be in favor of this project. On the other hand, it was
given out that the Prince of Wales would be quite willing to renounce
his rights in favor of his younger brother on condition of his getting
the fifty thousand a year additional for which he had been clamoring in
Parliament. Nothing could be more popular with the country than any
arrangement which would sever the connection between the Crown of
England and the electorate of Hanover. If the prince were seeking
popularity, such a proposal coming from him would be popular indeed,
provided {113} it were not spoiled by the stipulation about the fifty
thousand a year. The Queen's comment upon the rumors as to the
prince's intention was that in her firm belief he would sell the
reversion of the Crown of England to the Pretender if only the
Pretender offered him money enough. Nothing came of the talk about
Hanover just then. The King and the Queen had soon something else to
think of.

{114}

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE QUEEN'S DEATH-BED.

[Sidenote: 1737--Caroline's death-stroke]

The Queen had long been dying; dying by inches. In one of her
confinements she had been stricken with an ailment from which she
suffered severely. She refused to let any one, even the King, know
what was the matter with her. She had the strongest objection to being
regarded as an invalid; and she feared, too, that if anything serious
were known to be the matter with her she might lose her hold over her
selfish husband, who only cared for people as long as they were active
in serving and pleasing him. An invalid was to George merely a
nuisance. Let us do Caroline justice. She was no doubt actuated by
the most sincere desire to be of service to the King, and she feared
that if she were to make it known how ill she was, the King might
insist on her giving up active life altogether. Not only did she take
no pains to get better, but in order to prove that she was perfectly
well, she used to exert herself in a manner which might have been
injurious to the health of a very strong woman. When at Richmond she
used to walk several miles every morning with the King; and more than
once, Walpole says, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her
whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. "The pain," says
Walpole, "the bulk, and the exercise threw her into such fits of
perspiration as routed the gout; but those exertions hastened the
crisis of her distemper." History preserves s