UNCERTAIN STATE OF THE KING’s HEALTH.
Kew, Friday, Oct. 17.-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; so precious, too, is his health.
Oct. 18.-The king was this morning better. My royal mistress told me Sir George Baker(294) was to settle whether we returned to Windsor to-day or to-morrow.
Sunday, Oct. 19.-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.
We are to stay here some time longer, and so unprepared were we for more than a day or two, that our distresses are prodigious, even for clothes to wear; and as to books, there are not three amongst us; and for company only Mr. de Luc and Miss Planta; and so, in mere desperation for employment, I have just begun a tragedy.(295) We are now in so spiritless a situation that my mind would bend to nothing less sad, even in fiction. But I am very glad something of this kind has occurred to me; it may while away the tediousness of this unsettled, unoccupied, unpleasant period.
Oct. 20.-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.
I had all my morning devoted to receiving inquiring visits. Lady Effingham, Sir George Howard, Lady Frances Howard, all came from Stoke to obtain news of the king; his least illness spreads in a moment. Lady Frances Douglas came also. She is wife of the Archibald Douglas who caused the famous Hamilton trial in the House of Peers, for his claim to the Douglas name.(296) She is fat, and dunch, and heavy, and ugly; otherwise, they say, agreeable enough Mr. Turbulent has been sent for, and he enlivens the scene somewhat. He is now all he should be, and so altered! scarce a flight left.
Oct. 21.-The good and excellent king is again better, and we expect to remove to Windsor in a day or two.
Oct. 23.-The king continues to mend, thank God! Saturday we hope to return to Windsor. Had not this composition fit seized me, societyless, and bookless, and viewless as I am, I know not how I could have whiled away my being; but my tragedy goes on, and fills up all vacancies.
Oct. 25.-Yesterday was so much the same, I have not marked it; not so to-day. The king was so much better that our Windsor journey at length took place, with permission of Sir George Baker, the only physician his majesty will admit. Miss Cambridge was with me to the last moment.
I have been hanging up a darling remembrance of my revered, incomparable Mrs. Delany. Her “Sacharissa” is now over my chimney. I could not at first bear it, but now I look at it, and call her back to my eye’s mind perpetually. This, like the tragedy I have set about, suits the turn of things in this habitation.
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 even 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. 26-The king was prevailed upon not 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.
Oct. 29.-The dear and good king again gains ground, and the queen becomes easier.
To-day Miss Planta told me she heard Mr. Fairly was confined at Sir R- F— ‘s, and therefore she would now lay any wager he was to marry Miss F — .(297)
In the evening I inquired what news of him of General Bude: he told me he was still confined at a friend’s house, but avoided naming where — probably from suggesting that, however little truth there may yet have been in the report, more may belong to it from this particular intercourse.
THE KING COMPLAINS OF WANT OF SLEEP.
Nov. 1.-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!
She read to me to-day a lecture of Hunter’s. During the reading, 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.
She revived, however, finished the lecture, and went upstairs and played upon the Princess Augusta’s harpsichord.
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 to 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; but there was something so touching in this speech, from his hoarse voice and altered countenance, that it overset me very much.
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 need Ing 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.
The kindness and benevolence of his manner all this time was most penetrating: he seemed to have no anxiety but to set the queen at rest, and no wish but to quiet and give pleasure to all around him, To me, he never yet spoke with such excess of benignity: he appeared even solicitous to satisfy me that he should do well, and to spare all alarm; but there was a hurry in his manner and voice that indicated sleep to be page 226 indeed wanted. Nor could I, all night, forbear foreseeing “He sleeps now, or to-morrow he will be surely delirious!”
Sunday, Nov. 2.-The king was better, and prevailed upon to give up going to the early prayers. The queen and princesses went. After they were gone, and I was following towards my room, the king called after me, and he kept me in discourse a full half hour nearly all the time they were away.
It was all to the same purport; that he was well, but wanted more rest; yet he said he had slept the last night like a child. But
his manner, still, was so touchingly kind, so softly gracious, that it doubled my concern to see him so far from well.
DISTRESS OF THE QUEEN.
Nov. 3. — 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 alone with her, and burst into a violent fit of tears. It was very, very terrible to see! How did I wish her a Susan or a Fredy! To unburthen her loaded mind would be to relieve it from all but inevitable affliction. O, may heaven in its mercy never, never drive me to that solitary anguish more!- I have tried what it would do; I speak from bitter recollection of past melancholy experience.
Sometimes she walks up and down the room without uttering a word, but shaking her head frequently, and in evident distress and irresolution. She is often closeted with Miss Goldsworthy, of whom, I believe, she makes inquiry how her brother has found the king, from time to time.
