we know on whose side his power and his splendid eloquence
would be on the day when the Queen should appear openly before her
Council and say:--"This, my lords, is my brother; here is my father's
heir, and mine after me."

During the whole of the previous year the Queen had had many and
repeated fits of sickness, fever, and lethargy, and her death had been
constantly looked for by all her attendants. The Elector of Hanover had
wished to send his son, the Duke of Cambridge--to pay his court to his
cousin the Queen, the Elector said;--in truth, to be on the spot when
death should close her career. Frightened perhaps to have such a memento
mori under her royal eyes, her Majesty had angrily forbidden the young
Prince's coming into England. Either she desired to keep the chances for
her brother open yet; or the people about her did not wish to close with
the Whig candidate till they could make terms with him. The quarrels
of her Ministers before her face at the Council board, the pricks of
conscience very likely, the importunities of her Ministers, and constant
turmoil and agitation round about her, had weakened and irritated the
Princess extremely; her strength was giving way under these continual
trials of her temper, and from day to day it was expected she must
come to a speedy end of them. Just before Viscount Castlewood and his
companion came from France, her Majesty was taken ill. The St.
Anthony's fire broke out on the royal legs; there was no hurry for
the presentation of the young lord at Court, or that person who should
appear under his name; and my Lord Viscount's wound breaking out
opportunely, he was kept conveniently in his chamber until such time as
his physician would allow him to bend his knee before the Queen. At
the commencement of July, that influential lady, with whom it has been
mentioned that our party had relations, came frequently to visit her
young friend, the Maid of Honor, at Kensington, and my Lord Viscount
(the real or supposititious), who was an invalid at Lady Castlewood's
house.

On the 27th day of July, the lady in question, who held the most
intimate post about the Queen, came in her chair from the Palace hard
by, bringing to the little party in Kensington Square intelligence of
the very highest importance. The final blow had been struck, and my Lord
of Oxford and Mortimer was no longer Treasurer. The staff was as yet
given to no successor, though my Lord Bolingbroke would undoubtedly be