THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.
But now over the squabblings and disagreements of this Royal Family,
with their enormous wealth and power, was gathering a dark cloud from
which presently descended a greater Power than theirs, the Power which
one day touches all, and which the riches of a Palace are as impotent
to resist as the poverty of a poor man’s dwelling--the Power of Death.
For some time past the Queen’s health had been steadily failing;
possibly the excitement of the last few months, Madame de Walmoden,
the King’s danger in the storm, the affair of the Prince’s income, and
lastly the _émeute_ at the birth of his child, had been all too much
for her, yet her death as will be seen was mainly the result of her own
fault, the foolish concealment of a malady.
On Wednesday, the 9th of November, 1737, the Queen was taken ill while
superintending the arrangements of her new library attached to St.
James’s Palace--the library is now pulled down. She described her
complaint as the cholic and suffered great pain, Doctor Tesier, the
German Physician to the Household, gave her some of a concoction called
“Daffy’s Elixir,” and ordered her to bed.
Nevertheless, that being a Drawing Room day, and fearing to disappoint
the King, and the company, she rose, dressed and attended the function.
Lord Hervey describes the following conversation with her when he
entered the rooms:
“Is it not intolerable,” she said, “at my age to be plagued with a new
distemper? Here is that nasty cholic I had at Hampton Court come again.”
She looked extremely ill, and telling him the incidents of the morning
Lord Hervey became alarmed.
“For God’s sake, Madam,” he said, “go to your room, what have you to do
here?”
She went and talked a little to the people and then came back again to
Hervey.
“I am not able to entertain people,” she said.
“Would to God,” he replied, impatiently, “the King would have done
talking of the ‘Dragon of Wantley,’ and release you!”
This was a new silly farce, which no doubt just suited the King who was
for ever talking about it. It was a burlesque on the Italian Opera, by
Henry Carey, and first played at Covent Garden the 26th October, 1737.
At last the King had said his last word on this entertaining subject
and left, giving the Queen the chance which both she and Lord Hervey
desired, for her to get away.
[Illustration: CAROLINE, QUEEN OF GEORGE II, AND THE YOUNG DUKE OF
CUMBERLAND]
The King, however, as he passed her, reminded her that she had not
spoken to the Duchess of Norfolk, and she went back and said a few
words to her. This was the last person she ever spoke to in public. She
retired, went at once to bed, and grew steadily worse.
The King, however, was not at all alarmed, indeed his courageous wife
did all she could to reassure him, and he went off in the evening to
play cards with Lady Deloraine. When, however, he returned late, the
condition of the Queen so alarmed him that he sent off for another
physician, Doctor Broxholme, Ranby, the King’s house surgeon, being
already there, principally for bleeding purposes apparently.
These learned doctors, who all along regarded her symptoms as those
of cholic, could think of nothing better to give her than usquebaugh,
_i.e._, whiskey--which seemed to do her as much good as the many
nostrums which were afterwards administered. Having tried such things
as Daffy’s Elixir, mint water, usquebaugh, snake root, and “Sir Walter
Raleigh’s Cordial”--which appears to have been some remedy of the great
explorer’s which had survived to that time--the doctors, in the fashion
of the day, decided to bleed the Queen, and the ever-ready Ranby was
ordered to draw off twelve ounces of blood.
The King, now thoroughly alarmed, commenced to show great anxiety, and
insisted on lying in his night-gown, _i.e._, dressing gown, outside the
Queen’s bed all night, so that he greatly inconvenienced both her and
himself, as he could not sleep, and the poor sufferer could not turn in
bed.
The diary of the Queen’s illness may be summarised as follows:
Thursday, November 18th.
The Queen was bled again early in the morning, and lost twelve ounces,
which abated her fever. As the King left her to go to his own side of
the Palace, she grew very despondent, and told her daughter Caroline
that no matter what they did she would die. “Poor Caroline,” she added
to her daughter, who was ailing, “you are very ill, too; we shall soon
meet again in another place.”
