The King’s Health—Royal Visit to Cheltenham—Excursions—Robert Raikes—Colonel Digby—The Duke of York—The Court attends the Musical Festival at Worcester—Return to Windsor—M. de Lalande, the Astronomer—His Compliments—His Volubility—Illness of the King—The King grows worse—‘The Queen is my Physician’—Alarm and Agitation—Grief of the Queen—The King Insane—Arrival of the Prince of Wales—Paroxysm of the King at Dinner—The Queen Ill—The Physicians—The Royal Pair separated—The Prince takes the Government at the Palace—Prayers for the King’s Recovery—The King and his Equerries—Sir Lucas Pepys—A Privy Council—Preparations for leaving Windsor—Departure for Kew—Mournful Spectacle—Mrs. Schwellenberg arrives.

For many years George III. had enjoyed unbroken good health. ‘The King,’ wrote a well-informed gossipper[85] in January, 1788, ‘walks twelve miles on his way from Windsor to London, which is more than the Prince of Wales can do.’ Early in June, however, his Majesty was disturbed by passing symptoms, which proved to be fore-runners of an illness famous in English history. The complaint, in its first stage, was called a bilious attack; and when the patient appeared to have thrown it off, he was advised by his physician to drink the waters at Cheltenham for a month, in order to complete his recovery. On June 8, the King sent his old friend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, a letter, in which he announced his intended journey into Gloucestershire; and, at the same time, proposed to enlarge his excursion by paying a visit to Hartlebury, and afterwards attending the Festival of the Three Choirs, which that year was to be 202held at Worcester. His Majesty went on to say that, as feeding the hungry was a Christian duty, he should expect his correspondent, while welcoming the sovereign to his cathedral city, to provide some cold meat for his refreshment.

The hearty old English gentleman, in fact, was minded to enjoy his holiday in the homely way that pleased him best. On July 12, the Court travelled from Windsor to Cheltenham, where Bays Hill Lodge, a seat of the Earl of Fauconberg, situated just outside the town, had been engaged for the royal party. The Lodge was so small that their Majesties, with the three eldest Princesses who accompanied them, could only be housed there at a considerable sacrifice of state and ceremony. No bed could be provided within its walls for any male person but the King. The female attendants on the Queen and her daughters were limited to one lady-in-waiting, Miss Burney, Miss Planta, and the wardrobe women.

‘Is this little room for your Majesty?’ exclaimed Fanny, in astonishment.

‘Stay till you see your own,’ retorted the Queen, laughing, ‘before you call this little.’

Colonel Gwynn, the King’s equerry, and Colonel Digby, the Queen’s vice-chamberlain, slept in a house at some distance. The Queen consented to dine with these officers, though until then the German etiquette in which she was trained had prevented her from sitting at table with men of much higher rank.

During his stay at Cheltenham, the King drank the waters at six o’clock every morning, and afterwards took exercise in the ‘Walks.’ This parade was conducted in the same manner as the terracing at Windsor. The King led the way, with the Queen leaning on his arm; the Princesses followed them; and the equerry brought up 203the rear. The unaccustomed spectacle drew crowds from the town and the country round, causing at first a good deal of inconvenience, which the King bore with his usual good-nature. In the course of July, he made excursions with his family to several places of interest in the neighbourhood: to Oakley Grove, the seat of Lord Bathurst, patron of Pope and Prior, and friend of Bolingbroke and Atterbury; to the Abbey Church of Tewkesbury; to Gloucester Cathedral; to Croome Court, the abode of Lord Coventry and his beautiful Countess.

Miss Burney and Miss Planta were not of the suite on these expeditions, and altogether enjoyed much more liberty than fell to their lot at Windsor or Kew. Sometimes they amused themselves by making little excursions on their own account. On the day of the royal visit to Oakley Grove, they went over to Gloucester, where Miss Planta had an acquaintance in the person of the philanthropic printer, Robert Raikes, still remembered as the originator of Sunday-schools. Mr. Raikes felt himself a man of importance; he had been invited to Windsor, and had had the honour of a long conversation with the Queen. Apparently the notice taken of him had left traces on his manner. ‘He is somewhat too flourishing,’ Fanny whispered to her Diary, ‘somewhat too forward, somewhat too voluble; but he is worthy, benevolent, good-natured, and good-hearted, and therefore the over-flowings of successful spirits and delighted vanity must meet with some allowance.’ Bating this little self-complacency, the good man proved himself a capital host and guide, entertaining the royal attendants in a handsome and painstaking manner, which obtained their warm acknowledgments.

