"I want you to leave the palace, sir. I want you to remove the Court, at once, into the country," he said. "Do not misunderstand me, sir. I do not believe that your person is in any danger. I do not anticipate, as I have already indicated, that we shall be called upon to meet armed revolt. In any case, Londoners are proverbially loyal. But there will be rioting, and window smashing, in places, no doubt. Something of the sort may be attempted, here, at the palace. In the circumstances, it will be as well, that you should be elsewhere. "In urging you to leave the palace, and to remove the Court into the country, I have, too, another, and a more important motive, sir," he continued. "It is, of course, a fundamental condition, a constitutional truism, of our democratic monarchy, that the King must take no side. How far that consideration must govern the King's actions, when his own position is directly attacked, is a question which, I imagine, very few of our leading jurists would care to be called upon to decide! But I attach the very greatest importance to the preservation of your absolute neutrality, in the present crisis, sir. When the impending storm has spent its force, and the danger, such as it is, has subsided, there will be a considerable body of people, up and down the country, who will contend that the Government have acted precipitately, unconstitutionally, and with wholly unnecessary violence. In meeting such criticism, I wish to be able to emphasize the fact that the Government have acted throughout on their own responsibility, on my responsibility, without any reference to you at all, sir. I do not propose to advance, on your behalf, the time-honoured excuse that His Majesty accepted the advice tendered to him by his advisers. I propose to emphasize the fact that you at once removed the Court into the country, and took no part whatever in the suppression of the rebellion. In the result, your position will be maintained inviolate, but you will not share in the unpopularity, and the odium, which a demonstration of strength inevitably, and invariably, evokes. This is why I said that you have a more difficult part to play than any of your immediate predecessors were ever called upon to play, sir. Although the battle is joined, and you are so intimately concerned with its result, you will have to stand on one side, and take no part in the conflict. And you are a young man, and a high spirited young man. You will resent your neutrality. "But I am the lightning conductor, sir! It is my duty, as I see it, and I regard it as the honour of my life, to take the full shock of the lightning flash, so that the Crown may remain on your head unshaken. And the Crown will not only remain on your head unshaken. It will be more firmly fixed there than before. In twenty-four, or forty-eight, hours, at the most, sir, you will be more surely established on the throne than any of your immediate predecessors.