After the birth of the Princess Louisa, on the 12th of December, 1724, Caroline, then Princess of Wales, was more than ordinarily indisposed. Her indisposition was of such a nature that, though she had made no allusion to it herself, her husband spoke to her on the subject. The princess avoided entering upon a discussion, and sought to satisfy the prince by remarking that her indisposition was nothing more than what was common to her health, position, and circumstances. For some years, although the symptoms were neglected, the disease was not aggravated. At length more serious indications were so perceptible to George, who was now King, that he did not conceal his opinion that she was suffering from rupture. This opinion she combated with great energy, for she had a rooted aversion to its being supposed that she was afflicted with any complaint. She feared lest the fact, being known, might lose her some of her husband’s regard, or lead people to think that with personal infirmity her power over him had been weakened. The King again and again urged her to acknowledge that she suffered from the complaint he had named, and to have medical advice on the subject. Again and again she refused, and each time with renewed expressions of displeasure; until at last, the King, contenting himself with expressing a hope that she would not have to repent of her obstinacy, made her a promise never to allude to the subject again without her consent. The secret, however, was necessarily known to others also; and we can only wonder that, being so known, more active and effective measures were not taken to remedy an evil which, in our days, at least, formidable as it may appear in name, is so successfully treated as almost to deserve no more serious appellation than a mere inconvenience.

Under an appearance of, at least, fair health, Queen Caroline may be said to have been gradually decaying for years. Her pride and her courage would not, however, allow of this being seen; and when she rose, as was her custom, to curtsey to the King, not even George himself was aware of the pain the effort cost her. Sir Robert Walpole was long aware that she suffered greatly from some secret malady, and it was not till after a long period of observation that he succeeded in discovering her Majesty’s secret. He was often closeted with her, arranging business that they were afterwards to nominally transact in presence of the King, and to settle, as he imagined, according to his will and pleasure. It was on some such occasion that Sir Robert made the discovery in question. The minister’s wife had just died; she was about the same age as Caroline, and the Queen put to the minister such close, physical questions, and adverted so frequently to the subject of rupture, of which Sir Robert’s wife did not die, that the minister at once came to the conclusion that her Majesty was herself suffering from that complaint.40 This was the case: but the fact was only known to the King himself, her German nurse (Mrs. Mailborne), and one other person. A curious scene often occurred in her dressing-room and the adjoining apartment. During the process of the morning toilette, prayers were read in the outer room by her Majesty’s chaplain, the latter kneeling the while beneath the painting of a nude Venus—which, as Dr. Madox, a royal chaplain on service, once observed, was a ‘very proper altar-piece.’ On these occasions, Walpole tells us that, ‘to prevent all suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift, talking to her ladies, and, though labouring with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning, at Richmond, she walked several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as routed the gout; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper.’

In the summer of 1737 she suffered so seriously, that at length, on the 26th of August, a report spread over the town that the Queen was dead.41 The whole city at once assumed a guise of mourning—gay summer or cheerful autumn dresses were withdrawn from the shop windows, and nothing was to be seen in their place but ‘sables.’ The report, however, was unfounded. Her Majesty had been ill, but one of her violent remedies had restored her for the moment. She was thereby enabled to walk about Hampton Court with the King; but she was not equal to the task of coming to London on the 29th of the same month, when her grand-daughter Augusta was christened, and King, Queen, and Duchess of Saxe Gotha stood sponsors, by their proxies, to the future mother of a future Queen of England.

At length, in November 1737, the crisis above alluded to occurred, and Caroline’s illness soon assumed a very grave character. Her danger, of which she was well aware, did not cause her to lose her presence of mind, nor her dignity, nor to sacrifice any characteristic of her disposition or reigning passion.

