the Setting, in that unquiet Country!

Prince Fred of England did not get to the Rhine Campaign, as we saw:
he got some increase of Revenue, a Household of his own; and finally
a Wife, as he had requested: a Sachsen-Gotha Princess; who, peerless
Wilhelmma being unattainable, was welcome to Prince Fred. She is in the
family-way, this summer 1737, a very young lady still; result thought to
be due--When? Result being potential Heir to the British Nation, there
ought to have been good calculation of the time when! But apparently
nobody had well turned his attention that way. Or if Fred and Spouse
had, as is presumable, Fred had given no notice to the Paternal
Majesty,--"Let Paternal Majesty, always so cross to me, look out
for himself in that matter." Certain it is, Fred and Spouse, in the
beginning of August, 1737, are out at Hampton Court; potential Heir due
before long, and no preparation made for it. August 11th in the evening,
out at solitary Hampton Court; the poor young Mother's pains came on; no
Chancellor there, no Archbishop to see the birth,--in fact, hardly
the least medical help, and of political altogether none. Fred, in
his flurry, or by forethought,--instead of dashing off expresses, at
a gallop as of Epsom, to summon the necessary persons and appliances,
yoked wheeled vehicles and rolled off to the old unprovided Palace of
St. James's, London, with his poor Wife in person! Unwarned, unprovided;
where nevertheless she was safely delivered that same night,--safely,
as if by miracle. The crisis might have taken her on the very highway:
never was such an imprudence. Owing, I will believe, to Fred's sudden
flurry in the unprovided moment,--unprovided, by reason of prior
desuetudes and discouragements to speech, on Papa's side. A shade of
malice there might also be. Papa doubts not, it was malice aforethought
all of it. "Had the potential Heir of the British Nation gone to wreck,
or been born on the highway, from my quarrels with this bad Fred, what
a scrape had I been in!" thinks Papa, and is in a towering permanence
of wrath ever since; the very Newspapers and coffee-houses and populaces
now all getting vocal with it.

Papa, as it turned out, never more saw the face of Fred. Judicious
Mamma, Queen Caroline, could not help a visit, one visit to the poor
young Mother, so soon as proper: coming out from the visit, Prince Fred
obsequiously escorting her to her carriage, found a crowd of people and
populace, in fr