But Miss Burney beguiled her leisure principally in improving her acquaintance with Colonel Digby, who 204paid her marked attention during their attendance at the Gloucestershire watering-place. This courteous, insinuating colonel suited her taste far better than the more soldier-like equerries whom she met at Court. She had conceived a decided inclination for him from the moment of his first introduction to her. ‘He is a man,’ she then wrote, ‘of the most scrupulous good-breeding; diffident, gentle, and sentimental in his conversation, and assiduously attentive in his manners.’ He had now the additional recommendation that belongs to a widower grieving over joys departed, yet not despairing of consolation. In this state of mind, he neglected no opportunity of making himself agreeable to a lady whose disposition was so congenial to his own. Even a fit of the gout, which detained him from his official duties, could not prevent him from limping over to the Lodge to sit with Miss Burney. They talked of many things, but chiefly of books, of the affections, of happiness, and of religion. The famous authoress astonished her admirer not a little by the discovery she was fain to make of the many books she had never yet read. Her candour encouraged him to produce his own stores of literature, which were much more extensive than hers. This pensive gentleman, we need scarcely say, was addicted to reciting poetry and passages of pious sentiment. One line especially, which was often in his mouth, about ‘the chastity of silent woe,’ Fanny found peculiarly beautiful, though it might have reminded her of the Irish Commissary whom she had met at Brighton. Very soon quotations were succeeded by readings. The pair studied together Akenside’s poems, Falconer’s ‘Shipwreck,’ Carr’s Sermons, and a work[86] entitled ‘Original Love-Letters,’ with which we own ourselves unacquainted. Presently, 205however, as the air of Cheltenham did not appear to suit the Colonel’s gout, he began to think of taking leave of absence.

A visit from the Duke of York was expected while the Court was at Cheltenham. So eager was the King for the society of this his favourite son, that he caused a portable wooden house to be moved from the further end of the town, and joined on to Bays Hill Lodge, for the reception of the Prince and his attendants. The work consumed much time and money, but the fond father was bent on lodging his Frederick close to himself. All this care and affection met with the too familiar return. The Duke arrived on August 1, according to his appointment; and Miss Burney describes the King’s joy as only less extreme than the transport he had shown when, a year before, she had seen the darling appear at Windsor after long absence in Germany. But the Prince, so much looked for, would remain no more than a single night. Military business, he declared, required him to be in London by the next day but one, which was Sunday; however, he would travel all Saturday night that he might be able to spend a second evening with his parents. ‘I wonder,’ cried Colonel Digby, with the sententious propriety which charmed our Fanny, ‘how these Princes, who are thus forced to steal even their travelling from their sleep, find time to say their prayers!’

On August 5 the Court visited Worcester for the purpose of attending the Musical Festival. When the royal cortége stopped at the Bishop’s palace, “the King had an huzza that seemed to vibrate through the whole town, the Princess Royal’s carriage had a second, and the equerries a third. The mob then,” proceeds the Diary, “as ours drew on in succession, seemed to deliberate whether or not we also should have a cheer; but one of 206them soon decided the matter by calling out, ‘These are the maids of honour!’ and immediately gave us an huzza that made us quite ashamed.” The opening performance of the Festival next morning did not much gratify the historian. ‘It was very long and intolerably tedious, consisting of Handel’s gravest pieces and fullest choruses, and concluding with a sermon, concerning the institution of the charity, preached by Dr. Langhorne.’[87] A second morning performance to which she went did not strike her more favourably. One of the evening concerts she liked better. Of another she observes that it ‘was very Handelian, though not exclusively so.’