Growing better in the morning the King determined to hold a Levee, and
was very particular about having his new lace cuffs sewn on his shirt,
as the Foreign Ministers were coming. Sir Robert Walpole was at his
country seat, Houghton, in Norfolk, and knew nothing of the Queen’s
illness. This day there was some talk of sending for him, and the Duke
of Newcastle and Lord Hervey both wrote.
This evening the Queen said to her daughter Caroline and Lord Hervey,
who was with her--he seems to have hardly left her--“I have an ill
which nobody knows of.” No particular significance was however attached
to this remark.
This night, two more physicians were called in, Sir Hans Sloan, and Dr.
Hulst, who, still treating her for cholic and an internal stoppage,
ordered her blisters and aperients; the latter, like everything else
she took, she brought up.
Friday, November 11th.
Early in the morning the Queen was again “blooded” for fever. Her bad
symptoms remained the same. This day the Prince of Wales, hearing of
his mother’s illness, came to Carlton House in Pall Mall from Kew, and
Lord Hervey, hearing of this, became much alarmed lest he should call
at the Palace and ask for his mother. He flew to the King to ask for
instructions--he was the only Lord of the Court allowed near the King
and Queen. These were instructions which no doubt gladdened the heart
of Lord Hervey:
The King said:
“If the puppy should, in one of his impertinent, affected, airs of duty
and affection, dare to come to St. James’s, I order you to go to the
scoundrel and tell him I wonder at his impudence to come here; that he
has my orders already and knows my pleasure, and bid him to go about
his business.”
Very fatherly conduct under the circumstances!
Shortly afterwards while Lord Hervey was sitting with the Duke of
Cumberland drinking tea in the Queen’s outer apartment, Lady Pembroke
approached and informed them that Lord North had just been there from
the Prince of Wales, who had desired her in the Prince’s name to let
the King and Queen know that his Royal Highness was greatly distressed
to hear of the Queen’s illness and had come to London to be near her.
The only thing which could alleviate his concern was the favour of
being allowed to see her.
The Duke, then seventeen, made the following formal answer:
“I am not a proper person, Madam, to take the charge of this message,
but there is Lord Hervey, who is the only one of papa’s servants that
sees him at present, and is just going to him; if you will deliver it
to him, he will certainly let the King know.”
Accordingly, Lady Pembroke repeated the message to Lord Hervey, who
took it to the King.
“This,” raved his Majesty, when he received it, “is like one of the
scoundrel’s tricks,” and he forthwith sent the following kind answer
to his son’s message--written at the suggestion of Lord Hervey, and
probably at his dictation also--per Lord North, to whom Lord Hervey
read it from the paper, to prevent any of “_Cartouche’s Gang_,” as the
Queen called her son’s party, from garbling it. The message was as
follows:--
“I have acquainted the King with the message sent to Lady Pembroke, and
his Majesty has ordered me to say that in the present situation and
circumstances his Majesty does not think fit that the Prince should
see the Queen, and therefore expects that he should not come to St.
James’s.”
This was considered far too mild by the King.
But the state of the Queen’s mind towards her son, even at this
unfortunate time, may be gauged by the following incident:
On this Friday afternoon she asked the King whether “The Griff” had
sent to ask to see her. “But sooner or later,” she continued, “I am
sure we shall be plagued with some message of that kind, because he
will think it will have a good air in the world to ask to see me; and
perhaps hopes I shall be fool enough to let him come, and give him the
pleasure to see the last breath go out of my body, by which means he
would have the joy of knowing I was dead five minutes sooner than he
could know it in Pall Mall.”
Fine sentiments these, for a mother on her death bed to hold towards
her eldest son!