It was on Wednesday morning, the 9th of November, that the Queen was seized with the illness which ultimately proved fatal to her. She was distressed with violent internal pains, which Daffy’s Elixir, administered to her by Dr. Tessier, could not allay. The violence of the attack compelled her to return to bed early in the morning; but her courage was great and the King’s pity small, and consequently she rose, after resting for some hours, in order to preside at the usual Wednesday’s drawing-room. The King had great dislike to see her absent from this ceremony; without her, he used to say, there was neither grace, gaiety, nor dignity; and, accordingly, she went to this last duty with the spirit of a wounded knight who returns to the field and dies in harness. She was not able long to endure the fatigue. Lord Hervey was so struck by her appearance of weakness and suffering, that he urged her, with friendly peremptoriness, to retire from a scene for which she was evidently unfitted. The Queen acknowledged her inability to continue any longer in the room, but she could not well break up the assembly without the King, who was in another part of the room, discussing the mirth and merits of the last uproarious burlesque extravaganza, ‘The Dragon of Wantley.’ All London was then flocking to Covent Garden to hear Lampe’s music and Carey’s light nonsense; and Ryan’s Hamlet was not half so much cared for as Reinhold’s Dragon, nor Mrs. Vincent’s Ophelia so much esteemed as the Margery and Mauxalinda of the two Misses Young.

At length, his Majesty having been informed of the Queen’s serious indisposition, and her desire to withdraw, took her by the hand to lead her away, roughly noticing, at the same time, that she had ‘passed over’ the Duchess of Norfolk. Caroline immediately repaired her fault by addressing a few condescending words to that old well-wisher of her family. They were the last words she ever uttered on the public scene of her grandeur. All that followed was the undressing after the great drama was over.

In the evening Lord Hervey again saw her. He had been dining with the French ambassador, and he returned from the dinner at an hour at which people now dress before they go to such a ceremony. He was again at the palace by seven o’clock. His duty authorised him, and his inclination prompted him, to see the Queen. He found her suffering from increase of internal pains, violent sickness, and progressive weakness. Cordials and various calming remedies were prescribed, and while they were being prepared, a little ‘usquebaugh’ was administered to her; but neither whisky, nor cordials, nor calming draughts could be retained. Her pains increased, and therewith her strength diminished. She was throughout this day and night affectionately attended by the Princess Caroline, who was herself in extremely weak health, but who would not leave her mother’s bedside till two o’clock in the morning. The King then relieved her, after his fashion, which brought relief to no one. He did not sit up to watch the sufferer, but, in his morning gown, lay outside the bed, by the Queen’s side. Her restlessness was very great, but the King did not leave her space enough even to turn in bed; and he was so uncomfortable that he was kept awake and ill-tempered throughout the night.

On the following day the Queen was bled, but without producing any good effect. Her illness visibly increased, and George was as visibly affected by it. Not so much so, however, as not to be concerned about matters of dress. With the sight of the Queen’s suffering before his eyes, he remembered that he had to meet the foreign ministers that day, and he was exceedingly particular in directing the pages to see that new ruffles were sewn to his old shirt-sleeves, whereby he might wear a decent air in the eyes of the representatives of foreign majesty. The Princess Caroline continued to exhibit unabated sympathy for the mother who had perhaps loved her better than any other of her daughters. The princess was in tears and suffering throughout the day, and almost needed as much care as the royal patient herself; especially after losing much blood by the sudden breaking of one of the small vessels in the nose. It was on this day that, to aid Broxholm, who had hitherto prescribed for the Queen, Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Hulse were called in. They prescribed for an obstinate internal obstruction which could not be overcome; and applied blisters to the legs—a remedy for which both King and Queen had a sovereign and silly disgust.

On the 11th, the quiet of the palace was disturbed by a message from the Prince of Wales, making enquiry after the condition of his mother. His declared filial affection roused the King to a pitch of almost ungovernable fury. The royal father flung at the son every missile in his well-stored vocabulary of abuse. There really seemed something devilish in this spirit at such a time. In truth, however, the King had good ground for knowing that the assurances of the prince were based upon the most patent hypocrisy. The spirit of the dying Queen was nothing less fierce and bitter against the prince and his adherents—that ‘Cartouche gang,’ as she was wont to designate them. There was no touch of mercy in her, as regarded her feelings or expressions towards him; and her epithets were not less degrading to the utterer and to the object against whom they were directed, than the King’s. She begged her husband to keep her son from her presence. She had no faith, she said, in his assertions of concern, respect, or sympathy. She knew he would approach her with an assumption of grief; would listen dutifully, as it might seem, to her laments; would ‘blubber like a calf’ at her condition; and laugh at her outright as soon as he had left her presence.

