride was then in her twenty-fourth year, her husband in his twenty-eighth. She was fair, virtuous, accomplished, and kindly-hearted,--by far too good a wife for the profligate Prince to whom she was allied. The newly-married pair travelled to England through France, where they met with but rough treatment from the republican mob, some of whom very unceremoniously scratched the royal arms off their carriages. The ceremony of marriage was reperformed in England on the 23rd of November by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in presence of the entire royal family. By an addition of 18,000_l._ to the Duke’s income, his revenue amounted to 35,000_l._ a year; and an annual 30,000_l._ was settled on the Duchess, in case of her surviving him. The Queen, accompanied by the King and the elder branches of her family, paid a visit of welcome to the young couple, which was the most formal and ceremonious matter that can well be conceived. The visit took the form of a tea-party; it ought, therefore, to have been social and chatty, but it was as stiff and silent as much ceremony and formal etiquette could make it. The King’s tea was solemnly handed to him by the Prince of Wales, while the Duchess of York, receiving a cup from the Duke, presented it, with much reverence, to the Queen. But in the cups which cheer and not inebriate, ceremony _was_ soon dissolved; and the King getting loquacious, the family party, before the night was far gone, became as mirthful and pleasant as if it had been made up of more mirthful and pleasant materials.