The princes both came to Kew, in several visits to the king. The Duke of York has also been here, and his fond father could hardly bear the pleasure of thinking him anxious for his health. “So good,” he says “is Frederick!”
To-night, indeed, at tea-time, I felt a great shock, in hearing, from General Budé, that Dr, Heberden had been called in. It is true more assistance seemed much wanting, yet the king’s rooted aversion to physicians makes any new-comer tremen dous. They said, too, it was merely for counsel, not that his majesty was worse.
Nov. 4.-Passed much the same as the days preceding it, the queen in deep distress, the king in a state almost incomprehensible, and all the house uneasy and alarmed. The Drawing-room was again put off, and a steady residence seemed fixed at Windsor.
Nov. 5.-I found my poor royal mistress, in the morning, sad and sadder still; something horrible seemed impending, and I saw her whole resource was in religion. We had talked lately much upon solemn Subjects, and she appeared already preparing herself to be resigned for whatever might happen.
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!
I had given up my walks some days; I was too uneasy to quit the house while the queen remained at home, and she now never left it. Even Lady Effingham, the last two days, could not obtain admission; She Could only hear from a page how the royal family went on.
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. She had been greatly offended by some anecdote in a newspaper — the “Morning Herald” — relative to the king’s indisposition. She declared the printer should be called to account. She bid me burn the paper, and ruminated upon who could be employed to represent to the editor that he must answer at his peril any further such treasonable paragraphs. I named to her Mr. Fairly, her own servant, and one so peculiarly fitted for any office requiring honour and discretion. “Is he here, then?” she cried. “No,” I answered, but he was expected in a few days.
I saw her concurrence with this proposal. 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.
FIRST OUTBURST OF THE KING’s DELIRIUM.
I had but just reached my own room, deeply musing on the state of’ things, when a chaise stopped at the rails; and I saw Mr. Fairly and his son Charles alight, and enter the house. He walked lamely, and seemed not yet recovered from his late attack. Though most happy to see him at this alarming time, when I knew he could be most useful, as there is no one to whom the queen opens so confidentially upon her affairs, I had yet a fresh stair to see, by his anticipated arrival, though still lame, that he must have been sent for, and hurried hither.
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 stayed 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 step, 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.
Very late came General Budé. He looked extremely uncomfortable. Later still came Colonel Goldsworthy: his countenance all gloom, and his voice scarce articulating no or yes. General Grenville was gone to town. General Bud asked me if I had seen Mr. Fairly; and last Of all, at length, he also entered. How grave he looked, how shut up in himself! A silent bow was his only salutation Page 229 how changed I thought it, — and how fearful a meeting, SO long expected as a solace!
Colonel Goldsworthy was called away: I heard his voice whispering some time in the passage, but he did not return. 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!
At length, General Budé said he would go and see if any one was in the music-room. Mr. Fairly said he thought he had better not accompany him, for as he had not yet been seen, his appearance might excite fresh emotion. The general agreed, and went.
We were now alone. But I could not speak: neither did Mr. Fairly. I worked — I had begun a hassock for my Fredy. A long and serious pause made me almost turn sick with anxious wonder and fear, and an inward trembling totally disabled me from asking the actual situation of things; if I had not had my work, to employ my eyes and hands, I must have left the room to quiet myself.
I fancy he penetrated into all this, though, at first, he had concluded me informed of everything; but he now, finding me silent, began an inquiry whether I was yet acquainted how bad all was become, and how ill the king? I really had no utterance for very alarm, but my look was probably sufficient; he kindly saved me any questions, and related to me the whole of the mysterious horror!
O my dear friends, what a history! 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.
He spoke of the poor queen, in terms of the most tender compassion; he pitied her, he said, from the bottom of his soul; and all her sweet daughters, the lovely princesses — there was no knowing to what we might look forward for them all!
I was an almost silent listener; but, having expressed himself very warmly for all the principal sufferers, he kindly, and with i
nterest, examined me. “How,” he cried, “are You? Are you strong? are you stout? can you go through such scenes as these? you do not look much fitted for them.” “I shall do very well,” I cried, “for, at a time such as this, I shall surely forget myself utterly. The queen will be all to me. I shall hardly, I think, feel myself at liberty to be unhappy!” . . .
AN ANXIOUS NIGHT.
Mr. Fairly stayed with me all the evening, during which we heard no voice, no sound! all was deadly still!
At ten o’clock I said, “ I must go to my own room, to be in waiting.” He determined upon remaining downstairs, in the equerries’ apartment, there to wait some intelligence. We parted in mutual expectation of dreadful tidings. In separating, he took my hand, and earnestly recommended me to keep myself stout and firm.
If this beginning of the night was affecting, what did it not grow afterwards 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, if 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. I re-entered my room and there passed another endless hour, in conjectures too horrible to relate.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 591