It seems infinitely strange that it was not until the 12th of the month that the King hinted to the Queen the propriety of her physicians knowing that she was suffering from rupture. Caroline listened to the suggestion with aversion and displeasure; she earnestly entreated that what had hitherto been kept secret should remain so. The King apparently acquiesced, but there is little doubt of his having communicated a knowledge of the fact to Ranby, the surgeon, who was now in attendance. When the Queen next complained of violent internal pain, Ranby approached her, and she directed his hand to the spot where she said she suffered most. Like the skilful man that he was, Ranby contrived at the same moment to satisfy himself as to the existence of the more serious complaint; and having done so, went up to the King, and spoke to him in a subdued tone of voice. The Queen immediately suspected what had taken place, and, ill as she was, she railed at Ranby for a ‘blockhead.’ The surgeon, however, made no mystery of the matter; but declared, on the contrary, that there was no time to be lost, and that active treatment must at once be resorted to. The discovery of the real malady which was threatening the Queen’s life, and which would not have been perilous had it not been so strangely neglected, cost Caroline the only tears she shed throughout her trying illness.

Shipton and the able and octogenarian Bussier were now called in to confer with the other medical men. It was at first proposed to operate with the knife; but ultimately it was agreed that an attempt should be made to reduce the tumour by less extreme means. The Queen bore the necessary treatment patiently. Her chief watcher and nurse was still the gentle Princess Caroline. The latter, however, became so ill, that the medical men insisted on bleeding her. She would not keep her room, but lay dressed on a couch in an apartment next to that in which lay her dying mother. Lord Hervey, when tired with watching—and his post was one of extreme fatigue and anxiety—slept on a mattress, at the foot of the couch of the Princess Caroline. The King retired to his own bed, and on this night the Princess Amelia waited on her mother.

The following day, Sunday, the 13th, was a day of much solemnity. The medical men announced that the wound from which the Queen suffered had begun to mortify, and that death must speedily supervene. The danger was made known to all; and of all, Caroline exhibited the least concern. She took a solemn and dignified leave of her children, always excepting the Prince of Wales. Her parting with her favourite son, the young Duke of Cumberland, was touching, and showed the depth of her love for him. Considering her avowed partiality, there was some show of justice in her concluding counsel to him that, should his brother Frederick ever be King, he should never seek to mortify him, but simply try to manifest a superiority over him only by good actions and merit. She spoke kindly to her daughter Amelia, but much more than kindly to the gentle Caroline, to whose care she consigned her two youngest daughters, Louisa and Mary. She appears to have felt as little inclination to see her daughter Anne, as she had to see her son Frederick. Indeed, intimation had been given to the Prince of Orange to the effect that not only was the company of the princess not required, but that should she feel disposed to leave Holland for St. James’s, he was to restrain her, by power of his marital authority.

The parting scene with the King was one of mingled dignity and farce, touching incident and crapulousness. Caroline took from her finger a ruby ring, and put it on a finger of the King. She tenderly declared that whatever greatness or happiness had fallen to her share, she had owed it all to him; adding, with something very like profanity and general unseemliness, that naked she had come to him and naked she would depart from him; for that all she had was his, and she had so disposed of her own that he should be her heir. The singular man to whom she thus addressed herself acted singularly; and, for that matter, so also did his dying consort. Among her last recommendations made on this day, was one enjoining him to marry. The King, overcome, or seemingly overcome, at the idea of being a widower, burst into a flood of tears. The Queen renewed her injunctions that after her decease he should take a second wife. He sobbed aloud; but amid his sobbing he suggested an opinion that he thought that, rather than take another wife, he would maintain a mistress or two. ‘Eh, mon Dieu!’ exclaimed Caroline, ‘the one does not prevent the other! Cela n’empêche pas!’

