The Bedford faction were not to be contented with empty honours or slight emoluments. They sent for their Duke from France, who, to grasp the more by seeming moderation, resigned the Privy Seal, as most men thought, with views on the Treasury itself; at least, his squadron vaunted that they had two or three administrations in readiness before the King should be obliged to employ the Opposition. The Favourite, from the first moment of his power, had made it a point to gratify, nay, to outrun, the Duke of Bedford’s largest wishes. Nothing he had asked, nothing his creatures were immodest enough to demand, had been denied; yet Lord Bute was balked in his hopes of purchasing the attachment of that connection--not from their usual perfidy; he had lost them before they suspected the smallest diminution of his omnipotence. He had not gratified the ambition of the Duchess.[318] She had marked for herself the first post in the Queen’s family; but with more attention to her pride than to her interest, had forborne to ask it, concluding it must be offered to her. The Princess and Lord Bute, either not suspecting, or glad to be ignorant of her views, were far enough from seeking to place so dangerous a woman in the very heart of the palace. This neglect the Duchess deeply resented, and never forgave. She was even so weak as to declare that inveteracy in a letter to her sister, Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, from Paris; which Lord Bute intercepting, there first learned what an aspic was lodged near his bosom. But though the Favourite, persuaded of the Duchess’s implacability, dropped all correspondence with that faction, he was far from checking the stream of the Crown’s graces towards them. The King begged the support of the Duke of Marlborough,[319] and offered to make him Master of the Horse, if the Duke of Rutland[320] could be induced to part with it. The latter consented to exchange it for Lord Chamberlain; but that post the Duke of Bedford insisted upon for Lord Gower.[321] After a warm struggle, Lord Gower obtained the Chamberlain’s staff; the Duke of Rutland remained in his old situation; and the Duke of Marlborough, though so very young, was appointed Lord Privy Seal; and his brother, Lord Charles Spencer, was made Comptroller of the Household.