But the whole of this Friday the Queen grew worse hour by hour. But it
was on Saturday that the true nature of her illness was discovered,
and this by a hint given to Ranby, the Court Surgeon by the King,
who then, for the first time, stated that he believed the Queen was
suffering from an umbilical rupture, incurred at the birth of Princess
Louisa thirteen years before. Incredible as it appears, there is not
a question of a doubt but that the Queen had concealed this rupture
for all those years simply and solely because if the knowledge of this
ailment was bruited about, it would tend to render her objectionable to
the King--though it appears he was aware of it--and that she would have
died rather than disclose it.
Her motive was plainly jealousy of his mistresses.
However, once the hint was given, Ranby, the Surgeon, would not be
denied, and insisted on an examination, which she strove by every means
in her power to avoid.
When this had been conducted and Ranby was whispering to the King in a
corner, she started up in bed:
“I am sure now, you blockhead,” she cried, “you are telling the King I
have a rupture.”
“I am so,” answered Ranby, “and there is no more time to be lost, your
Majesty has concealed it too long already, and I beg another surgeon
may be called in immediately.”
The Queen did not answer, but, lying down, turned her face to the wall
and wept. The only time she shed a tear, as the King stated, during her
illness.
As Dr. Ranby stated there was little time to be lost; the King sent at
once for Dr. Busier,[56] a French surgeon, eighty years old, in whom
they all had great confidence, but he not being found, Ranby
was sent out to bring in the first surgeon of note he could find. The
celebrated Cheselden, Surgeon to the Queen, appears to have been absent.
Ranby returned however with Shipton, an eminent City surgeon, and
shortly after, Busier, the French surgeon, arrived, who advised an
immediate operation. This was objected to by the other two, and thus
probably the Queen’s last chance went.
The following may be taken as an example of the hatred which had grown
up in the King’s heart against his eldest son. The ever-ready Hervey
whispered a suggestion to him on this day which enraged him.
He told him “that he had heard it mentioned among some lawyers” that
Richmond Gardens--the Queen’s private estate--would go to the Prince of
Wales if his mother died.
So furious did the King become at this suggestion, that he was not
satisfied until the Lord Chancellor had been fetched off the Bench to
give an opinion on it, which being against the Prince, he communicated
it to the Queen to comfort her.
This Saturday evening an operation of a minor character was performed
upon the Queen.
The next day, Sunday, the 13th, was a black day; the Queen’s wound
began to mortify and all hope was abandoned.
This day she practically took leave of her favourite son:
“As for you, William,” she said, “you know I have always loved you
tenderly and placed my chief hope in you.”
She bade him be a support to the King, and not go against his brother.
But it was on this Sunday afternoon that the celebrated interview
took place between the King and Queen, which perhaps was the most
extraordinary, valedictory conversation between man and wife the world
has ever heard of.
The Queen had been taking leave of her family; she turned sadly to her
husband and drew from her finger a fine ruby ring he had given her at
her coronation, and gave it to him back again.
“This is the last thing I have to give you.” she said. “Naked I came to
you, naked I go from you. I had everything I ever possessed from you,
and to you whatever I have I return. My will you will find a very short
one; I give all I have to you.”
She then very solemnly repeated to him advice which she had often given
him before; that he should marry again.
The King had been sobbing before; this advice brought on a passion of
weeping, amidst which he made this remarkable and most characteristic
response:
“Non, j’aurai des maîtresses.”
One would have thought that, King as he was, some one would have hushed
him down, but the Queen seems to have very calmly answered:
“Mon Dieu! cela n’empêche pas.”
What can one say of a man and wife who talked thus over a death bed?
The Queen was thought to be dying that day, but she lingered on. On
Monday morning, Sir Robert Walpole arrived post haste from Houghton; he
had only heard of the Queen’s illness on the previous day owing to the
Duke of Newcastle’s neglect in sending the messenger round to the Duke
of Grafton first.
