“Sir George Baker was there, and was privately exhorted by the gentlemen to lead the King back to his room; but he had not courage: he attempted only to speak, and the King penned him in a corner, told him he was a mere old woman—that he wondered he had ever followed his advice, for he knew nothing of his complaint, which was only nervous!
“The Prince of Wales, by signs and whispers, would have urged others to have drawn him away, but no one dared approach him, and he remained there a considerable time, ‘Nor do I know when he would have been got back,’ continued the Prince, ‘if at last Mr. Digby[[94]] had not undertaken him. I am extremely obliged to Mr. Digby indeed.’[indeed.’] He came boldly up to him, and took him by the arm, and begged him to go to bed, and then drew him along, and said he must go. Then he said he would not, and cried, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am Mr. Digby, sir,’ he answered, ‘and your Majesty has been very good to me often, and now I am going to be very good to you, for you must come to bed, sir: it is necessary to your life. And then he was so surprised that he let himself be drawn along just like a child; and so they got him to bed. I believe else he would have stayed all night!’”
On the following morning, an incident occurred which showed the revolution that had taken place in the palace. Mr. Smelt had travelled post from York on hearing of the King’s illness, but had not yet been able to see either him or the Queen. Accidentally meeting with the Prince of Wales, he was received by his old pupil with much apparent kindness of manner, and invited to remain at Windsor till he could be admitted to the Queen’s presence. Not small, then, was his surprise when, on returning shortly afterwards to the Upper Lodge, the porter handed him his great-coat, saying that he had express orders from the Prince to refuse him re-admission.[[95]] ‘From this time,’ continues Miss Burney, ‘as the poor King grew worse, general hope seemed universally to abate; and the Prince of Wales now took the government of the house into his own hands. Nothing was done but by his orders, and he was applied to in every difficulty. The Queen interfered not in anything; she lived entirely in her two new rooms, and spent the whole day in patient sorrow and retirement with her daughters.’
The next news which reached the suite was that the Prince had issued commands to the porter to admit only four persons into the house on any pretence whatever; and these were ordered to repair immediately to the equerry-room below stairs, while no one whatsoever was to be allowed to go to any other apartment. ‘From this time,’ adds the Diary, ‘commenced a total banishment from all intercourse out of the house, and an unremitting confinement within its walls.’ The situation was rendered even more intolerable by the sudden return of Mrs. Schwellenberg from Weymouth. On the 10th, Miss Burney writes: ‘This was a most dismal day. The dear and most suffering King was extremely ill, the Queen very wretched, poor Mrs. Schwellenberg all spasm and horror, Miss Planta all restlessness, the house all mystery, and my only informant and comforter [Colonel Digby] distanced.’
Then began a series of tantalizing fluctuations. From November 12 to the 15th, the King showed some signs of amendment; but on Sunday, the 16th, all was dark again in the Upper Lodge. ‘The King was worse. His night had been very bad; all the fair promise of amendment was shaken; he had now some symptoms even dangerous to his life. Oh, good heaven! what a day did this prove! I saw not a human face, save at dinner; and then what faces! gloom and despair in all, and silence to every species of intelligence.’ The special prayer for the King’s recovery was used this day for the first time in St. George’s Chapel. Evidences of the general distress were apparent on all sides. ‘Every prayer in the service in which he was mentioned brought torrents of tears from all the suppliants that joined in them.’ Fanny ran away after the service to avoid inquiries.
Of the afternoon she writes: ‘It was melancholy to see the crowds of former welcome visitors who were now denied access. The Prince reiterated his former orders; and I perceived from my window those who had ventured to the door returning back in tears.’ She received letters of inquiry, but was not at liberty to write a word. The night of the 19th was no better than that of the 16th. ‘Mr. Charles Hawkins came,’ proceeds the Diary. ‘He had sat up. Oh, how terrible a narrative did he drily give of the night!—short, abrupt, peremptorily bad, and indubitably hopeless. I did not dare alter, but I greatly softened this relation, in giving it to my poor Queen.’ On this day Dr. Warren told Mr. Pitt that there was now every reason to believe that the King’s disorder was no other than actual lunacy.
All the equerries, except one who was ill, were now on duty. The King, in his rambling talk, reproached them with want of attention. They lost their whole time at table, he said, by sitting so long over their bottle; ‘and Mr. Digby,’ he added on one occasion, ‘is as bad as any of them; not that he stays so long at table, or is so fond of wine, but yet he’s just as late as the rest; for he’s so fond of the company of learned ladies, that he gets to the tea-table with Miss Burney, and there he stays and spends his whole time.’ Colonel Digby, in repeating this speech to the lady interested, was good enough to explain to her that what the King had in his head was—Miss Gunning. The Colonel went on to mention Miss Gunning’s learning and accomplishments with great praise, yet ‘with that sort of general commendation that disclaims all peculiar interest;’ touched, in a tone of displeasure, on the report that had been spread concerning him and her; lightly added something about its utter falsehood; and concluded by saying that this, in the then confused state of the King’s mind, was what his Majesty meant by ‘learned ladies.’ More puzzled than enlightened by this explanation, Fanny, with some hesitation, assented to the insinuating Chamberlain’s suggestion that she should think no more of what the King had said, but allow the Colonel ‘to come and drink tea with her very often.’
From the 20th to the 28th there was no improvement in the condition of the sick monarch. Nearly all who saw him, whether physicians or members of the suite, began to abandon hope of his recovery; only Sir Lucas Pepys, an old friend of the Burneys, who was now added to the medical attendants, inclined to a more encouraging view. The proceedings of the 28th are entered in the Diary, as follows:
“Sir Lucas made me a visit, and informed me of all the medical proceedings; and told me, in confidence, we were to go to Kew to-morrow, though the Queen herself had not yet concurred in the measure; but the physicians joined to desire it, and they were supported by the Princes. The difficulty how to get the King away from his favourite abode was all that rested. If they even attempted force, they had not a doubt but his smallest resistance would call up the whole country to his fancied rescue! Yet how, at such a time, prevail by persuasion?
“He moved me even to tears, by telling me that none of their own lives would be safe if the King did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of affection and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives! Sir George Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by the mob, to give an account of the King; and when he said it was a bad one, they had furiously exclaimed, ‘The more shame for you!’