Whilst the Queen was talking one morning touching George I.’s will and other family matters, with Lord Hervey, ‘the King opened her door at the further end of the gallery; upon which the Queen chid Lord Hervey for coming so late, saying, that she had several things to say to him, and that he was always so long in coming, after he was sent for, that she never had any time to talk with him. To which Lord Hervey replied, that it was not his fault, for that he always came the moment he was called; that he wished, with all his heart, the King had more love, or Lady Deloraine more wit, that he might have more time with her Majesty; but that he thought it very hard that he should be snubbed and reproved because the King was old and Lady Deloraine a fool. This made the Queen laugh; and the King asking, when he came up to her, what it was at, she said it was at a conversation Lord Hervey was reporting between the prince and Mr. Lyttelton, on his being made secretary. The King desired him to repeat it. Lord Hervey got out of the difficulty as he best could. When the Queen and my lord next met, she said: “I think I was one with you for your impertinence.” To which Lord Hervey replied, “The next time you serve me so, madam, perhaps I may be even with you, and desire your Majesty to repeat as well as report.”’[38]
It may be noticed here, that both Frederick and the Queen’s party published copies of the French correspondence which had passed between the two branches of the family at feud, and that in the translations appended to the letters, each party was equally unscrupulous in giving such turns to the phrases as should serve only one side, and injure the adverse faction. Bishop Sherlock, who set the good fashion of residing much within his own diocese, once ventured to give an opinion upon the prince’s conduct, which at least served to show that the prelate was not a very finished courtier. Bishops who reside within their dioceses, and trouble themselves little with what takes place beyond it, seldom are. The bishop said that the prince had lacked able counsellors, had weakly played his game into the King’s hands, and made a blunder which he would never retrieve. This remark provoked Caroline to say—‘I hope, my lord, this is not the way you intend to speak your disapprobation of my son’s measures anywhere else; for your saying that, by his conduct lately, he has played his game into the King’s hands, one would imagine you thought the game had been before in his own; and though he has made his game still worse than it was, I am far from thinking it ever was a good one, or that he had ever much chance to win.’
Caroline, and indeed her consort also, conjectured that the public voice and opinion were expressed in favour of the occupants of the throne from the fact, that the birthday drawing-room of the 30th of October was the most splendid and crowded which had ever been known since the King’s accession. That King himself probably little cared whether he were popular or not. He was at this time buying hundreds of lottery-tickets, out of the secret-service money, and making presents of them to Madame Walmoden. A few fell, perhaps, to the share of Lady Deloraine: ‘He’ll give her a couple of tickets,’ said Walpole, ‘and think her generously used.’ His Majesty would have rejoiced if he could have divided so easily his double possession of England and Hanover. He had long entertained a wish to give the Electorate to his second son, William of Cumberland, and entertained a very erroneous idea that the English parliament could assist him in altering the law of succession in the Electorate. Caroline had, perhaps, not a much more correctly formed idea. She had a conviction, however, touching her son, which was probably better founded. ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘he would sell not only his reversion in the Electorate, but even in this kingdom, if the Pretender would give him five or six hundred thousand pounds in present; but, thank God! he has neither right nor power to sell his family—though his folly and his knavery may sometimes distress them.’[39]
CHAPTER VIII.
DEATH OF CAROLINE.
Indisposition of the Queen—Her anxiety to conceal the cause—Walpole closeted with her—Her illness assumes a grave character—Obliged to retire from the Drawing-room—Affectionate attentions of Princess Caroline—Continued bitter feeling towards the Prince—Discussions of the physicians—Queen takes leave of the Duke of Cumberland—Parting scene with the King—Interview with Walpole—The Prince denied the palace—Great patience of the Queen—The Archbishop summoned to the palace—Eulogy on the Queen pronounced by the King—His oddities—The Queen’s exemplary conduct—Her death—Terror of Dr. Hulse—Singular conduct of the King—Opposition to Sir R. Walpole—Lord Chesterfield pays court to the Prince’s favourite.