All Sir Robert’s enemies seemed to have concluded that his power would
wane, when the Queen, his patroness and friend, was dead; they did
their best to keep him from her at the last. But he arrived long before
the Queen died, and one of his first remarks on the situation to Lord
Hervey was the following: “Oh, my Lord!” cried Sir Robert, greatly
distressed, “if this woman should die what a scene of confusion will
here be! Who can tell into what hands the King will fall? or who will
have the management of him? I defy the ablest person in this kingdom to
foresee what will be the consequence of this great event.”
There was a particularly scandalous rumour prevalent at the Court
during this sad time concerning the Prince, which emanated, as usual,
from Lord Hervey, who said he heard it from the Duke of Marlborough
through one of his--Lord Hervey’s--particular friends, Harry Fox.
The rumour was that the Prince used to sit up half the night at
Carlton House, sending messengers continually to the Palace to make
enquiries, and eagerly awaiting his mother’s death with remarks like
the following:--
“Well, sure, we shall soon have good news; she cannot hold out much
longer!”
It may be said at once that Mr. Hamilton, one of the Prince’s
Household, contradicted these reports immediately he heard them, and
added that the Prince was in the greatest concern for his mother,
which seems by far the more natural and likely state for him to be in.
He was irritated, there can be no doubt, and no wonder at it; the very
fact of his being excluded, not only from his mother’s death bed,
but from the Palace itself, and every one belonging to his household
as well, was calculated to fill him with the bitterest thoughts. The
contemplation of the fact that all her other children were _there_, and
that Lord Hervey, his bitterest enemy, was occupying his place by his
mother’s pillow, was not likely to bring much calm to his feelings. The
only wonder is that he did not insist upon forcing himself into her
room.
When Lady Archibald Hamilton was consulted as to the above rumours
concerning the Prince’s behaviour, her answer was, “he is very decent.”
But a question was raised--by Lord Hervey again--about the members of
the Prince’s Household coming even to the Palace to inquire and remain
in the general ante-room in which all inquirers waited for news. The
King was at last moved to send a message, by Lord Hervey, to Sir Robert
Walpole to ask what was to be done about these messages from the Prince.
Lord Hervey, eager for an additional insult to those the Prince had
recently received, was strongly in favour of their being excluded from
the Palace. He maintained that they were evading the King’s order not
to come into his presence.
Sir Robert, however, was far too wise to interfere with them, and
sagely advised that they should be left alone.
All through that Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Queen grew
worse and worse, until, among the people, questions were continually
being asked as to whether she had seen a clergyman.
The echoes of these questions reached the Palace, and those about the
Queen’s bed began to consider what was to be done. The King in his
character of head of the church, had deputed his duties in regard to
the appointment of the Bishops to the Queen; he took no interest in
such things. Indeed his opinion of Bishops in general, which he freely
expressed, was not a high one. He strongly objected to their incomes,
which he stated were inconsistent with their preaching.
It appears therefore that the Queen, Sir Robert Walpole--who had no
religious convictions whatever--and Mrs. Clayton--Lady Sundon--did
most of the appointing of the Spiritual Peers. The Queen herself is
described as a Protestant of very broad views.
When then the question began to be canvassed between the King, Sir
Robert Walpole, and Lord Hervey as to what was to be done to provide
the Queen with a spiritual adviser to see her comfortably out of the
world, neither seemed very well prepared to give an opinion on the
point, though all three clearly saw that something must be done to
satisfy public opinion and prejudice.
Sir Robert Walpole, however, summed up the matter in the following
directions to Princess Amelia:--
“Pray, Madam, let this farce be played: the Archbishop will act it very
well. You may bid him be as short as you will. It will do the Queen no
hurt, no more than any good; and it will satisfy all the wise and good
fools, who will call us all atheists if we don’t pretend to be as great
fools as they are.”
So much for Sir Robert’s opinion of the consolations of religion. As
for the King, he never waited to see Archbishop Potter, the Primate,
but fled hastily from the Queen’s chamber when he heard he was
approaching. The observances for which the Bishop was responsible,
conveyed nothing to his mind whatever. Potter attended the Queen, night
and morning after this Wednesday, but what passed between them is not
known.