A dying wife might have shown more decency, but she could hardly have been more complaisant. Accordingly, when, after the above dignified scene had been brought to a close, the Queen fell into a profound sleep, George kissed her unconscious cheeks a hundred times over, expressed an opinion that she would never wake to recognition again, and gave evidence, by his words and actions, how deeply he really regarded the dying woman before him. It happened, however, that she did wake to consciousness again; and then, with his usual inconsistency of temper, he snubbed as much as he soothed her, yet without any deliberate intention of being unkind. She expressed her conviction that she should survive till the Wednesday. It was her peculiar day, she said. She had been born on a Wednesday, was married on a Wednesday, first became a mother on a Wednesday, was crowned on a Wednesday, and she was convinced she should die on a Wednesday.

Her expressed indifference as to seeing Walpole is in strong contrast with the serious way in which she did hold converse with him on his being admitted to a parting interview. Her feeling of mental superiority over the King was exhibited in her dying recommendation to the minister to be careful of the Sovereign. This recommendation being made in the Sovereign’s presence was but little relished by the minister, who feared that such a bequest, with the Queen no longer alive to afford him protection, might ultimately work his own downfall. George, however, was rather grateful than angry at the Queen’s commission to Walpole, and subsequently reminded him with grave good-humour, that he, the minister, required no protection, inasmuch as the Queen had rather consigned the King to the protection of the minister; and ‘his kindness to the minister seemed to increase for the Queen’s sake.’

The day which opened with a sort of despair, closed with a faint prospect of hope. The surgeons declared that the mortification had not progressed; and Lord Hervey does not scruple to infer that it had never begun, and that the medical men employed were, like most of their colleagues, profoundly ignorant of that with which they professed to be most deeply acquainted. The fairer prospect was made known to the Queen, in order to encourage her, but Caroline was not to be deceived. At twenty-five, she remarked, she might have dragged through it, but at fifty-five it was not to be thought of. She still superstitiously looked to the Wednesday as the term of her career.

All access to the palace had been denied alike to the Prince of Wales and to those who frequented his court; but in the confusion which reigned at St. James’s some members of the prince’s family, or following, did penetrate to the rooms adjacent to that in which lay the royal sufferer, under pretence of an anxiety to learn the condition of her health. Caroline knew of this vicinity, called them ‘ravens’ waiting to see the breath depart from her body, and insisted that they should not be allowed to approach her nearer. Ample evidence exists that the conduct of the Prince of Wales was most unseemly at this solemn juncture. ‘We shall have good news soon,’ he was heard to say, at Carlton House: ‘we shall have good news soon; she can’t hold out much longer!’ There were people who were slow to believe that a son could exult at the idea of the death of his mother. These persons questioned his ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, as to the actual conduct and language adopted by him; and at such questions the mature mistress would significantly smile, as she discreetly answered: ‘Oh, he is very decent!’

The prospect of the Queen’s recovery was quite illusory and short-lived. She grew so rapidly worse, that even the voices of those around her appeared to disturb her; and a notice was pinned to the curtain of her bed, enjoining all present to speak only in the lowest possible tones. Her patience, however, was very great: she took all that was offered to her, however strong her own distaste; and when operations were proposed to her, she submitted at once, on assurance from the King that he sanctioned what the medical men proposed. She did not lose her sprightly humour even when under the knife; and she once remarked to Ranby, when she was thus at his mercy, that she dared say he was half sorry it was not his own old wife he was thus cutting about. But the flesh will quiver where the pincers tear; and even from Caroline terrible anguish would now and then extort a groan. She bade the surgeons, nevertheless, not to heed her silly complaints, but to do their duty irrespective of her grumbling.

All this time there does not appear to have been the slightest idea in the mind either of the sufferer or of those about her that it would be well were Caroline enabled to make her peace with God. The matter, however, did occupy the public thought; and public opinion pressed so strongly, that, rather than offend it, Walpole himself recommended that a priest should be sent for. The recommendation was made to the Princess Amelia, and in the obese minister’s usual coarse fashion. ‘It will be quite as well,’ he said, ‘that the farce should be played. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Potter) would perform it decently; and the princess might bid him to be as short as she liked. It would do the Queen neither harm nor good; and it would satisfy all the fools who called them atheists, if they affected to be as great fools as they who called them so!’