After the birth of the Princess Louisa, on the 12th of December, 1724, Caroline, then Princess of Wales, was more than ordinarily indisposed. Her indisposition was of such a nature that, though she had made no allusion to it herself, her husband spoke to her on the subject. The princess avoided entering upon a discussion, and sought to satisfy the prince by remarking that her indisposition was nothing more than what was common to her health, position, and circumstances. For some years, although the symptoms were neglected, the disease was not aggravated. At length more serious indications were so perceptible to George, who was now King, that he did not conceal his opinion that she was suffering from rupture. This opinion she combated with great energy, for she had a rooted aversion to its being supposed that she was afflicted with any complaint. She feared lest the fact, being known, might lose her some of her husband’s regard, or lead people to think that with personal infirmity her power over him had been weakened. The King again and again urged her to acknowledge that she suffered from the complaint he had named, and to have medical advice on the subject. Again and again she refused, and each time with renewed expressions of displeasure; until at last, the King, contenting himself with expressing a hope that she would not have to repent of her obstinacy, made her a promise never to allude to the subject again without her consent. The secret, however, was necessarily known to others also; and we can only wonder that, being so known, more active and effective measures were not taken to remedy an evil which, in our days, at least, formidable as it may appear in name, is so successfully treated as almost to deserve no more serious appellation than a mere inconvenience.
Under an appearance of, at least, fair health, Queen Caroline may be said to have been gradually decaying for years. Her pride and her courage would not, however, allow of this being seen; and when she rose, as was her custom, to curtsey to the King, not even George himself was aware of the pain the effort cost her. Sir Robert Walpole was long aware that she suffered greatly from some secret malady, and it was not till after a long period of observation that he succeeded in discovering her Majesty’s secret. He was often closeted with her, arranging business that they were afterwards to nominally transact in presence of the King, and to settle, as he imagined, according to his will and pleasure. It was on some such occasion that Sir Robert made the discovery in question. The minister’s wife had just died; she was about the same age as Caroline, and the Queen put to the minister such close, physical questions, and adverted so frequently to the subject of rupture, of which Sir Robert’s wife did not die, that the minister at once came to the conclusion that her Majesty was herself suffering from that complaint.[40] This was the case: but the fact was only known to the King himself, her German nurse (Mrs. Mailborne), and one other person. A curious scene often occurred in her dressing-room and the adjoining apartment. During the process of the morning toilette, prayers were read in the outer room by her Majesty’s chaplain, the latter kneeling the while beneath the painting of a nude Venus—which, as Dr. Madox, a royal chaplain on service, once observed, was a ‘very proper altar-piece.’ On these occasions, Walpole tells us that, ‘to prevent all suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift, talking to her ladies, and, though labouring with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning, at Richmond, she walked several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as routed the gout; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper.’
In the summer of 1737 she suffered so seriously, that at length, on the 26th of August, a report spread over the town that the Queen was dead.[41] The whole city at once assumed a guise of mourning—gay summer or cheerful autumn dresses were withdrawn from the shop windows, and nothing was to be seen in their place but ‘sables.’ The report, however, was unfounded. Her Majesty had been ill, but one of her violent remedies had restored her for the moment. She was thereby enabled to walk about Hampton Court with the King; but she was not equal to the task of coming to London on the 29th of the same month, when her grand-daughter Augusta was christened, and King, Queen, and Duchess of Saxe Gotha stood sponsors, by their proxies, to the future mother of a future Queen of England.
At length, in November 1737, the crisis above alluded to occurred, and Caroline’s illness soon assumed a very grave character. Her danger, of which she was well aware, did not cause her to lose her presence of mind, nor her dignity, nor to sacrifice any characteristic of her disposition or reigning passion.
It was on Wednesday morning, the 9th of November, that the Queen was seized with the illness which ultimately proved fatal to her. She was distressed with violent internal pains, which Daffy’s Elixir, administered to her by Dr. Tessier, could not allay. The violence of the attack compelled her to return to bed early in the morning; but her courage was great and the King’s pity small, and consequently she rose, after resting for some hours, in order to preside at the usual Wednesday’s drawing-room. The King had great dislike to see her absent from this ceremony; without her, he used to say, there was neither grace, gaiety, nor dignity; and, accordingly, she went to this last duty with the spirit of a wounded knight who returns to the field and dies in harness. She was not able long to endure the fatigue. Lord Hervey was so struck by her appearance of weakness and suffering, that he urged her, with friendly peremptoriness, to retire from a scene for which she was evidently unfitted. The Queen acknowledged her inability to continue any longer in the room, but she could not well break up the assembly without the King, who was in another part of the room, discussing the mirth and merits of the last uproarious burlesque extravaganza, ‘The Dragon of Wantley.’ All London was then flocking to Covent Garden to hear Lampe’s music and Carey’s light nonsense; and Ryan’s Hamlet was not half so much cared for as Reinhold’s Dragon, nor Mrs. Vincent’s Ophelia so much esteemed as the Margery and Mauxalinda of the two Misses Young.