Meanwhile the king passed his time praising the virtues of his wife, which he recounted over and over again, yet whenever he entered her room he was sure to say something rough or unkind. Once when her eyes had a vacant look peculiar to invalids, he requested her to "stop staring in that disagreeable way, which made her look just like a calf with its throat cut."
On the morning of the twentieth the queen turned to her physician, and asked, "How long can this last?"
"It will not be long," was the reply, "before your majesty will be relieved from this suffering."
"The sooner the better," said the queen. Then she began a solemn, earnest, eloquent prayer, that excited the admiration of every one present, for it was so beautiful and so touching. She requested to be raised up in bed, and asked all present to offer up a prayer for her. As she grew weaker she ordered water to be sprinkled over her, so that she might revive and be able to listen to the appeal to Heaven in her behalf. "Louder!" she murmured, while one or the other of her family prayed, "louder, that I may hear." One of the princesses read the Lord's Prayer, in which the dying queen took part; at its conclusion she looked fixedly at those who stood weeping around her, then with a long-drawn, feeble "so—!" expired, as the clock on the chimney-piece struck eleven.
The king kissed the face and hands of his dead wife, and then went to his own apartment; but he was so superstitious and so afraid of ghosts that he would not allow himself to be left alone for a moment. He kept constantly talking about his "Caroline," and related over and over again the different circumstances of her life. Then he would weep; but in the midst of his tears he burst into a roar of laughter at Horace Walpole, the brother of Sir Robert, because he presented such a grotesque appearance when he cried.
George II. was not a man to grieve very long nor very deeply, but he never ceased to respect the memory of his wife, and declared that he had never seen a woman whom he thought "good enough to buckle her shoes." Queen Caroline was mourned by a great number of people, as she well deserved to be, but by none more than the king, to whom she had been one of the truest, fondest wives a prince was ever blessed with. She loved him and was faithful to him to the last. Queen Caroline was a clever, learned, good-tempered woman. Her predominant passion was pride, the dearest pleasure of her soul was power; but to her credit it must be recorded that she never abused the power she had over the king's mind by employing it for the promotion of her own friends or favorites. Carlyle says of her: "There is something stoically tragic in the history of Caroline with her flighty vaporing, little king; seldom had foolish husband so wise a wife."
Queen Caroline was buried at Westminster Abbey, and the Princess Amelia acted as chief mourner. The anthem sung on that occasion was "The Ways of Zion do Mourn," set to music by Handel.
Of course the ill-feeling between the king and the Prince of Wales continued, and whatever courtiers visited at Carlton House dared not show their faces at St. James's, and the king's jealousy of his son was probably further increased when George Augustus, who afterwards reigned as George III., was born. This event occurred on the 4th of June, 1738; and after that the party opposed to the king gathered more and more around the prince, while the rival courts kept the town amused.
[A.D. 1743.] For twelve years Sir Robert Walpole had kept England at peace, but the era of war began soon after Queen Caroline's death. George II. espoused the cause of Marie Theresa when the French tried to deprive her of her inheritance. During that campaign the Earl of Stair, who commanded the British troops, allowed himself to be surrounded by the enemy near the village of Dettingen, and but for the bravery of George II., who was present, would have lost the battle. His majesty rode a vicious horse, which during the conflict carried him out of the way. At length with the assistance of a soldier the animal was stopped, and the king dismounted, saying in his broken English, "Aha! now dat I am upon my own legs, I am sure dat I sal not run away!" The Duke of Cumberland had accompanied his father to Flanders, and when they got back to England they met with a most enthusiastic reception. The Prince of Wales stood at the head of the stairs of St. James's Palace with his two sisters to receive the king, who passed him by as he would a dog. The next year the Duke of Cumberland met with a signal defeat at Fontenoy, and in 1748 peace was restored to England once more. The Prince of Wales continued to oppose his father all the time, but that did not prevent his son, Prince George, from having the Order of the Garter conferred on him. On that occasion the little knight was carried to the king's door in his father's arms. The Duke of Dorset received him, and he made a speech that had been taught him by his tutor.
A.D. 1749. The dissension between George II. and his eldest son was put an end to at last by the death of the latter, which occurred as a result of great imprudence in 1751. The king was at Kensington when the news reached him looking at a game of cards. "Dead, is he? Why, they told me he was better," and that is all the regret, if it may be so called, that the royal father felt at the loss of his first-born. But he sent kind messages to the widow, who behaved with a great deal of sense and courage.