These rejoicings were much censured, as being indecent on the very day after the Queen’s death; and it was affirmed in excuse, that even the worshipful authorities of Dover were not apprised of that event when they received the Duke with noisy honours.[225] But the Duchess, sincere in all things, left in her narrative an explicit statement that the Duke had been informed of Anne’s decease whilst he was at sea. Meantime, by an act of parliament passed in the fourth and fifth years of the late reign, a regency, consisting of the seven highest officers of the realm, came into immediate operation: and to these lords justices were added seventeen other noblemen, all heads of the Whig party, whom George the First was empowered, by the same act, to appoint. The Duke of Marlborough might reasonably have expected to find himself included among the persons thus honoured; but, on his progress to Sittingbourne, he was met by a former aide-de-camp, with the intelligence that neither his name nor that of Lord Sunderland was included in this catalogue. Marlborough received this communication with the calmness that became a superior mind. His exclusion is said to have been the result of pique in the Elector, father of the King of England, on account of some want of confidence reposed in him by Marlborough, with respect to the operations of the campaign of 1708. It was attributed by others to the reported correspondence between Marlborough and the Stuart family. Be the cause what it might, this ungracious conduct was received both by the Duke and Duchess with a becoming spirit. They continued their journey to the metropolis, intending to enter it privately; but their friends would not suffer that Marlborough should thus return to dwell among them again. A number of gentlemen had attended them to Sittingbourne, and by them, and by others who met him there, he was, in part, forced to permit the honourable reception which awaited him. Sir Charles Cox, the member for Southwark, met him as he approached the borough, and escorted him into the city. Here he was joined by two hundred gentlemen on horseback, and by many of his relations, some of them in coaches and six, who joined the procession, the city volunteers marching before. In this manner the Duke proceeded to St. James’s, the people exclaiming as he passed along, “Long live King George—long live the Duke of Marlborough!” At Temple Bar the Duke’s coach broke down, but without any person sustaining injury, and he proceeded to his house in St. James’s, in another carriage, the city guard firing a volley before they departed. The evening was passed in receiving friends and relations; with what sweet and bitter recollections, it is easy to conceive.