his cause in the quarrel with his son, piqued themselves on contributing to make up the crowd on this first show-day after the separation of the courts, and by these means the drawing-room, to the great satisfaction both of the King and the Queen, was much fuller than ever it had been on any other 30th of October since the first after his Majesty's accession to the Crown.

The night before Lord Isla was to follow Sir Robert Walpole into Norfolk, the Queen saw him in the evening in private, for the first time I believe in her life, and to the infinite dissatisfaction of his Grace of Newcastle. Had he known how the Queen treated him in this conference it would have added to his disquiet, for as her Majesty and Lord Isla both told me afterwards, she gave up the Duke of Newcastle without any reserve; insomuch that the comment Lord Isla made on her conduct was, that he should have been better pleased had she said less, as what she said, had she thought it at all, must have been more than she could believe of one she let continue in the King's service. But one thing she said to Lord Isla I am sure was in general true, which was, that she had often schooled the Duke of Newcastle for his behaviour towards him and Lord Hervey, and had assured him—if he persisted in endeavouring to make the King's servants uneasy in his service and the execution of their duty, when his only quarrel to them was serving too well-that the King would not endure it.

When the Queen related this to Lord Hervey, she repeated what she had often said on these occasions before: that the poor silly Duke of Newcastle fancied she would not dislike his using Lord Isla ill because

he had once made his court to Lady Suffolk, as if she cared for that now; or, if he was able and willing to do the King any good service at present, that she was fool enough to consider what he had said, or done, or been formerly. "Or if I had reasoned in that way," said she, "I wonder what the Duke of Newcastle himself would have been now. One must take people as one finds them, and when they can be of use to make the whole20 go on, one must not embarrass one's self by thinking of little silly particulars, that are or ought to be out of the question." Lord Isla in this conference told the Queen, who was very inquisitive how his brother the Duke of Argyle talked at this time, that with regard to the present disputes between the King and the Prince it was impossible for anybody to talk more reasonably or to be more listed in that cause than his brother; but that his brother had declared too, upon a rumour being spread of some proposal to be made in Parliament to detach the Hanover dominions after the death of the King from the Crown of England, that he would certainly, as far as he could, promote any such scheme. Lord Isla told Lord Hervey afterwards that the Queen had seemed much set against this scheme; that she had said the Parliament had nothing to do with it, since it was not one of the original conditions in the Act of Settlement. "And though they," continued her Majesty, "who are for promoting this scheme, may allege that it is no injury to the King, since the separation is not proposed to be made till his death and his successor will consent to it, yet so far it is certainly an

20"The whole" was a phrase in common use at this time to mean all the interests bound up with the Hanoverian succession.

injury, that if the fine scheme (as I hear it is) of my son's consenting to this proposal is to be bought by the King's giving him 50,000l. a-year more in present, then they take that out of your King's pocket: and who has given the Prince a right to dismember the dominions of his family? I know he would sell not only his reversion in the Electorate, but even in this kingdom, if the Pretender would give him five or six hundred thousand pounds in present; but, thank God! he has neither right nor power to sell his family-though his folly and his knavery may sometimes distress them. However, my Lord, you may assure yourself the King will never hear of any such proposal with patience, but will look on such a motion in Parliament as the highest indignity and insult to him and his family, and all the promoters of it as people who make a pretence of the interest of England to distress and affront him."

When the Queen told Lord Hervey next morning what had passed between her and Lord Isla on this subject, Lord Hervey said he did not very well understand the constitution of the Empire, but said he should imagine it would not be in the power of the Parliament, even with the King and Prince's consent, to alter the succession to the Electorate; that he should naturally think the consent of the Empire and Emperor must be necessary to such a transfer; and if so, that the same policy which might induce some people here to make it, would prevail at the Court of Vienna to prevent it: for if it was thought that the King of England being at the same time Elector of Hanover made him more liable to the influence and power of the Emperor than he

would be if he was only King of England, it must be as much the interest of that Court to keep such an influence as it could be the interest of this country to get rid of it.

It is certain, however, notwithstanding all I have related, that the King did often deliberate in private upon a method to give his German dominions from his eldest to his second son, and had actually sketches of instruments drawn for that purpose; but this was a transaction known to very few, and guessed at only even by Sir Robert Walpole, not communicated to him. The Queen never came thoroughly into this scheme, although she wished some safe way of effecting it could be hit upon for the sake of her second son.21

21 See ante, p. 417, n. 5. It will be observed that there is a good deal of inconsistency in the statements of the Queen's feelings on this subject; she probably had formed no settled opinion. The project seems to have been revived by Walpole after the Queen's death as a popular measure that might, he hoped, avert his own fall. See Speaker Onslow's remarks in Coxe, ii. 571; and Lord Mahon's History, iii. 32.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The Queen taken ill--Princess Caroline ill also-Arrangement of attendance-The Queen grows worse-Sir R. Walpole sent for-The Queen reveals her secret disease, a Rupture-The Prince's request to be admitted to see her refused-Progress of the disease-History of her Rupture - Her obstinate reluctance to confess it- Her danger grows imminent-Legal doubts as to the succession to the Queen's propertyLord Hervey consults the Chancellor-Surgical operations.

ON Wednesday, the 9th of November, the Queen was taken ill in the morning at her new Library in St. James's Park; she called her complaint the cholic, her stomach and bowels giving her great pain. She came home, took Daffy's Elixir by Dr. Tesier,' the German and house-physician's advice; but was in such great pain, and so uneasy with frequent reachings to vomit, that she went into bed. However, when the clock struck two, and the King proposed sending Lord Grantham to dismiss the company, and declare there would be no drawing-room, she, according to the custom of the family, not caring to own, or at least to have it generally known, how ill she was, told the King she was much better-that she would get up and see

1 George Lewis Tessier, M.D., F.R.S., Physician to the Household. It seems strange that none of the King's or Queen's Physicians in Ordinary -though they were all eminent men, particularly Mead and Wilmot-were called in, except Sloane, who was almost superannuated, and even he was not called in at first.