his father. The address on the subject was, however, rejected in both houses—by 30 in the commons, and by 103 to 40 in the lords. The mortification of the prince was permanent, and he felt his disappointment the more from the fact that he was deeply in debt. He showed his resentment by neglecting to acquaint the king and queen with his wife's condition before the birth of Augusta, his eldest child. When the pains of child-birth came on he hurried her from Hampton Court in the middle of the night to St. James's, where not only had no preparations been made, but the beds had not been properly aired, and the only lady in attendance was Lady Archibald Hamilton, the reputed mistress of the prince, who had accompanied them from Hampton Court. The prince excused himself on the ground that the princess had been seized with the pains of labour much sooner than he expected, but there is little doubt that the chief reason for his extraordinary conduct was to prevent the queen being present at the birth (see Lord Hervey's Memoirs, ed. 1848, ii. 360–74). In any case the king rejected all his endeavours for conciliation, and on 10 Sept. 1737 sent him a message peremptorily ordering him to quit St. James's with all his family, as soon as the princess could bear removal. The order was immediately obeyed, the prince removing in the first instance to Kew, and subsequently to Norfolk House, St. James's Square. Copies of the correspondence which passed between father and son were sent by the king to each of the British ambassadors abroad and the foreign ambassadors in England, the latter being at the same time requested not to visit the prince's family, as ‘a thing that would be disagreeable to his majesty’ (Marchmont Papers, ii. 83; the letters between George II and the Prince of Wales were published in 1737). From this time the prince's home became a great centre of the opposition, Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Carteret, Wyndham, and Cobham being numbered among the prince's special friends. Walpole, shortly before his overthrow, in the beginning of 1742, advised the king to make an effort to detach the prince from his party, on whom his patronage conferred undoubted influence in the country. Secker, bishop of Oxford, was therefore sent to the prince to intimate that if he would send to the king a letter couched in proper terms of regret for the past, and promising amendment for the future, an addition of 50,000l. would be made to his revenue, and in all probability his debts, which now reached an enormous sum, would be paid by the king; but the prince, who it may be supposed was well aware that Walpole's position was becoming desperate, replied that if the message had come directly from the king he might have been disposed to consider it favourably, but as it had evidently emanated from Walpole, he refused to entertain it so long as Walpole remained at the head of the government. After the resignation of Walpole a partial reconciliation with the king took place, but, possibly because the king took no steps towards increasing the prince's allowance, matters were soon again on their old footing. When the rebellion broke out in 1745, Frederick warmly solicited the command of the royal army. It is said to have been through the intercession of Frederick that Flora Macdonald received her liberty, after a short imprisonment for succouring the chevalier. Frederick died suddenly at Leicester House, 20 March 1751, from the bursting of an abscess which had been formed by a blow from a tennis ball. He had been ailing for a short time, and, when his death happened, Desnoyers, a dancing-master, had been amusing him by playing the violin at his bedside. Desnoyers supported him in his last moments. He was buried on 13 April, ‘without either anthem or organ,’ in Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey. The princess survived to witness the coronation of her son, and, dying 8 Feb. 1772, was interred in Westminster Abbey. Frederick was the father, by his wife, of four sons besides George III, and of two daughters, viz. Edward Augustus, duke of York and Albany (1739–1767); William Henry, duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1743–1805); Henry Frederick, duke of Cumberland (1745–1790); Frederick William (1750–1765); Augusta (1737–1813), wife of Charles William Ferdinand, hereditary prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel; and Caroline Matilda (1751–1775), wife of Christian VII, king of Denmark.
‘The chief passion of the prince,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘was women; but, like the rest of his race, beauty was not a necessary ingredient.’ A natural son, ‘Cornwell Fitz-Frederick,’ by Anne Vane (‘Beautiful Vanella’), daughter of Gilbert, second lord Barnard, was buried in Westminster Abbey 26 Feb. 1735–6 (Chester, Westm. Abbey Reg. p. 345). He was also much addicted to gambling, but in all his money transactions his conduct was not regulated by any ordinary considerations of honour. Though he affected to patronise the arts and literature, his tastes were not otherwise refined, and in their pursuit he was not too regardful of his dignity. ‘His best quality,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘was generosity, his worst insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early that Earl Stanhope wrote to
