We have seen that Pitt was to proceed to Hagley after leaving Tunbridge Wells in September 1753. From Hagley he sent a letter to Newcastle, which it must have cost him something to write. 'Some circumstances of my brother's transactions at Old Sarum render me uneasy at depending for my seat in next Parliament on that place. So I take the liberty to recur once more for your Grace's protection and friendship to provide for my election elsewhere.'[226] Newcastle seems at once to have offered his borough of Aldborough, and Pitt 'can never express himself sufficiently grateful for all your favours.'[227] From Hagley (October 1753) he proceeded to Bath for a fresh course, and seems to have remained there a helpless cripple for no less than seven months, though he was in London for a debate in November. Never was illness so untimely, as events of vital importance to him were about to take place. For on March 6, 1754, Pelham died, and all was confusion. 'Now I shall have no more peace,' said the shrewd old King. 'I never saw the King under such deep concern since the Queen's death,' wrote Hardwicke. And indeed the situation was full of alarming possibilities. For Pelham had become the unobtrusive but indispensable man, like the mediocre and forgotten Liverpool, who kept the balance between fierce rivalries and discordant opinions for fifteen years. There seems no great complication in Pelham's character. He was a Whig politician, trained under Walpole, but also under an intolerable brother who exercised the utmost prerogative of his birthright. His portrait, by Hoare, indicates something catlike, and he had much of feline caution and timidity. But among the politicians of that day he seems to have been comparatively simple and direct; and no man of his day was so fit for the position of Prime Minister in view of his own qualifications, and the conditions of the office at that time. He was indeed an inferior Walpole. He seems moreover to have been almost devoid of personal ambition; the highest places were thrust on him without his seeking them. At the fall of Walpole, in spite of Walpole's urgent instances that he should accept the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which besides the eminence of the office would have given him the succession to Lord Wilmington, he insisted on remaining Paymaster, a post which, as we have seen, even without the recognised perquisites, had great material attractions, and which with them was capable of enchaining so powerful a parliamentarian as Fox. On the death of Wilmington, by Walpole's influence, he obtained the highest place; though Walpole had not merely to inspire the King, but to overcome Pelham's reluctance. We may imagine that Walpole would urge on his Sovereign that Pelham was the only House of Commons man available, that he was eminently safe, that he represented Newcastle's parliamentary influence, and that Newcastle represented Hardwicke, who embodied the brains of the Cabinet; for