opened there at the end of October with a pasticcio, called Årsace, which had not the strength or life in it to keep the theatre open for more than a few nights. He had taken the theatre hurriedly, without properly considering the question of productions, only to find that there was no one to compose for him. Therefore he was about to defy the churches and revert to his old scandalous masquerades, when the blinds were drawn up in Brook Street, and the heavy swaying gait of the musician in Bond Street told London that Handel had returned. Heidegger lost no time. He urged Handel to finish his opera that he might produce it.

But Handel was not yet free from trouble. Directly his return was announced in the Daily Post, Strada's husband, del Pò, pressed for the settlement of his debt, and threatened to put Handel into prison. Only the knowledge that he was composing a new opera for the King's Theatre made him stay his hand for the moment. Unhappy Handel! In return for what he had given London, he almost received the reward of a debtor's prison!

Affairs at the Court hindered Handel in his project. On 9th November, Queen Caroline, sitting in her new library at St James's Park, was taken suddenly ill. She was hurried home; they dosed her with the prescriptions of this and that quack. Bent with pain, she played her part at the drawingroom that night, only to be reprimanded by the King because she had forgotten to speak to the Duchess of Norfolk. She went to bed, grew rapidly worse as the days passed. Doctors buzzed here and there, surgeons talked, shook their heads, grew hopeful and despondent by turns, and could do nothing. The Queen's increasing agony decided them at last to operate. Once, twice, thrice did they cut this unhappy woman, and all the trouble she gave them was to groan violently during the process, for which she apologised fulsomely to one and all when the operation was over.

The news spread that the Queen was dying. She was dying. The Prince of Wales made vain efforts to see her, but she refused him admission because he still consorted with the King's enemies. With some dormant affection for his mother breaking into life again, he implored the King to permit him.

Death of Queen Caroline

to visit the sick chamber. "If the puppy should, in one of his impertinent affected airs of duty and affection, dare to come to St James's, I order you to go to the scoundrel and tell him I wonder at his impudence for daring to come here," the King told Lord Hervey. "His poor mother is not in a condition to see him act his false, whining, cringing tricks now."

The King was terrified by the Queen's condition. He forgot his kingdom, even his seraglio in his fears. For the truant who philandered and lived for the pleasures of the hour was, after all, a homing creature. He had always leaned on the Queen; although frequently rude to her in public, his rudeness had brought only a weak smile. He told her frankly about his infidelities, wrote to her about them from Hanover, and grumbled because she had written only nineteen pages in reply. Mrs Selwyn, one of the Bedchamber Women, was wise in her generation when she told the King that he was the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, because he always told the Queen! "

3

And now the Queen was slipping through his fingers. He passed from violent temper to abject fear. When Dr Hulst told him that she could not live, he promptly boxed his ears.* The Queen had once said that no woman had a right to live after fifty-five, and it was obvious that she would not live. Only her courage made her dying so slow. They dragged in old Paul Bussière, the aged surgeon of ninety, and asked him -what could be done.

Again the knife. Again the wretched Queen, distorted in agony, faced the horrible ordeal. Old Bussière held the candle while Ranby performed the operation. For a moment the Queen smiled up at Ranby, when he was about to begin, then, remembering that he had but recently divorced his wife, she said: "What would you give to be using your wife in this

manner ! " 5

The flicker of a smile crossed the grim, clean-shaven face of the surgeon, and he went on with his work. Then came a diversion, which shows the strength of this woman. Ranby

1 Hervey, "Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 499. * Walpole, "George II," vol. i.
3 Ibid. 4 " Earl of Egmont MSS.," vol. ii. p. 445
5 Ibid.

was stooping over his task, and Bussière bent nearer with the candle when, in doing so, he set his wig on fire. The incident was a little alarming. Now to show her contempt of the pain the Queen told Ranby to stop awhile, as he must let her laugh! 1

1

Nothing could save the tormented woman. Imagine the scene of that Sunday night, 20th November. The King weeping furiously, and kissing the lips he had so often left for others. The Queen opening her eyes awhile and urging him to marry again, and then his historic reply: "Non, non, j'aurai des maîtresses." The King choking out sobs in the hot heaviness of the room. Presently the Queen seemed to sleep a little, and the King, worn out with his grief, crept on to a bed on the floor and, for all his sorrow, fell asleep. Princess Emily was on the couch-bed in the corner. Then, rousing herself and all those in the room, the Queen suddenly exclaimed "Pray!" In a few minutes she who had borne so much from the puckered up figure by the bedside, and never revealed her burning hurt to another, slipped quietly out. In vain did Princess Caroline hold a looking-glass to her mother's lips in search of some tiny breath of mist on its surface that would still betoken life. Her little startled cry came too soon for the waiting King. ""Tis over! "

What a panic seized the miserable man! So affrighted was he lest the spirit that had just passed should return, that he ordered a menial to stay in his bedroom for the rest of the night.

