House party
The Augustan era was essential to the development of prime ministerial power as being entirely dependent on a Commons majority, rather than royal prerogative interventions. While the king struggled with his headstrong son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, his son's uncertain constitutional position was high in the Leicester House party set. In 1748 Frederick, a Tory, planned to bring down the Pelhamites at a general election due the following year. The Prime Minister called an early poll in 1748 by asking the king to dissolve parliament in 1747. The prince and his father, the king grew to hate one another with unspeakable animosity. But one consequence was a closer relationship between Henry Pelham and the Sovereign. When he finally died in 1754, the King remarked "Now I shall have no more peace." The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had been signed in 1748 leading inexorably to a number of cost-cutting budgetary measures.