The new arrangements for the care of the king's person came on first for discussion. On the 25th of January Lord Liverpool introduced a Bill to make the Duke of York guardian of his Majesty's person in place of the late queen. This question was decided with little debate. On the 4th of February a message was brought down from the Regent informing the House of Commons that, in consequence of the demise of her Majesty, fifty-eight thousand pounds became disposable for the general purposes of the Civil List; and recommending that the claims of her late Majesty's servants to the liberality of the House should be considered. Lord Castlereagh moved that the House should go into committee on this subject, as, besides the fifty-eight thousand pounds, there was another sum of one hundred thousand pounds, which had been appropriated to the maintenance of the establishment at Windsor. It was understood that Ministers would propose to reduce the sum for the establishment at Windsor to fifty thousand pounds, but that they would recommend that ten thousand pounds, which her Majesty had received in consideration of her charge of the king, should be transferred to the Duke of York. Mr. Tierney objected to the charge of fifty thousand pounds for the maintenance of the establishment at Windsor. He said he could not conceive how this money was to be spent, or on whom, for certainly it could not be on the king, who, he understood, was in that state of mental and bodily debility which made it necessary that as few persons as possible should be about him, and that his regimen was so very simple that it could cost next to nothing.
[See larger version]The Emperor of Germany was delighted at the Spanish offer. He had always felt himself aggrieved by the conditions of the Quadruple Alliance. He was afraid of France, and hated George of England for his German policy. He had, moreover, embroiled himself with both England and Holland, by establishing at Ostend an East India Company, which was declared to be in violation of the Treaty of Westphalia, and was, at all events, regarded with particular jealousy by both England and Holland. This being the case, Ripperda, the envoy of Spain, a Dutch adventurer, who had been the tool of Alberoni, completed with ease a treaty with the Emperor at Vienna, which was signed on the 30th of April, 1725.During this period, St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, was built by Thomas Archer. The churches of Greenwich, of St. George's, Hanover Square, and St. Luke's, Middlesex, were designed by John James. To this time likewise belong St. Giles's-in-the-Fields; St. Olave's, Southwark, and Woburn Abbey, by Flitcroft; Chatsworth House and Thoresby, by Salmon; Montagu House, by the French architect, Pouget; All Saints' Church, and the Peckwater Quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, by Dean Aldrich; and the library of Christ Church, designed by Dr. George Clarke, M.P. for Oxford, in the reign of Anne. After these the Earl of Burlington, a worshipper of Palladio and Inigo Jones, became a very fashionable architect, and built the dormitory at Westminster School; Petersham House, and other noblemen's mansions. The fine colonnade in the courtyard of Burlington House is also his work. Burlington was essentially a copyist, as was his protg Kent, who built Holkham, in Norfolk, and the Horse Guards, but acquired as much reputation by his landscape gardening as he gained little by his architecture. Towards the end of this period several foreign artists were employed in England. We have already named Pouget; Giacomo Leoni was much employed; and Labelye, a Swiss, built Westminster Bridge, which was completed in 1747. Thomas Ripley, originally a carpenter, built the Admiralty.