“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.