Dr. Potter accordingly was summoned. He attended morning and evening. The King, to show his estimation of the person and his sacred office, invariably kept out of his wife’s apartment while the archbishop was present. What passed is not known; but it is clear that the primate, if he prayed with the Queen, never administered the sacrament to her. Was this caused by her irreconcilable hatred against her son?

It is said that her Majesty’s mistress of the robes, Lady Sundon, had influenced the Queen to countenance none but the heterodox clergy. Her conduct in her last moments was consequently watched with mingled anxiety and curiosity by more than those who surrounded her. The public generally were desirous of being enlightened on the subject. The public soon learned, indirectly at least, that the archbishop had not administered to the Queen the solemn rite. On the last time of his issuing from the royal bedchamber, he was assailed by the courtiers with questions like this:—‘My lord, has the Queen received?’ All the answer given by the primate was, ‘Gentlemen, her Majesty is in a most heavenly frame of mind.’ This was an oracular sort of response; and it may be said that if the Queen was in a heavenly frame of mind, she must have been at peace with her son, as well as with all men, and therefore in a condition to receive the administration of the rite with profit and thankfulness. It was known, moreover, that the Queen was not at peace with her son, and that she had not ‘received;’ she, therefore, could not have been, as the archbishop described her, ‘in a most heavenly frame of mind.’ All that the public knew of her practical piety was, that the Queen had been accustomed, or said she had been accustomed, to read a portion of Butler’s ‘Analogy’ every morning at breakfast. It was of this book that Bishop Hoadly remarked, that he could never even look at it without getting a head-ache.

Meanwhile, the King, who kept close in the palace, not stirring abroad, and assembling around him a circle of hearers, expatiated at immense length upon the virtues and excellences of the companion who was on the eve of departure from him. There was no known or discoverable good quality which he did not acknowledge in her; not only the qualities which dignify woman, but those which elevate men. With the courage and intellectual strength of the latter, she had the beauty and virtue of the former. He never tired of this theme, told it over again and again, and ever at an interminable length. The most singular item in his monster dissertation was his cool assurance to his children and friends that she was the only woman in the world who suited him for a wife; and that, if she had not been his wife, he would rather have had her for his mistress than any other woman he had ever seen or heard of.

This was the highest possible praise such a husband could bestow; and he doubtless loved his wife as well as a husband, so trained, could love a consort. His own sharp words to her, even in her illness, were no proof to the contrary; and amid tokens of his uncouth tenderness, observing her restless from pain, and yet desirous of sleep, he would exclaim, ‘How the devil can you expect to sleep when you never lie still a moment?’ This was meant for affection; so, too, was the remark made to her one morning when, on entering her room, he saw her gazing, as invalids are wont to gaze, idly on vacancy, ‘with lack-lustre eye.’ He roughly desired her to cease staring in that disagreeable way, which made her look, he said, with refined gallantry, just like a calf with its throat cut!

His praise of her, as Lord Hervey acutely suggested, had much of self-eulogy in view; and when he lauded her excellent sense, it had especial reference to that exemplification of it when she was wise enough to accept him for a husband. He wearied all hearers with the long stories which he recounted both of Caroline and himself, as he sat at night, with his feet on a stool, pouring out prosily his never-ending narrative. The Princess Amelia used to endeavour to escape from the tediousness of listening by pretending to be asleep, and to avenge herself for being compelled to listen by gross abuse of her royal father when he left the room—calling him old fool, liar, coward, and a driveller, of whose stories she was most heartily sick.

