This was probably due to the rumour that Pitt and his connections were negotiating with the Prince of Wales. This is not improbable. We know indeed that Lyttelton was arranging through his brother-in-law Dr. Ayscough for a coalition between the forces of Stowe and those of Leicester House. The King was old, and ambitious politicians would not wish to be ill with his heir, if that could be avoided. But all such foresight was wasted, for Frederick was never to reign, and within two months of the vote on the seamen he was dead. Up to the last he was intriguing and securing adherents. On February 28 he was engaging Oswald, an able debater in the House of Commons, to his cause; on March 20 he died. Next morning his party was convoked by Egmont to consider the future. Many came, probably from curiosity, but dispersed without any conclusion. 'My Lord Drax,' writes Henry Fox in pleasant allusion to the promises of the Prince, 'my Lord Colebrook, Earl Dodington, and prime minister Egmont are distracted; but nobody more so than Lord Cobham, who _cum suis_ has been making great court and with some effect all this winter. Do not name this from me. I fear they will not be dealt with as I would deal with them.'[201] In truth the purpose and bond of the party, the sole reason for its existence, had disappeared. Henceforth the courtiers who found no favour with the King kept their eyes on the Princess of Wales and her eldest son, a shy, sensitive boy, who was afterwards to be George III. Soon they began to perceive in this obscure court a handsome, supercilious Scotsman, who enjoyed the favour of the Princess and the veneration of her son, who was now a lord of the Prince's bedchamber, but was hereafter to head one ministry and become the bugbear of many others, John Earl of Bute. The Heir Apparent was only thirteen, and a Regency Bill was required. This is only pertinent to our narrative in that it produced a fierce parliamentary duel between Pitt and Fox, the point at issue between them being the Duke of Cumberland, whom the King wished, but the Ministry did not dare, to nominate Regent. Indeed, one of the principal expressions of popular grief for the loss of the Prince of Wales had taken the form of regret that the death had not been that of the Duke. 'Oh! that it was but his brother! Oh! that it was but the Butcher!' Unfortunately, the speeches of neither Pitt nor Fox in this session have come down to us. All that we know is that Pelham declared that Pitt's was the finest speech that ever he heard. Pitt had strongly maintained that the Regency must be closely restricted, the vital contention of his son thirty-seven years later, and hinted that Cumberland, if unrestrained in his capacity as head of the Council of Regency, might be tempted to usurp the Crown. Hence the wrath of Fox, the close friend of the royal Duke; hence, too, the antipathy of Cumberland to Pitt, which was to cause complications thereafter.