after the death of George II. a package was shown to his son, the Duke of Cumberland, by Lord Waldegrave, which was endorsed a very private paper. This was a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to the first Earl Waldegrave, then Ambassador in France, which stated that Lord Newcastle had received by the mes-senger the copy of the will and codicil of George I.; that he had given it to His Majesty, who had put it in the fire unopened; that a messenger was dispatched to the Duke of Wolfenbüttel, with a treaty granting him all he desired, and that by return of the messenger the original will was expected from him.

The destruction of wills seems to have been practised in this royal but dishonest family. George I. had burnt the will of Sophia Dorothea, as also those of her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Zell; all of which were believed to have been made in favour of his son; so that, when it came to that son's turn to destroy his father's will and exhibit what may be called the hereditary trait of dishonesty, it seems, if not a retribution, at least what might have been expected.

DOUBTED BY HIS FAMILY.

7

Prince Frederick, George II.'s son, used to accuse his father of making away with the will of the king's uncle, the Bishop of Osnaburg, who had been created Duke of York. He died the year after George II. came to the throne, and the Prince believed he had been made heir to some of his wealth. The King of Prussia, who was married to George II.'s sister, considered he had been likewise defrauded by His Majesty; but Queen Caroline, in speaking to Lord Hervey of the Duke of York's will, said his Grace left everything he had, which amounted to £50,000, to her husband, except his jewels, and these he left to the Queen of Prussia, to whom the king had delivered them,' after satisfying the King of Prussia (who, before the king showed him the will, had a mind to litigate it in favour of his wife) that the will would admit of no dispute. So that the king's honesty was strongly doubted even by the members of his own family.

George II. was in his forty-fourth year when he commenced his reign. The change from Prince to king seems to have altered his habits but little during the first years which he sat on

the throne. Mrs. Howard still retained her position as his mistress, and at the same time her appointment as Woman of the Bed-chamber to the queen. It was not through any affection that His Majesty had for her that she was selected for this position, but rather as a protest to the court that he was not subject to, or governed by his wife, a suspicion to which he was most sensitive. When he succeeded to the throne Mrs. Howard was in her fortieth year; her deafness had much increased; and though the king, with that regularity for which he was remarkable, spent as much of his time with her as before, yet those who had long paid her court began to suspect that she exercised but little influence over her royal master.

It was the king's boast that Her Majesty never meddled in his affairs, nor did she—in the presence of others; but his very sensitiveness on this point arose from the fact that he undoubtedly began to feel that he was swayed by her influence. As when she was Princess, so it was when she became queen. She held private consultations with Sir Robert Walpole, when they both settled questions of political interest accord

HER MAJESTY'S SKILL.

9

ing to mutual satisfaction. When these conclu

sions were arrived at, Her Majesty, with the wemons

exquisite skill that distinguished her, would afterwards impress them on the king's mind so delicately that he came to believe they were his own sentiments, arrived at from mature reflections. But, if he were anxious to seem as if he acted independently of the queen, he was yet more eager to show that his mistress had no power over him whatsoever.

In public he slighted her, and made a point of contradicting any statement she made with all the rudeness characteristic of the little domestic despot. Scarce a wish of hers was ever complied with. The only advantage which the royal mistress derived, was that of being saved from a state of indigence, to which she would otherwise probably have sunk; and the sole favour her family received from her position. was a peerage given to her brother, Sir John Hobart.

The queen had not only looked complacently and tolerantly on this strange liaison of her husband's, but was even anxious to retain her ' good Howard' in the position she held, know

ing that the king must keep a mistress, and fearing that, if Mrs. Howard left him, a younger and handsomer woman might supplant her in the power she exercised over him. When it came to pass that Mrs. Howard-then Lady Suffolkwished to retire, the queen lent an unwilling ear to her desires, when the king complained, with a want of gallantry almost brutal, that 'she would not let him part with a deaf old woman that he was weary of.'

A favourite with the queen, and a rival of Mrs. Howard's (though not for the king's favour) was Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon, one of the Women of the Bed-chamber to the queen. She exercised a strong influence over Her Majesty, which she used not unfrequently for her own benefit. Some of the letters addressed to her during the time she was in power are preserved in the library of the British Museum, and fill five stout volumes. The cringing tone, the sycophancy and flattery with which they overflow, would prove amusing if it were not so sad to consider the servile depths to which men and women can descend when self-interest lies at bottom. Almost everyone who looked for court favour