The night before the funeral a brief service was held in the death chamber by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which the King, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Princesses Amelia, Caroline, Mary, and Louisa attended. This was the King’s farewell of all that was mortal of his Queen, for he was too ill, and too much overcome by grief to attend her funeral. The service over, the coffin was privately conveyed by torchlight from St. James’s Palace to the Princes’ Chamber adjoining the House of Lords. Here the late Queen’s pages watched all night, and were joined in the morning by her Majesty’s maids of honour. The body lay in state all that day, guarded by twenty gentlemen pensioners.
At six o’clock in the evening the funeral procession started from the Princes’ Chamber, and passed through Old Palace Yard to the great north door of Westminster Abbey, by means of a covered way lined throughout with black. Though the funeral was officially described as private, the procession was a long one, and included the Ministers, the court officials, the physicians who attended the Queen in her last illness, all those who held places in her household, and many peers. Sir Robert Walpole followed his royal mistress to her last resting-place. The Queen’s Chamberlain carried her crown on a black velvet cushion, and walked immediately before the coffin, which was borne by ten yeomen of the guard, and covered “with a large pall of black velvet, lined with black silk, with a fine holland sheet, adorned with ten large escutcheons painted on satin, under a canopy of black velvet”.[130] Six dukes acted as pall bearers, and ten members of the Privy Council bore the canopy; in an equal line on either side marched the gentlemen pensioners with their arms reversed. Behind the coffin walked the Princess Amelia as chief mourner. She was supported by the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of Dorset, and her train was born by the Duchess of St. Albans and the Duchess of Montagu. The Princess Amelia was followed by a long train of ladies, including nearly all the duchesses and a large number of other peeresses, the late Queen’s ladies of the bedchamber, maids of honour, and bedchamber women. The chief mourner and all the ladies wore long veils of black crape. The Dean and Canons of Westminster, wearing their copes, and the choir, augmented by the choir boys of the Chapel Royal in their habits of scarlet and gold, bearing wax tapers in their hands, met the coffin at the north door of the Abbey, and the procession wended its way through the north and south aisles to Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, the choir chanting the while the psalm Domine refugium. The coffin was rested by the side of the open grave, hard by the tomb of Henry the Seventh, and the burial service was proceeded with up to the committal prayers. The Garter King of Arms then stepped forward and proclaimed the late Queen’s style and titles in a loud voice.
“Thus it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of the transitory life to His Divine mercy the late most high, most mighty, and most excellent princess, Caroline, by the Grace of God Queen-Consort of the most high, most mighty, and most excellent monarch George the Second, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, whom God bless and preserve with long life, health and honour, and all worldly happiness.”
Then the choir sang the beautiful anthem which Handel had composed especially for the occasion:—
“The ways of Zion do mourn, and she is in bitterness: all her people sigh and hang down their heads to the ground. How are the mighty fallen! she that was great among the nations and princess of the provinces. How are the mighty fallen! When the ear heard her, then it blessed her: and when the eye saw her, it gave witness of her. How are the mighty fallen! she that was great among the nations and princess of the provinces. She delivered the poor that cried: the fatherless and him that had no helper. Kindness, meekness, and comfort were in her tongue. If there was any virtue, and if there was any praise, she thought on those things. Her body is buried in peace, but her name liveth for evermore.”[131]
When the last notes of the anthem had died away, the procession returned to the north door of the Abbey in the same order as it had come. The coffin under its canopy, with tall tapers burning on either side, was left in the Chapel. Later a short service was held privately, when it was lowered to the vault and placed in the large stone sarcophagus prepared for it.
HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER ABBEY, TEMP. 1737.
The King remained inconsolable for many months. He saw no one at first but his daughters, and when he was compelled to see Walpole, or some other Minister, on important business, he could talk of nothing but his loss and the great qualities of the late Queen. Many thought that he would not long survive her; he seemed completely broken down. The genuineness of his sorrow showed itself in various ways. By her will the Queen had left everything to him, but it transpired that she had little to leave except her house at Richmond, her jewels, and the obligations she had incurred by her charities. When her heart was touched by cases of poverty, sickness or sorrow, she would not only relieve immediate necessities, but often grant pensions for life. These pensions it was found amounted to nearly £13,000 a year. The King took the full burden on his own shoulders. “I will have no one the poorer for her death but myself,” he said. He also paid the salaries of every member of her household until he could otherwise provide for them.
One morning, soon after the Queen’s death, he woke early and sent for Baron Borgman, one of his Hanoverian suite. When he came the King said, “I hear you have a picture of the Queen, which she gave you, and that it is a better likeness than any in my possession. Bring it to me here.” Borgman brought it to the King, who said it was very like her Majesty, and burst into tears. “Put it,” he said presently, “upon that chair at the foot of my bed, and leave me until I ring the bell.” Two hours passed before he rang, and then he was quite calm. “Take the picture away,” he said to its owner, “I never yet saw a woman worthy to buckle her shoe.” Some little time later, he was playing cards one evening with his daughters. Some queens were dealt to him, and no sooner did he pick up the cards and perceive them than he burst into tears, and was unable to go on with the game. Princess Amelia guarded against a repetition of the scene the following night by privately ordering all the queens to be taken out of the pack.