Thus died Frederick Prince of Wales! having resembled his pattern the Black Prince in nothing but in dying before his father. Indeed it was not his fault if he had not distinguished himself by any warlike achievements. He had solicited the command of the Army in Scotland during the last Rebellion; though that ambition was ascribed rather to his jealousy of his brother than to his courage. A hard judgment! for what he could he did! When the Royal Army lay before Carlisle, the Prince, at a great supper that he gave to his Court and his favourites, as was his custom when the Princess laid in, had ordered for the dessert the representation of the citadel of Carlisle in paste, which he in person, and the Maids of Honour, bombarded with sugar plums! He had disagreed with the King and Queen early after his coming to England; not entirely by his own fault. The King had refused to pay what debts he had left at Hanover; and it ran a little in the blood of the family to hate the eldest son: the Prince himself had so far not degenerated, though a better natured man, and a much better father, as to be fondest of his second son, Prince Edward. The Queen had exerted more authority, joined to a narrow prying into his conduct, than he liked; and Princess Emily, who had been admitted into his greatest confidence, had not forfeited her duty to the Queen by concealing any of his secrets that might do him prejudice.
Lord Bolingbroke, who had sowed a division in the Pretender’s Court, by the scheme for the father’s resigning his claim to the eldest boy, repeated the same plan of discord here, on the first notice of the Prince’s disgusts; and the whole Opposition was instructed to offer their services to the Heir Apparent against the Crown and the Minister. The Prince was sensible to flattery, and had a sort of parts that made him relish the sort of parts of Lord Chesterfield, Doddington, and Lyttelton, the latter of whom being introduced by Doddington, had wrought the disgrace of his protector. Whoever was unwelcome at St. James’s was sure of countenance at the Prince’s apartments there. He was in vain reprimanded for this want of respect. At last, having hurried the Princess from Hampton Court, when she was in actual labour, to the imminent danger of hers and the child’s life,[75] without acquainting either King or Queen, the formal breach ensued; he having added to this insult, a total silence to his mother on her arriving immediately to visit the Princess, and while he led her to her coach; but as soon as he came in sight of the populace, he knelt down in the dirt and kissed her hand with the most respectful show of duty. He immediately went all lengths of opposition and popularity till the fall of Sir Robert Walpole, when he was reconciled to, though never after spoken to, by the King.