At the close of the Festival the royal party and their suite returned to Cheltenham. On the same evening Colonel Digby took his departure, ‘leaving me,’ says Fanny, ‘firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate friend for life.’ Next day an express came from him with a letter for Miss Burney, begging her to inform the Queen that the Mastership of St. Katharine’s Hospital, which was in her Majesty’s gift, had just become void by the death of the occupant. In a few more days it was announced that the vacant appointment had been conferred on Mr. Digby.

By August 16, the Court was again established at Windsor, and a rumour began to circulate of the Colonel’s gallantry at Cheltenham, mingled with a second rumour of his being then confined by gout at a house where lived Miss Gunning, for whom he had been supposed to have an admiration. Both reports were disregarded by Mrs. Schwellenberg’s assistant, who could think of nothing but the change from the pleasant society which she had lately enjoyed to the arrogance, the contentiousness, the presuming 207ignorance, that assailed her in the hated dining-room at the Queen’s Lodge. ‘What scales,’ she wrote, ‘could have held and weighed the heart of F. B. as she drove past the door of her revered lost comforter, to enter the apartment inhabited by such qualities!’

One strange visitor, however, she had at starting, who provided her with some little amusement:

“August 18th.—Well, now I have a new personage to introduce to you, and no small one; ask else the stars, moon and planets! While I was surrounded with band-boxes, and unpacking, Dr. Shepherd[88] was announced. Eager to make his compliments on the safe return, he forced a passage through the back avenues and stairs, for he told me he did not like being seen coming to me at the front door, as it might create some jealousies amongst the other Canons! A very commendable circumspection! but whether for my sake or his own he did not particularize.

“M. de Lalande, he said, the famous astronomer, was just arrived in England, and now at Windsor, and he had expressed a desire to be introduced to me....

“His business was to settle bringing M. de Lalande to see me in the evening. I told him I was much honoured, and so forth, but that I received no evening company, as I was officially engaged. He had made the appointment, he said, and could not break it, without affronting him; besides, he gave me to understand it would be an honour to me for ever to be visited by so great an astronomer....

“In the midst of tea, with a room full of people, I was called out to Dr. Shepherd!... I hurried into the next room, where I found him with his friend, M. de Lalande. What a reception awaited me! how unexpected a one from a famed and great astronomer! M. de Lalande 208advanced to meet me—I will not be quite positive it was on tiptoe, but certainly with a mixture of jerk and strut that could not be quite flat-footed. He kissed his hand with the air of a petit ma?tre, and then broke forth into such an harangue of Eloges, so solemn with regard to its own weight and importance, and so fade with respect to the little personage addressed, that I could not help thinking it lucky for the planets, stars, and sun, they were not bound to hear his comments, though obliged to undergo his calculations.

“On my part sundry profound reverences with now and then an ‘Oh, monsieur!’ or ‘c’est trop d’honneur,’ acquitted me so well, that the first harangue being finished, on the score of general and grand reputation, Eloge the second began, on the excellence with which ‘cette célèbre demoiselle’ spoke French!

“This may surprise you, my dear friends; but you must consider M. de Lalande is a great discoverer.

“Well, but had you seen Dr. Shepherd! he looked lost in sleek delight and wonder, that a person to whom he had introduced M. de Lalande should be an object for such fine speeches.

“This gentleman’s figure, meanwhile, corresponds no better with his discourse than his scientific profession, for he is an ugly little wrinkled old man, with a fine showy waistcoat, rich lace ruffles, and the grimaces of a dentist. I believe he chose to display that a Frenchman of science could be also a man of gallantry.

“I was seated between them, but the good doctor made no greater interruption to the florid professor than I did myself: he only grinned applause, with placid, but ineffable satisfaction.

“Nothing therefore intervening, Eloge the third followed, after a pause no longer than might be necessary for due 209admiration of Eloge the second. This had for sujet the fair female sex; how the ladies were now all improved; how they could write, and read, and spell; how a man nowadays might talk with them and be understood, and how delightful it was to see such pretty creatures turned rational!

“And all this, of course, interspersed with particular observations and most pointed applications; nor was there in the whole string of compliments which made up the three bouquets, one single one amongst them that might have disgraced any petit ma?tre to utter, or any petite ma?tresse to hear.

