The Queen took infinite pains to hide the nature of her illness, frequently consulting doctors, and yet leaving them in ignorance of her real malady. For years, amid the splendours of her court, in the plenitude of her power, Caroline had carried with her this dread secret, and maintained a smiling face to the world. From time to time she must have suffered agonies, but she bore them with Spartan heroism. It was only during the King’s absences at Hanover that she indulged in the luxury of a collapse, and then she ascribed her weakness to the gout, or any cause but the real one. She held drawing-rooms as usual, but more than once she had to be wheeled into the presence-chamber in a chair, physically unable to stand. Of one of these breakdowns Peter Wentworth writes:—
“The Queen has been so ill. I went every day to the backstairs and had the general answer that she was better, but I knew when they told me true and when not, and was often in great pain for my good Queen, but it is not the fashion to show any at Court. The first day that she came out into her drawing-room she told a lady, whom I stood behind, that she had really been very bad and dangerously ill, but it was her own fault, for she had a fever a fortnight before she came from Kensington, but she kept it a secret, for she resolved to appear on the King’s birthday. She owned she did wrong, and said she would do so no more, upon which I made her a bow, as much as to say, I hoped she would do as she then said. I believe she understood me for she smiled upon me.”[123]
In some way the Queen connected the decline of her influence over the King, and his passion for the Walmoden, with the failing of her physical health, and she struggled against it to the death. It is no exaggeration to say that she would have died rather than let her malady become known—in fact her concealment of it led to her death. This secret anxiety gnawing always at her heart, combined with the worries she had to endure from without and within, told upon her strength. For the last two or three years she had been on the rack daily, a martyr to physical and mental anguish. The infidelity of the King, the unfilial conduct of the Prince of Wales, the hard work inseparable from her position, and the effort at all costs to keep a brave front to the world, told upon her health, until at last she could bear the strain no longer. It was in vain that she sought relaxation in her best-loved pursuits; the haunting fear never left her day or night.
Soon after the Prince of Wales had been turned out of St. James’s Palace the King and Queen removed there from Hampton Court, and remained over the King’s birthday (October 30th). The Queen busied herself much this autumn in fitting up a new library which she had built in the stable yard of St. James’s, on the site now occupied by Stafford House. It was a large handsome building constructed on the most approved principles. The Queen was now furnishing it with cases and books; she had ordered busts of philosophers and learned men to be placed in the corridor, and had requested the English ambassadors abroad to collect for her the best Spanish, French and Italian books to make her collection as complete as possible. When all was finished she hoped to hold there the intellectual tournaments in which she delighted, and make the library serve the double purpose of a lecture room. She used to go there nearly every day to personally superintend the work, and it was in this library on the morning of Wednesday, November 9th, that she finally broke down.
The Queen was giving some directions to the workmen when suddenly she was seized with violent internal pains. She made her way back to St. James’s Palace as quickly as she could, and went to bed. At two o’clock there was to be a drawing-room; the King proposed that it should be postponed, but the Queen, who did not wish it to be known that she was ill, declared that she felt much better, got up, dressed, and went to the drawing-room. She smiled and bowed as usual, and even chatted to some of the company, though she was suffering extremely, and could scarcely stand. The King noticed nothing amiss, and went on talking for a long time about some new farce that was the fashion of the hour. At last he dismissed the court, reminding the Queen, who was by this time in agony, that she had not spoken to the premier duchess, the Duchess of Norfolk. The Queen, as she was going out, went to the duchess, and apologised for the omission with her usual graciousness. On returning to her room she again went to bed.
THE PRINCESS CAROLINE.
(THIRD DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.)
The King thought it was only a temporary indisposition, in which belief she humoured him, and he went off in the evening to play cards with Lady Deloraine, after having sent for the German court physician to look after the Queen. Every hour the Queen became worse, but she was still bent on concealing the cause of her illness, and declared that she had the colic. She asked Lord Hervey, who was in attendance, what she should do to ease her pain. Lord Hervey, who was a chronic invalid, and made himself a worse one by taking quack nostrums, recommended her a concoction called “snake root”. But the German physician would not let her take it, and, as the Queen was now in a high fever, he called in another doctor. In ignorance of her malady, the doctors dosed their unfortunate patient with a number of horrible decoctions, such as “Daffy’s Elixir,” “Sir Walter Raleigh’s Cordial,” usquebaugh, and so forth, and then, as the only effect of these remedies was to make her violently sick, they sent for Ranby, the surgeon, who bled her into the bargain. The Princess Caroline, who had sat with her mother all day, now declared herself seized with rheumatic pains, and Lord Hervey, who was in his element, dosed her with another nostrum called “Ward’s Pill,” which, it is not surprising to hear, made her worse. The King came back at his usual hour, and was much upset at finding the Queen so ill. By way of showing his anxiety he lay on her bed all night, outside the coverlet, with the result that he spoilt his night’s rest and hers too.
The Queen was again bled in the morning (Thursday), and the fever having abated a little it was thought that she was better. But she knew that she was not, for she said to the Princess Caroline, who was suffering from the effects of the pill: “Poor Caroline, you are very ill too; we shall soon meet again in another place”. At her request the King held a drawing-room as usual, and the Princess Amelia took her mother’s place at court. So the day wore on. Towards the evening the Queen got worse, and in her agony cried aloud to the Princess Caroline: “I have an ill which nobody knows of”. But, as she gave no particulars, this was regarded merely as a vague statement. Two more physicians were called in, and further added to the illustrious patient’s discomfort by ordering blisters and aperients, both without effect. The King was now greatly concerned, and sat up all night with his wife.