And so matters went on, progressively worse, until Sunday the 20th—the last day which Caroline was permitted to see upon earth. The circumstances attending the Queen’s death were not without a certain dignity. ‘How long can this last?’ said she to her physician, Tessier. ‘It will not be long,’ was the reply, ‘before your Majesty will be relieved from this suffering.’ ‘The sooner the better,’ said Caroline. And then she began to pray aloud: and her prayer was not a formal one, fixed in her memory by repeating it from the Book of Common Prayer, but a spontaneous and extemporary effusion, so eloquent, so appropriate, and so touching, that all the listeners were struck with admiration at this last effort of a mind ever remarkable for its vigour and ability. She herself manifested great anxiety to depart in a manner becoming a great Queen; and as her last moment approached, her anxiety in this respect appeared to increase. She requested to be raised in bed, and asked all present to kneel and offer up a prayer in her behalf. While this was going on she grew gradually fainter; but, at her desire, water was sprinkled upon her, so that she might revive, and listen to, or join in, the petitions which her family (all but her eldest son, who was not present) put up to Heaven in her behalf. ‘Louder!’ she murmured more than once, as some one read or prayed, ‘Louder, that I may hear.’ Her request was complied with; and then one of her children repeated audibly the Lord’s Prayer. In this Caroline joined, repeating the words as distinctly as failing nature would allow her. The prayer was just concluded when she looked fixedly for a moment at those who stood weeping around her, and then uttered a long-drawn ‘So——!’ It was her last word. As it fell from her lips the dial on the chimney-piece struck eleven. She calmly waved her hand—a farewell to all present and to the world; and then tranquilly composing herself upon her bed, she breathed a sigh, and so expired. Thus died Caroline; and few Queens of England have passed away to their account with more of mingled dignity and indecorum.

On Thursday, the 15th of November 1757, Sir Robert Walpole wrote as follows to his brother Horace: ‘The Queen was taken ill last Wednesday.... It was explicitly declared and universally believed to be gout in the stomach.... The case was thought so desperate that Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Hulse were on Friday sent for, who totally despaired. Necessity at last discovered and revealed a secret which had been totally concealed and unknown. The Queen had a rupture which is now known not to have been a new accident.... But will it ever be believed that a life of this importance should be lost, or run thus near, by concealing human infirmities?’

To these accounts of the Queen’s illness it may be added that Nichols, in his ‘Reminiscences,’ says that Dr. Sands suggested that a cure might be effected by injecting warm water, and that Dr. Hulse approved of the remedy and method. It was applied, with no one present but the medical men just named; and though it signally failed, they pronounced it as having succeeded. Their terror was great; and when they passed through the outer apartments, where the Duke of Newcastle congratulatingly hugged Hulse, on his having saved the Queen’s life, the doctor struggled with all his might to get away, lest he should be questioned upon a matter which involved, perhaps, more serious consequences than he could, in his bewilderment, then accurately calculate.

The Princess Caroline, as soon as the Queen had apparently passed away, put a looking-glass to her lips, and finding it unsullied by any breath, calmly remarked, ‘’Tis over!’ and thenceforward ceased to weep as she had done while her mother was dying. The King kissed the face and hands of his departed consort with unaffected fervour. His conduct continued to be as singular as ever. He was superstitious and afraid of ghosts; and it was remarked on this occasion, that he would have people with him in his bedroom, as if their presence could have saved him from the visitation of a spirit. In private, the sole subject of his conversation was ‘Caroline.’ He loved to narrate the whole history of her early life and his own: their wooing and their wedding, their joys and vexations. In these conversations he introduced something about every person with whom he had ever been in anything like close connection. It was observed, however, that he never once mentioned the name of his mother, Sophia Dorothea, or in any way alluded to her. He purposely avoided the subject; but he frequently named the father of Sophia, the Duke of Zell, who, he said, was so desirous of seeing his grandson grow up into an upright man, that the duke declared he would shoot him if George Augustus should prove a dishonest one!

Amid all these anecdotes, and tales, and reminiscences, and praises, there was a constant flow of tears shed for her who was gone. They seemed, however, to come and go at pleasure; for in the very height of his mourning and depth of his sorrow, he happened to see Horace, the brother of Sir Robert Walpole, who was weeping for fashion’s sake, but in so grotesque a manner, that when the King beheld it, he ceased to cry, and burst into a roar of laughter.

Lord Hervey foretold that his grief would not be of a lasting quality; and, in some degree, he was correct. It must be confessed, however, that the King never ceased to respect the memory of his wife. Walpole only thought of how George might be ruled now that the Queen was gone, and he speedily fixed upon a plan. He had been accustomed, he said, to side with the mother against the mistress. He would now, he added, side with the mistress against the children. He it was, who proposed that Madame Walmoden should now be brought to England; and, in a revoltingly coarse observation to the Princess Caroline, he recommended her, if she would have any influence with her father, to surround him with women, and govern him through them!

