She declared in public that she put her faith in "the liberties of the People." It was certain that the young Princess would be brought up in the way that she should go; yet there, close behind the throne, waiting, sinister, was the Duke of Cumberland.

Brougham, looking forward into the future in his scurrilous fashion, hinted at dreadful possibilities.

"I never prayed so heartily for a Prince before," he wrote, on hearing that George IV had been attacked by illness.

"If he had gone, all the troubles of these villains (the Tory Ministers) went with him, and they had Fred.

I (the Duke of York) their own man for his life.