; an answer with which even the prime minister,
Sir Robert Walpole, was compelled to remain satisfied, when he discovered that
the Queen had given a private audience to Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, his
most formidable and most inveterate enemy.
    In thus maintaining occasional intercourse with several persons who seemed
most alienated from the crown, it may readily be supposed that Queen Caroline
had taken care not to break entirely with the Duke of Argyle. His high birth,
his great talents, the estimation in which he was held in his own country, the
great services which he had rendered the house of Brunswick in 1715, placed him
high in that rank of persons who were not to be rashly neglected. He had, almost
by his single and unassisted talents, stopped the irruption of the banded force
of all the Highland chiefs; there was little doubt, that, with the slightest
encouragement, he could put them all in motion, and renew the civil war; and it
was well known that the most flattering overtures had been transmitted to the
Duke from the court of St. Germains. The character and temper of Scotland was
still little known, and it was considered as a volcano, which might, indeed,
slumber for a series of years, but was still liable, at a moment the least
expected, to break out into a wasteful irruption. It was, therefore, of the
highest importance to retain some hold over so important a personage as the Duke
of Argyle, and Caroline preserved the power of doing so by means of a lady, with
whom, as wife of George II., she might have been supposed to be on less intimate
terms.
    It was not the least instance of the Queen's address, that she had contrived
that one of her principal attendants, Lady Suffolk, should unite in her own
person the two apparently inconsistent characters, of her husband's mistress,
and her own very obsequious and complaisant confidant. By this dexterous
management the Queen secured her power against the danger which might most have
threatened it - the thwarting influence of an ambitious rival; and if she
submitted to the mortification of being obliged to connive at her husband's
infidelity, she was at least guarded against what she might think its most
dangerous effects, and was besides at liberty, now and then, to bestow a few
civil insults upon »her good Howard,« whom, however, in general, she treated
with great decorum.60 Lady Suffolk lay under strong obligations to the Duke of
Argyle, for reasons which may be collected from Horace Walpole's Reminiscences
of that reign,