“The third being ended, a rather longer pause ensued. I believe he was dry, but I offered him no tea. I would not voluntarily be accessory to detaining such great personages from higher avocations. I wished him next to go and study the stars; from the moon he seemed so lately arrived there was little occasion for another journey.

“I flatter myself he was of the same opinion, for the fourth Eloge was all upon his unhappiness in tearing himself away from so much merit, and ended in as many bows as had accompanied his entrance.

“I suppose, in going, he said, with a shrug, to the Canon, ‘M. le Docteur, c’est bien gênant, mais il faut dire des jolies choses aux dames!’

“He was going the next day to see Dr. Maskelyne’s[89] Observatory. Well! I have had him first in mine!”

The King, at his return to Windsor, appeared to be restored to his usual health. In less than two months, however, he was again out of order. We give the most noteworthy passage in Miss Burney’s account of his subsequent illness as it fell under her observation. She 210was doing double duty at this time, in the absence of Mrs. Schwellenberg, who had gone to Weymouth for her health. The Court was at Kew when the first apprehensions arose:

“October 17th.—Our return to Windsor is postponed till to-morrow. The King is not well; he has not been quite well some time, yet nothing I hope alarming, though there is an uncertainty as to his complaint not very satisfactory.

“19TH.—The Windsor journey is again postponed, and the King is but very indifferent. Heaven preserve him! there is something unspeakably alarming in his smallest indisposition. I am very much with the Queen, who, I see, is very uneasy, but she talks not of it.

“20TH.—The King was taken very ill in the night, and we have all been cruelly frightened; but it went off, and, thank Heaven! he is now better.

“25TH.—The King was so much better, that our Windsor journey at length took place, with permission of Sir George Baker,[90] the only physician his Majesty will admit.

“I had a sort of conference with his Majesty, or rather I was the object to whom he spoke, with a manner so uncommon, that a high fever alone could account for it; a rapidity, a hoarseness of voice, a volubility, an earnestness—a vehemence, rather—it startled me inexpressibly, yet with a graciousness exceeding all I ever met with before—it was almost kindness! Heaven—Heaven preserve him! The Queen grows more and more uneasy. She alarms me sometimes for herself; at other times she has a sedateness that wonders me still more.

“Sunday, Oct. 26th.—The King was prevailed upon 211not to go to chapel this morning. I met him in the passage from the Queen’s room; he stopped me, and conversed upon his health near half an hour, still with that extreme quickness of speech and manner that belongs to fever; and he hardly sleeps, he tells me, one minute all night; indeed, if he recovers not his rest, a most delirious fever seems to threaten him. He is all agitation, all emotion, yet all benevolence and goodness, even to a degree that makes it touching to hear him speak. He assures everybody of his health; he seems only fearful to give uneasiness to others, yet certainly he is better than last night. Nobody speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.

“November 1st.—Our King does not advance in amendment; he grows so weak that he walks like a gouty man, yet has such spirits that he has talked away his voice, and is so hoarse it is painful to hear him. The Queen is evidently in great uneasiness. God send him better!...

“During the reading this morning, twice, at pathetic passages, my poor Queen shed tears. ‘How nervous I am!’ she cried; ‘I am quite a fool! Don’t you think so?’

“‘No, ma’am!’ was all I dared answer.

“The King was hunting. Her anxiety for his return was greater than ever. The moment he arrived he sent a page to desire to have coffee and take his bark in the Queen’s dressing-room. She said she would pour it out herself, and sent to inquire how he drank it.

“The King is very sensible of the great change there is in himself, and of her disturbance at it. It seems, but Heaven avert it! a threat of a total breaking up of the constitution. This, too, seems his own idea. I was present at his first seeing Lady Effingham on his return 212to Windsor this last time. ‘My dear Effy,’ he cried, ‘you see me, all at once, an old man.’

“I was so much affected by this exclamation, that I wished to run out of the room. Yet I could not but recover when Lady Effingham, in her well-meaning but literal way, composedly answered, ‘We must all grow old, sir; I am sure I do.’

“He then produced a walking-stick which he had just ordered. ‘He could not,’ he said, ‘get on without it; his strength seemed diminishing hourly.’

