The consternation in the prince’s household was great, not for his life, but for the confusion into which politics were thrown by his death.  After his relapse, and until just before his death, the princess never suffered any English, man or woman, above the degree of valet-de-chambre to see him; nor did she herself see any one of her household until absolutely necessary.  After the death of his eldest born, George II. vented his diabolical jealousy upon the cold remains of one thus cut off in the prime of life.  The funeral was ordered to be on the model of that of Charles II., but private counter-orders were issued to reduce the ceremonial to the smallest degree of respect that could be paid.

On the 13th of April, 1751, the body of the prince was entombed in Henry VII.’s chapel.  Except the lords appointed to hold the pall, and attend the chief mourner, when the attendants were called over in their ranks, there was not a single English lord, not one bishop, and only one Irish lord (Lord Limerick), and three sons of peers.  Sir John Rushout and Dodington were the only privy counsellors who followed.  It rained heavily, but no covering was provided for the procession.  The service was performed without organ or anthem.  ‘Thus,’ observes Bubb Dodington, ‘ended this sad day.’

Although the prince left a brother and sisters, the Duke of Somerset acted as chief mourner.  The king hailed the event of the prince’s death as a relief, which was to render happy his remaining days; and Bubb Dodington hastened, in a few months, to offer to the Pelhams ’his friendship and attachment.’  His attendance at court was resumed, although George II. could not endure him; and the old Walpolians, nick-named the Black-tan, were also averse to him.

Such were Bubb Dodington’s actions.  His expressions, on occasion of the prince’s death, were in a very different tone.

‘We have lost,’ he wrote to Sir Horace Mann, ’the delight and ornament of the age he lived in,—­the expectations of the public:  in this light I have lost more than any subject in England; but this is light,—­public advantages confined to myself do not, ought not, to weigh with me.  But we have lost the refuge of private distress—­the balm of the afflicted heart the shelter of the miserable against the fury of private adversity; the arts, the graces, the anguish, the misfortunes of society, have lost their patron and their remedy.

’I have lost my companion—­my protector—­the friend that loved me, that condescended to hear, to communicate, to share in all the pleasures and pains of the human heart:  where the social affections and emotions of the mind only presided without regard to the infinite disproportion of my rank and condition.  This is a wound that cannot, ought not to heal.  If I pretended to fortitude here, I should be infamous—­a monster of ingratitude—­and unworthy of all consolation, if I was not inconsolable.’