Yet the King's grief was no more than a surface storm that never reached the depths. He became wildly demonstrative in his sorrow. He gave funeral orders; he countermanded them. He ordered mourning, but, strive as they might, they could not find mourning deep enough for his display. In his perturbation he snubbed Walpole. He wanted an imposing funeral, so the Queen should not be buried till such time as was necessary to prepare her obsequies in all their magnificence. He wanted great music; he wanted Handel. He then ordered a new vault in Westminster Abbey to be

The Royal Funeral

made just big enough to contain the Queen's coffin. Then he ordered it to be made twice as large as was necessary, because he said he would be put in the same vault when he died, and they were to see to it that his dust mingled with that of his Queen.

Therefore, in the process of time, they did see to it. He was buried in the same vault, and the side of his coffin and the adjoining side of the Queen's coffin were withdrawn before the vault was filled in. For years the withdrawn sides of the two coffins stood on end in Westminster Abbey, leaning against the wall. But long before George II went there he had forgotten all about this odd freak of fancy that had given such an order.

He soon brought Madame Walmoden to England and made her Lady Yarmouth. How easily she made him forget. He had grown too puffy and fat and gouty, and ever pursuant of bright eyes, to care very much where they left him when that ignoble nuisance, Death, put an end to what had been a caper better pursued than attentions to the State. Perhaps he did not care what the People thought. There was still the prerogative of Kings. But the People did think, and immediately after the Queen died someone printed an epitaph and pasted it up on the Royal Exchange. It ran thus:

"O Death, where is thy sting

To take the Queen and leave the King!"1

The calamity at the Court-and it was recognised as a dire calamity, since the Queen had always maintained the dignity of the sovereignty, which George profligated so insistentlystirred the town. It stirred Handel. The Queen had always been his friend. George, on the other hand, had supported him in a vagrant fashion, in such spasmodic moods of energy as one not truly inured to the Arts could bestow. Handel realised at once that the Royal funeral, which was fixed for 17th December, made certain demands upon him which could not be ignored.

He immediately threw aside his opera, and set some words from the Bible, which were selected for the purpose by the

1 'Earl of Egmont MSS.," vol. ii. p. 458.

Sub-Dean of Westminster. With these words in front of him he composed the greatest Anthem that has ever been put to paper for the passing of a soul.

All the pomp and majesty of sovereignty was in that service. The King was there, heavy, prominent in his grief; the Princesses, softly crying in the Royal pew with the grief of those who had lost a real mother, and possessed a father whom they never respected. Let one who was there describe the ceremony. The Bishop of Chichester wrote to his son: "I came to attend the funeral which was performed last night in great order, and was over two or three hours' earlier than I thought. The procession went into Henry VII's chapel. Princess Amelia was the chief mourner. Before seven the service in the Abbey was actually begun, and the whole was finished before nine. The funeral service was performed by the Bishop of Rochester, as Dean of Westminster. After the service there was a long anthem, the words by the Sub-Dean, the music set by Mr Handel, and it is reckoned to be as good a piece as he ever made; it was about fifty minutes in singing."

Handel must have been conscious on that December evening of the great power and grandeur of the chords which his brain had produced. There must have been a sense of pride, achievement, in this his first public performance after the great break. One can see him, searching this face, and that, dreaming and wondering if into those crude souls the melancholy, the mourning, had been borne by his music.

"She that was great among the nations, and princess of the
provinces !

Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth
evermore."

The great uprising chords seemed to expel Death and the swirl of Death's wings. Many of those who had reviled this woman, laughed at her, gibed at her tame, German Hausfrau simplicity, at her questing, sensual husband, at her little reverences and morning prayers, which the whole life of the Court made a mockery; who reviled her for her heartlessness in keeping the Prince of Wales from her death-chamber, 1 "Hare MSS.," vol. 91. Appendix IX.