The prince, however, never forgave Lord Hervey for being his rival with
Miss Vane, nor his mother for her favours to Lord Hervey. In vain did
the queen endeavour to reconcile Fritz, as she called him, to his
father;--nothing could be done in a case where the one was all dogged
selfishness; and where the other, the idol of the opposition party, as
the prince had ever been, so _legere de tete_ as to swallow all the
adulation offered to him, and to believe himself a demigod. 'The queen's
dread of a rival,' Horace Walpole remarks, 'was a feminine weakness: the
behaviour of her eldest son was a real thorn.' Some time before his
marriage to a princess who was supposed to augment his hatred of his
mother, Frederick of Wales had contemplated an act of disobedience. Soon
after his arrival in England, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, hearing
that he was in want of money, had sent to offer him her granddaughter,
Lady Diana Spencer, with a fortune of L100,000. The prince accepted the
young lady, and a day was fixed for his marriage in the duchess's lodge
at the Great Park, Windsor. But Sir Robert Walpole, getting intelligence
of the plot, the nuptials were stopped. The duchess never forgave either
Walpole or the royal family, and took an early opportunity of insulting
the latter.
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