forced upon both him and them the consideration of his and his wife's position, since it made it necessary to remodel the prayer for the royal family, and instantly to decide whether her name and title as Queen were to be inserted in it.

He was determined that they should not be mentioned; and, as the practice of praying for a Queen Consort by name appeared not to have been invariable, they were willing to gratify him on this point, though it was evidently highly probable that she would consider this as a fresh insult, sufficient to justify her in carrying out a threat, which she had recently held out, of returning to England.

Her ablest advisers did not, indeed, regard it in this light, since the prayer as now framed implored the Divine protection for "all the royal family" in general terms, in which she might be supposed to be included, and made no separate mention of any member of the family.[185] But, unfortunately, she was much more under the influence of counsellors who were neither lawyers nor statesmen, but who only desired to use her as a tool to obtain notoriety for themselves.

A long negotiation ensued.

It was inevitable that some application should be made to Parliament in connection with her affairs, since the annuity which had been settled upon her by Parliament in 1814, on the occasion of her departure from England, had expired with the life of the late King.