Newcastle cared little for the charge of breach of faith. He had kept his patronage, and, as he thought, silenced Fox, who remained Secretary at War. In a hysterical condition he hurried to kiss hands for his new office. He flung himself at the King's feet, sobbing out 'God bless your Majesty! God preserve your Majesty!' embracing the royal knees with such howls of adoration that the lord-in-waiting had to beg the other courtiers to retire and not watch 'a great man in distress;' then, in the zeal of discretion, attempting to shut the door on the tittering crowd, he jammed the new Minister's foot till genuine roars of physical pain drowned the more artificial clamour.[254] Having recovered himself after this characteristic performance, Newcastle betook himself without delay to the choice of his heart, the man whom he had always longed for as a colleague, even at the time when he had been seeking a successor to Bedford, an obscure diplomatist, Sir Thomas Robinson. 'Had I,' he had written in September 1750, 'to chuse for the King, the public, and myself, I would prefer Sir Thomas Robinson to any man living. I know he knows more and would be more useful to the country and me than any other can be.' This opinion seems to have been confined to the Duke himself. Horace Walpole writing at the moment says:--'The German Sir Thomas Robinson was thought on for the Secretary's seals; but has just sense enough to be unwilling to accept them under so ridiculous an administration. This is the first act of the comedy.' But in the second act Sir Thomas's good sense was unequal even to this strain, and he accepted the post. Under what hallucination he laboured, or whether he was merely beguiled by the fawning caresses of Newcastle, it is difficult to say. The fact remains that he undertook to lead the House of Commons, seated between Pitt and Fox, whom he knew to be malcontents, and capable of anything. His own parliamentary powers were in the egg (for he had never spoken), and were never destined to be hatched. At the time of his appointment as Secretary of State he was Master of the Great Wardrobe, a congenial post which he was destined during the next year to resume. For in his new capacity he justified the anticipations of his enemies, and disturbed the equanimity of his friends. Newcastle himself had recommended the appointment to Pitt's benevolent consideration on the very ground that he could not excite the rivalry of existing orators. He 'had not those parliamentary talents which could give jealousy or in that light set him above the rest of the King's servants.' But the reality was far below these modest anticipations. Sir Thomas was not merely ineffectual and feeble, but would attempt on occasion agonising flights of eloquence. Posterity is spared the perusal of these, for Parliamentary history records no word of this unhappy leader. 'Sir Thomas,' says Lord Waldegrave, 'though a good Secretary of