[185] The Princess Royal was so proud and ambitious, that one day, when very young, telling the Queen how much she wished that she had no brothers, that she herself might succeed to the Crown, and the Queen reproving her, she said, “I would die to-morrow to be Queen to-day!” On the Queen’s death, the Princess Royal, like others, imagining the King must be governed by a woman, pretended ill-health, and that her physicians had ordered her to Bath, and came over; but having been so indiscreet as to let her motive be known, the King would not sutler her to stop in London, but sent her directly to Bath, and, on her return, back to Holland; nor ever forgave her.

[186] Edward Coke, only son of Thomas, Earl of Leicester.

[187] Lord Chesterfield told Mr. Pelham from Lord Bolingbroke, that Lord Egmont being sent by the Prince to Lord Bolingbroke to consult on measures for opening his approaching reign, Lord Bolingbroke desired him to open his plan; Lord Egmont said it would be necessary for the Prince to begin with some popular act, and proposed for that end, immediately to restore feudal tenures! Lord Bolingbroke dissenting, they parted in heat.

[188] [Vide the Appendix, I.]

[189] This alludes to the proposal in the foregoing session, of confining Murray in the dungeon called Little Ease.

[190] Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary of State to Queen Anne, had, on the accession of George the First, been impeached for his share in the treaty of Utrecht, and fled. Sir Robert Walpole (strongly against the inclination of his brother Horace, Lord Townshend, and others of his friends) obtained his pardon, though Lord Bolingbroke and his advocates afterwards pretended that the Minister had no hand in it. The day after his return he dined at Chelsea, to thank Sir Robert; but his confusion and uneasiness were so great, that he had like to have been choked with the first bit he ate, and was forced to rise from table. He soon endeavoured to supplant Sir Robert, by the assistance of his enemy the Duchess of Kendal, who obtained an audience for him in the late King’s closet, where he presented a representation against Sir Robert, which the King immediately afterwards delivered to Sir Robert, and repeated the conversation to him. A parallel case happened afterwards to the same Minister. Lord Stair endeavoured to supplant him with Queen Caroline, and even was so hardy as to make love to her, which not succeeding, he wrote a long letter to her, and went the next morning for an answer. She sent him out word by her Chamberlain, Lord Grantham, that she had given his letter to Sir Robert Walpole, and had ordered him to deliver her answer. Lord Stair saw his situation, and set out next morning for Scotland.

[191] On history, published since his death.

[192] See Lord Walpole’s answer to these letters. All Lord Bolingbroke’s art, all his beauties of style, vanish before these plain, unadorned, argumentative, demonstrative replies.

[193] In a late apology for Lord Bolingbroke, the author (supposed to be Campbell) has endeavoured to deny this known fact, but without the least proof.

[194] Lord Egmont gave me the following instances. Lord Bolingbroke gave the Prince a scheme for vesting the Revenue in the Crown for every six years, without a Civil List, and for having Parliaments holden every five or six years. The Court he paid to the Prince was to a degree of adoration. One day that he dined with Lord Egmont, the Prince came in as they were drinking coffee, and bad them not mind him. Lord Egmont, who knew that to obey was to respect, gave Lord Bolingbroke a dish; but he, who thought that to disobey from respect was more respectful (and who perhaps knew, that though the Prince seemed to encourage familiarity, he never forgave it), started and cried, “Good God! my Lord, what are you doing? Do you consider who is present?” One of his views was to be an Earl; and, knowing that the Prince had had an inclination for his sister, Lady St. John, he took her son into his own house, under pretence of educating him and making him his heir, as an inducement to the Prince to promise him the Earldom. The Prince often sent his first Minister, Dr. Lee, to him; and one day said to Lord Egmont of Lord Bolingbroke, “That man is at fourscore just what he was at forty! I know how he flatters Lee to his face, and yet he is always teasing me to discard him, and telling him that he is not fit to hold a candle to an Administration.”