The Prince then having consulted with his advisers—and the principal of these were the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Carteret and Mr. Pulteney—decided to appeal to Parliament to petition the King to grant him that same income as Prince of Wales, which he himself received from George the First.
The first sign of the King’s return home was a letter received on the early morning of Saturday, January 14th, by express from his Majesty stating that after a delay of five weeks at Helvetsluis, he had at last embarked, and after encountering a contrary wind all the way, they had tacked until at last they made Lowestoft, at which port the King had landed about noon on the previous day.
The news seems to have been held back in the ante-room while the Queen slept, and here Sir Robert Walpole and the Prince of Wales appear to have met and had a two hours’ chat, whilst they waited for the Queen to wake.
According to Hervey, most of the talking appears to have been carried on by Sir Robert, who seems to have grasped the opportunity to lecture the Prince in that fatherly manner adopted by old men towards young ones when their pockets are not affected. As reported by Hervey, Walpole’s discourse was a string of sleepy platitudes—he had been roused out of his bed—peculiarly irritating to the Prince under the circumstances, which he seems to have listened to with exemplary patience, but the vital subject of the increase in his income does not appear to have been touched upon at all. The next day the King arrived at St. James’s Palace, and the Queen and the whole of the Royal Family went down into the Colonnade to receive him.
Contrary to all expectation he was in an excellent humour, but suffering from a terrible cold.
He kissed everybody, including the Prince of Wales, and was at once marched off to bed by his solicitous spouse, to be doctored for his cold, which by this time, from long neglect, required careful nursing. Here in his bedroom he was kept a close prisoner by the Queen, and very few people were allowed to see him; those that did, did not come away with any great opinion either of his health or his temper, which had not improved by confinement. Any allusion to his royal health irritated him beyond measure. Lord Dunmore, one of his Lords of the Chamber, offended in this respect, and was ordered out. To Lord Pembroke, whom he called to take his place, he spoke of the erring nobleman as a troublesome inquisitive “puppy,” a designation very much in the royal favour at that time; he added that he and others were always plagueing him about his health like a parcel of old nurses.
Sir Robert Walpole and others got very anxious about the King at this time, mainly on account of the seclusion in which he was kept by the Queen. He was certainly unwell, suffering undoubtedly from the reaction after the excitement of his escape from shipwreck, and perhaps his excesses in Hanover, for he was getting old; but his indisposition was but a slight one, and when he came out from his apartments, which he did just at the time it suited the Queen to let him, it was found that his recovery was very rapid indeed.
It is more than probable that the Queen had a strong reason for keeping up at this time the idea of his ill-health, and a reason may be easily found for it, in the following incident.
There can be no doubt whatever, although, according to Hervey, she strenuously denied it, that during the summer of 1736, the Prince of Wales soon after his marriage appealed to his mother on the subject of his financial position, and that at the same time he informed her of his intention to seek the aid of Parliament to obtain his full allowance of £100,000 a year as Prince of Wales, and a jointure for the Princess. The circumstance is recorded both by Lord Hardwicke, the Lord Chancellor, in his papers, and by Doddington in his diary.