But other parties had been on the watch to lay hold of the power which had now fallen from the hand of the dead Caroline.

The dissension in the royal family, which was caused by the conduct of the Prince of Wales at the period of the birth of his eldest daughter, Augusta, was, of course, turned to political account. It was made even of more account in that way when the condition of Caroline became known. Lord Chesterfield, writing to Mr. Lyttelton from Bath, on the 12th of November 1737, says: ‘As I suppose the Queen will be dead or out of danger before you receive this, my advice to his royal highness (of Wales) will come full late; but in all events it is my opinion he cannot take too many and too respectful measures towards the Queen, if alive, and towards the King, if she is dead; but then that respect should be absolutely personal, and care should be taken that the ministers shall not have the least share of it.’

At the time when Caroline’s indignation had been aroused by the course adopted by the prince, when his wife was brought from Hampton Court to St. James’s for her confinement, his royal highness had made a statement to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Harrington, which they were subsequently required to put down in writing as corroborative evidence of what the prince had said to the Queen. In reference to the inditers of these ‘minutes of conversation,’ Lord Chesterfield advises that the disrespect which he recommends the prince to exhibit towards the ministry shall be more marked ‘if in the course of these transactions the two evidences should be sent to, or of themselves presume to approach the prince; in which case (says the writer) he ought to show them personal resentment; and if they bring any message from the King or Queen which he cannot refuse receiving, he should ask for it in writing, and give his answer in writing; alleging publicly for his reason, that he cannot venture anything with people who have grossly both betrayed and misrepresented private conversation.’42

Through the anticipated natural death of the Queen, the opposition hoped to effect the political death of Walpole. ‘In case the Queen dies,’ writes Chesterfield, ‘I think Walpole should be looked upon as gone too, whether he be really so or no, which will be the most likely way to weaken him; for if he be supposed to inherit the Queen’s power over the King it will in some degree give it him; and if the opposition are wise, instead of treating with him, they should attack him most vigorously and personally, as a person who has lost his chief support. Which is indeed true; for though he may have more power with the King than any other body, yet he will never have that kind of power which he had by her means; and he will not even dare to mention many things to the King which he could without difficulty have brought about by her means. Pray present my most humble duty to his royal highness,’ concludes the writer, ‘and tell him that upon principles of personal duty and respect to the King and Queen (if alive), he cannot go too far; as, on the other hand, with relation to the ministers, after what has passed he cannot carry his dignity too high.’ The same strain is continued in a second letter, wherein it is stated with respect to the anticipated death of the Queen: ‘It is most certain that Sir Robert must be in the utmost distress, and can never hope to govern the King as the Queen governed him;’ and he adds, in a postscript: ‘We have a prospect of the Claude Lorraine kind before us, while Sir Robert’s has all the horrors of Salvator Rosa. If the prince would play the rising sun, he would gild it finely; if not, he will be under a cloud, which he will never be able hereafter to shine through.’ Finally, exclaims the eager writer: ‘Instil this into the Woman’—meaning by the latter the Prince of Wales’s ‘favourite,’ Lady Archibald Hamilton, who ‘had filled,’ says Lord Mahon, ‘the whole of his little court with her kindred.’ According to Horace Walpole, ‘whenever Sir William Stanhope met anybody at Carlton House whom he did not know, he always said, “your humble servant, Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton.”’

A fortnight after Chesterfield contemptuously calls Lady Archibald ‘the Woman,’ he begins to see the possibility of her rising to the possession of political influence, and he says to Mr. Lyttelton: ‘Pray, when you see Lady Archibald, assure her of my respects, and tell her that I would trouble her with a letter myself, to have acknowledged her goodness to me, if I could have expressed those acknowledgments to my own satisfaction; but not being able to do that, I only desire she would be persuaded that my sentiments with regard to her are what they ought to be.’43 In such wise did great men counsel and intrigue for the sake of a little pre-eminence, which never yet purchased or brought with it the boon of happiness.