“He took the bark, he said; ‘but the Queen’ he cried, ‘is my physician, and no man need have a better; she is my Friend, and no man can have a better.’

“How the Queen commanded herself I cannot conceive.... Nor can I ever forget him in what passed this night. When I came to the Queen’s dressing-room he was still with her. He constantly conducts her to it before he retires to his own. He was begging her not to speak to him when he got to his room, that he might fall asleep, as he felt great want of that refreshment. He repeated this desire, I believe, at least a hundred times, though, far enough from needing it, the poor Queen never uttered one syllable; He then applied to me, saying he was really very well, except in that one particular, that he could not sleep....

“3RD.—We are all here in a most uneasy state. The King is better and worse so frequently, and changes so, daily, backwards and forwards, that everything is to be apprehended, if his nerves are not some way quieted. I dreadfully fear he is on the eve of some severe fever. The Queen is almost overpowered with some secret terror. I am affected beyond all expression in her presence, to see what struggles she makes to support serenity. To-day she gave up the conflict when I was 213alone with her, and burst into a violent fit of tears. It was very, very terrible to see!...

“5TH.—I found my poor Royal Mistress, in the morning, sad and sadder still; something horrible seemed impending....

“I was still wholly unsuspicious of the greatness of the cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of the constitution, the payment of sudden infirmity and premature old age for the waste of unguarded health and strength—these seemed to me the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of the fact!...

“At noon the King went out in his chaise, with the Princess Royal, for an airing. I looked from my window to see him; he was all smiling benignity, but gave so many orders to the postilions, and got in and out of the carriage twice, with such agitation, that again my fear of a great fever hanging over him grew more and more powerful. Alas! how little did I imagine I should see him no more for so long—so black a period!

“When I went to my poor Queen, still worse and worse I found her spirits....

“The Princess Royal soon returned. She came in cheerfully, and gave, in German, a history of the airing, and one that seemed comforting.

“Soon after, suddenly arrived the Prince of Wales. He came into the room. He had just quitted Brighthelmstone. Something passing within seemed to render this meeting awfully distant on both sides. She asked if he should not return to Brighthelmstone? He answered yes, the next day. He desired to speak with her; they retired together....

“Only Miss Planta dined with me. We were both nearly silent: I was shocked at I scarcely knew what, and she seemed to know too much for speech. She 214stayed with me till six o’clock, but nothing passed, beyond general solicitude that the King might get better.

“Meanwhile, a stillness the most uncommon reigned over the whole house. Nobody stirred; not a voice was heard; not a motion. I could do nothing but watch, without knowing for what: there seemed a strangeness in the house most extraordinary.

“At seven o’clock Columb came to tell me that the music was all forbid, and the musicians ordered away!

“This was the last step to be expected, so fond as his Majesty is of his concert, and I thought it might have rather soothed him: I could not understand the prohibition; all seemed stranger and stranger.”

One after another, the usual evening visitors made their appearance. First the equerries, and then Colonel Digby, who had reached the palace that afternoon, came in to tea. “Various small speeches now dropped, by which I found the house was all in disturbance, and the King in some strange way worse, and the Queen taken ill!” Presently the whole truth was divulged. “The King, at dinner, had broken forth into positive delirium, which long had been menacing all who saw him most closely; and the Queen was so overpowered as to fall into violent hysterics. All the Princesses were in misery, and the Prince of Wales had burst into tears. No one knew what was to follow—no one could conjecture the event.”

At ten o’clock, Miss Burney went to her own room to be in readiness for her usual summons to the Queen:

“Two long hours I waited—alone, in silence, in ignorance, in dread! I thought they would never be over; at twelve o’clock I seemed to have spent two whole days in waiting.... I then opened my door, to listen, in the passage, 215if anything seemed stirring. Not a sound could I hear. My apartment seemed wholly separated from life and motion. Whoever was in the house kept at the other end, and not even a servant crossed the stairs or passage by my rooms.

“I would fain have crept on myself, anywhere in the world, for some inquiry, or to see but a face, and hear a voice, but I did not dare risk losing a sudden summons.

............