Daring in truth it was, and perhaps not to be paralleled. The fact happened thus:--Lord Halifax[109] and Lord Sandwich (the latter of whom had probably machinated so treacherous a step) had posted to Buckingham House a little hour before the Lords assembled, and surprising the King alone, had most falsely, and contrary to all likelihood, assured him, that the House of Commons would certainly strike the name of the Princess Dowager out of the bill; and therefore that the most decent and prudent method to save the honour of his Majesty and her Royal Highness would be, for his Majesty to permit it to be hinted to the Lords, that he himself desired their Lordships would omit his mother’s name, before they transmitted the bill to the Commons. The young inexperienced monarch, taken by surprise, alarmed at the insult announced, and not having time, or not having presence of mind to demand time for consulting his mother and his Favourite, answered with good-nature, _that he would consent if it would satisfy his people_. The traitors seized that assent, and, hurrying away with double rapidity to the House of Lords, procured in the very name of their master that indelible stigma on his own mother! Intoxicated as they were with presumption, or blind with the thirst of revenge, still it is hard to conceive how the Ministers dared to venture on so provoking and desperate an insult. Could the King pardon such an insult on his understanding, or the Princess submit to such an affront to her dignity and character? Could the Crown retain a shadow of power without discarding such servants? Could the wildness of Opposition have imagined such an act of aspersion, or have found a sufficient number so destitute of hopes and of flattery, as to fix a stain on the whole royal blood? That Sandwich should have conceived a plot so base, especially when surprise and stratagem were to be the ingredients, was not marvellous: that Grenville should have embraced it, and lost all sight of ambition in the glut of his revenge, proved what dominion every bad passion had over him in its turn; that the Duke of Bedford should have closed with it, was but another instance of the empire his associates had over a mind naturally good--that none of the connexion, composed of men devoted to fortune, should have started at a proposition so big with ruin to their hopes of favour, evinced that when they had lost sight of honesty and decorum, they flattered themselves that no position could be so desperate, from which they might not recover by as bad arts as those which brought them into the dilemma. Their subsequent conduct showed that they were determined to storm the Cabinet they could not retain by address.