There was a great deal of inquiry as to whether the Queen would receive
the sacrament, “some fools,” according to Lord Hervey, “said the Queen
had not religion enough to ask to receive the sacrament.”
The Archbishop maintained a discreet silence on the point, when asked
as he came from the sick chamber:
“Has the Queen received?” he parried the question by replying:
“Gentlemen, Her Majesty is in a most heavenly frame of mind.”
But that the visit of the Archbishop had resulted in any reconciliation
between the Queen and the Prince of Wales, there is not a trace of
evidence, indeed the testimony is all the other way. She could not bear
at this time to think that even the gentlemen of his household were in
her ante-room, and at last had it cleared of all strangers.
“Will nobody turn these ravens out of the house!” she cried, “who are
only there to watch my death, and would gladly tear me to pieces whilst
I am alive!”
No, there was, unhappily, no forgiveness nor wish for reconciliation
there.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday passed in much the same way as the preceding
sad days except that the Queen grew steadily weaker. The King
distinguished himself by a mixture of brutality and tenderness towards
the dying woman. He scarcely ever left her room, night or day, except
when the Archbishop came to offer spiritual consolation.
“How the devil should you sleep when you will never lie still a
moment!” he exclaimed on one occasion, when her continual shifting
in bed, owing to her ailment and her wound, worried him. But he was
equally annoyed when she would lie quite still; looking straight
before her as sick persons will at nothing: “_Mon Dieu!_” he exclaimed
irritably, exasperated at her quietness. “What are you looking at?
What makes you fix your eyes like that? Your eyes look like a calf’s
when it is going to have its throat cut!”
All this, of course, was very suitable to the decorum of the death-bed
of a Queen, but perhaps after all the little man was worn out with the
continuous watching.
Then came Sunday, and each hour the Queen grew weaker, so that it came
to be a wonder that she had survived the last; but she lingered on
until the evening, and then asked Dr. Tesier, her physician:
“How long can this last?”
“I think,” he replied, “that your Majesty will soon be relieved from
suffering.”
“The sooner the better,” she answered.
Lord Hervey thus describes the last scene:
“About ten o’clock on Sunday night--the King being in bed and asleep
on the floor at the foot of the Queen’s bed, and the Princess Emily in
a couch-bed in a corner of the room--the Queen began to rattle in her
throat; and Mrs. Purcel, giving the alarm that she was expiring, all in
the room started up, Princess Caroline was sent for and Lord Hervey,
but before the last arrived the Queen was just dead. All she said
before she died was:
“I have now got an asthma. Open the window.” Then she added:
“_Pray._”
Upon which the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, of which
she scarcely repeated ten words when the Queen expired. The Princess
Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, and, finding there was not
the least damp upon it, cried: “’Tis over!”
The King kissed the face and hands of the lifeless body several times,
but in a few minutes left the Queen’s apartment.
Thus died Caroline, by some called “The Illustrious,” by some even “The
Great,” but whose character was such a mixture of great and little
things that it is most difficult to give an accurate estimate of its
virtues or vices.
That she began well as a young girl cannot be doubted; she was
beautiful and brilliant, and entered life with the very best
intentions. Indeed, not one word has ever been said against her
character as a wife.
Perhaps the very greatest misfortune which ever happened to her was
to have married George Augustus, Electorial Prince of Hanover, and
therefore in due course to have become Queen of England.
Perhaps as the consort of the Prince of some petty German State she
might have shone as a wife and mother, and brought up her children with
good honest affection.
As it was, she early fell under the influence of such men as Sir Robert
Walpole--soulless, godless. No, not godless, because their God was
Ambition, before which no sacrifice was too great, Honour, Truth, or
even the lives of men.
Surely poor Caroline must have fallen far, when she adopted as her
constant companion, such a man as Lord Hervey.
