12 KEW GARDENS 



for their comfort. The official guide states that 

 at one time Frederick, too, must have occupied 

 the Dutch House, as shown by his cipher and 

 the device of Prince of Wales's feathers on the 

 locks ; but I can find no mention of his living 

 here in memoirs of the period. It may be that 

 he had it for a time before his marriage ; but the 

 other was the house occupied by him as a family 

 man, and by his widow after him. 



There is some mystery about the origin of the 

 extraordinary ill-will shown both by George II. 

 and Caroline towards their heir, a feeling 

 surpassing the antipathy between father and son 

 that made an heirloom in this family for genera- 

 tions. The King tried to keep Frederick from 

 coming to England ; then, later on, he was half- 

 willing to cut off Hanover from the English 

 Crown that it might be bestowed upon his 

 favourite, William of Cumberland. The eldest 

 son he usually abused as a puppy, a fool, a beast, 

 and by other such elegant epithets ; while the 

 Queen, if we are to believe Lord Hervey, offered 

 once to give him her opinion in writing "that 

 my dear first-born is the greatest ass and the 

 greatest liar, and the greatest canaille, and the 

 greatest beast in the whole world, and that I 



