Виктория Холт: Caroline the Queen

The King said he would sit in the Queen’s bedroom with Lord Hervey and Sir Hans Sloane was sent for and, with Dr Hulse, ordered purging and blooding. Princess Amelia lay on a couch in the Queen’s bedroom; and once or twice during the night Lord Hervey went to report to the Princess Caroline what was happening in the sick room.

In the morning the Queen seemed a little better.

As the days passed it began to be believed that the Queen was dying.

The Prince of Wales came from Kew to Carlton House.

When the King heard this he shouted: ‘If the puppy should, in one of his impertinent affected airs of duty and affection, dare to come to St James’s he shall be told I wonder at his impudence. I am in no humour to bear with his impertinence and I shall tell him to get out of my house.’

But soon the Prince was letting it be known that he had come to Carlton House so that he might be near his mother, and this again set the King in a fury.

‘This is one of his scoundrel’s tricks,’ he cried. ‘I always hated the rascal and now I hate him more than ever. He wants to come here and insult his dying mother, but he shall not come here and act his silly parts, false, lying, cowardly, nauseous puppy. And suppose the Queen loved him as much as she hates him, she is not in a condition to bear the emotion.’

The King went to the Queen and sat down by her bed, scowling at her. Get well, that scowl seemed to say. How can I live without you?

She smiled at him and said she was surprised that the Prince had not sent to ask after her. ‘Sooner or later,’ she said, ‘I shall be plagued by some message because he will think it will look well to ask after me. No doubt he hopes I’ll be fool enough to let him come and give him the pleasure of seeing my last breath got out of my body, by which means he will have the joy of knowing I was dead five minutes sooner than he would in Pall Mall.’

‘You need not fear he will come here,’ said the King. ‘I have taken steps to prevent that.’

‘He is a sad wretch, and if I should grow worse and be weak enough in my ravings to ask for him, I beg of you understand that I am raving. Promise me now that you will not let him come to me.’

‘I promise,’ said the King.

The King bent over the Queen’s bed.

‘Caroline! ‘ he whispered.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

‘I’m afraid your illness comes from a thing I have given you my promise never to speak of. I can no longer keep that secret.’

Caroline started out of her languor.

‘You must. You must.’

‘I cannot. My dearest, I must tell the doctors. They must act. It may not be too late.’

‘I beg of you ...’

There were tears on his cheeks. ‘I cannot, my dear. I must not. It is a chance. Do you not see that I will take any chance....’

‘Please … please....’

But he had turned away. She saw him talking to the doctors.

She saw the doctors approaching the bed; and she turned her face to the wall and wept.

An operation had been performed on the Queen, but the doctors feared they were too late to save her life. Now there could be no doubt that the Queen was dying.

The King was stricken with grief, roaring his rage one moment, breaking down and weeping the next.

The Queen was in great pain, and now that her secret was known she showed no desire to live. She seemed as though she were eagerly awaiting death.

The King would not leave her. He slept on her bed, giving her restless nights and enduring them himself.

‘I must be near her. She will be happier to know that I am near.’

He told everyone how good the Queen was, how there had never been another woman in his life whom he cared for as he cared for her.

He would sit by her bed and remind her of how he had come to court her. ‘I loved you then ... I love you now.

‘You cannot leave me, Caroline. What shall I do without you?’

Then he would grow angry because she was restless. ‘You should sleep,’ he would shout at her. ‘How can you expect to rest when you won’t lie still a moment?’ Then he would go back to the days of their youth.

Did she remember when she had first come to Hanover ... the first days of their marriage? Monsieur de Busch ... the ardent young man who had come in disguise to court her ... and he turned out to be the Prince of Hanover, later to be King of England. Did she remember those days at Herrenhausen, at the Leine Schloss?

He would see her as she was then, young and very handsome . . . and this poor woman in the bed was what she had become.

‘Don’t lie there staring before you like a calf waiting to have its throat cut!’ he called out angrily.

Then he was tender again and he would berate the women for not being quiet enough in the sick chamber. And the Queen continued to cling to life.

Sir Robert Walpole came to her; he had been in the country and had ridden up with all speed when he heard the news.

He was weeping as he knelt by her bed and kissed her hand.

‘My good Sir Robert, we have been friends.’

‘We are friends ... Madam, friends always.’

‘I have not much time left, Sir Robert.’

‘I beg of Your Majesty, conserve your strength.’

‘Ah, you see me in a different situation. I have nothing to say to you, good Sir Robert, but to recommend the King, my children, and the kingdom to your care.’

‘You must recover your health, Madam. We need you ... the country needs you.’

She smiled and said: ‘May God bless you.’

She lingered on in pain and often delirious. The King was constantly at her side, forcing food into her mouth because the doctors had said she needed her strength to be built up. She was pleased to have him there, though; for she knew in those days that in spite of all she had suffered through him, in spite of the fact that she had seen so clearly all his conceits and vanities, his follies and his tantrums, yet she loved him, and he was in her thoughts more than anyone else.

She had been ill for eleven days and she knew that her end was rapidly approaching.

She wanted her family about her. She wanted to tell Caroline to take care of her little sisters; she wanted to take her last farewell of Amelia and her beloved William; and then she wanted the last moment of her life to be the King’s.

At the last she put her hand in his and said: ‘Farewell, my beloved King and husband. Farewell.’

Then she took the ruby ring from her finger and gave it to him. It was the one he had put on at the time of the coronation.

‘This is the last thing I have to give you. Naked I came to you; naked I go from you. I had everything I possessed from you and to you everything I have, I return.’

The tears were falling down the King’s cheeks. He tried to speak, but he was too overcome by grief.

‘Do not grieve too long for me,’ she said. ‘When I am gone you should marry again.’

‘No,’ cried the King. ‘Never. I shall have mistresses.’ And her dying face was twisted suddenly in a smile as she said, ‘That would not stop you.’

Then the King began to weep again and to tell her that he had never loved as he loved her. That he would never know happiness again when she was lost to him.

She rallied and sank, but the end was in sight.

The King was at her bedside when she died. Frantically he kissed her face and hands as though by doing so he could persuade her to return. Then he sent for a picture of her and shut himself in his room with it and stayed there for two hours.

After that he came out and said: ‘Take the picture away. There was never a woman worthy to buckle her shoe.’