But whatever good there was in her--and there was much--seems to have
been choked and hidden by her greed for Power, which even led her to
pander to her little contemptible husband’s vices.
Her conduct to her eldest son was without excuse, unless her separation
of fourteen years from him can be regarded in that light; but it is
much more likely that the arrival of the handsome boy, Prince William,
had more to do with her forgetfulness.
Unhappily, there is very little doubt that she died unreconciled to
Frederick, and that moreover she desired no reconciliation. Had there
been any such reconciliation, it would have been made public at the
time when such verses as the following were floating about.
Lord Chesterfield wrote an epitaph to the Queen in these words:--
“Here lies unpitied both by Church and State,
The subject of their flattery and hate;
Flattered by those on whom her favours flow’d,
Hated for favours impiously bestow’d;
Who aimed the Church by Churchmen to betray,
And hoped to share in arbitrary sway.
In Tindal’s and in Hoadley’s path she trod,
An hypocrite in all but disbelief in God.
Promoted Luxury, encouraged vice--
Herself a sordid slave to avarice.
True friendship’s love ne’er touched her heart,
Falsehood appeared in vice disguised by art
Fawning and haughty; when familiar, rude
And never civil, seem’d but to delude.
Inquisitive in trifling, mean affairs,
Heedless of public good or orphan’s tears.
_To her own offspring mercy she denied_,
And, unforgiving, unforgiven, died.”
The above bitter lines, in exceedingly bad taste, are only valuable as
regards the two last, which clearly state--and Lord Chesterfield was in
a position to know--that she did not forgive her son at the last.
Pope, too, who seems, like the majority, to have been on the side of
the Prince, concludes another poem on the subject in the following
ironical words:
“Hang the sad verse on Carolina’s urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest.
All parts performed _and all her children blest_.”
These are sage Sarah of Marlborough’s reflexions, none too charitable,
on the Queen’s death:
“1737. Our Bishops are now about to employ hands to write the finest
character that ever was heard of--Queen Caroline; who, as it is no
treason, I freely own that I am glad she is dead. For to get money,
that has proved of no manner of use to her, and to support Sir Robert
in all his arbitrary injustice, she brought this nation on the very
brink of ruin, and has endangered the succession of her own family, by
raising so high a dissatisfaction in the whole nation, as there is to
them all, and by giving so much power to France, whenever they think
fit to make use of it, who will have no mercy upon England.
“1737. His Majesty thinks he has lost the greatest politician that ever
was born, and one that did him the greatest service that was possible.
Though everybody else that knows the truth must acknowledge that it
was quite the contrary. For my own part it is demonstration to me,
that nothing could have put this nation and family in danger but the
measures of the Queen and Sir Robert. To my knowledge, most of the
weeping ladies that went to the King, have expressed the same opinion
of the Queen formerly that I have described.
“1737-8. Upon her great understanding and goodness there comes out
nauseous panegyrics every day, that make one sick, so full of nonsense
and lies, that there is one very remarkable from a Dr. Clarke, in order
to have the first bishoprick that falls, and I daresay he will have it,
though there is something extremely ridiculous in the panegyric; for
after he has given her the most perfect character that ever any woman
had or can have, he allows that:
“‘She had sacrificed her reputation to the great and the many, to show
her duty to the King, and her love to her country.’ These are the
clergyman’s words exactly, which allows she did wrong things, but it
was to please the King; which is condemning him. I suppose he must mean
some good she did to her own country, for I know of none she did in
England, unless raking from the public deserves a panegyric.
“1737-8. It seems to me as if her ghost did everything by their
saying, whatever is to be done, was the Queen’s opinion should be so;
and everything is compassed by that means by Sir Robert, without any
trouble at all; but if ----[57] should happen to have an opinion of any
person that is living, perhaps they may get the better of the ghost.”
FOOTNOTES:
[56] F.R.S. The first lecturer on Surgery in England.
[57] The King no doubt.