o b464705202491194 (53 page)

They threw down flowers on the path which the King would take to the Abbey.

Under the canopy came the centre of attraction: King George IV; and the crowds

roared its approval. His crimson velvet train decorated with gold stars was nine

yards long and on his head was a black hat with ostrich feathers.

The people went mad with joy. Trust old George to give them a good show.

The manner in which he walked was alone worth watching, and it was said no one

on Earth could bow as he did.

He was a king, all said and done, and if he had had a few wild adventures,

who could blame him?

God save the King.

————————

An open carriage drawn by six horses was making its way from Brandenburg

House to the Abbey.

‘I am going!’ Caroline had cried, her eyes alight with purpose. ‘I have said I

shall go to the Coronation and no one is going to stop me.’

Painted more heavily than usual— it was necessary she told Lady Anne for

her face was a peculiar shade of yellow under the lead and rouge— dressed in

outrageous colours, her jewels flashing, she rode through the crowd.

‘The Queen!’ they cried and ran after her carriage. They surrounded it,

impeding its passage towards the Abbey. What now? Everyone knew that the

King had forbidden the Queen to come to the Coronation.

She was surprised to detect a note of jeering laughter. Someone started to boo.

She did not believe that could be meant for her. The people had always been on

her side and she had just been acquitted.

She had been warned against coming to the Abbey by all those who wished

her well. It would be considered had taste, they told her. This was after all the day when the King was to be crowned. But she had been determined and had gone

against them.

At the door of the Abbey her way was barred.

‘Madam, no one is allowed to enter the Abbey without a ticket,’ said the

stalwart doorkeeper.

‘I am the Queen.’

‘No one without a ticket, Madam.’

She turned away. Someone in the crowd laughed. Flushed beneath her rouge,

her head shaking so that her enormous hat was jerked rakishly to one side, she

ordered her coach-man to drive her to another door.

‘No entrance without a ticket.’

‘I am the Queen.’

‘No entrance without a ticket, Your Majesty. Those are orders.’

She stood dismayed. The pain started to nag. A voice in the crowd called: ‘Go

home.’

She looked wildly about her as though she were about to speak and someone

cried: ‘Go to Como. Go and enjoy yourself with the Italian.’

Gracious Queen we thee implore

Go away and sin no more.’

But that effort be too great, Go away— at any rate.

They were jeering at her. They no longer believed her. They were suggesting

that she was guilty of what she had been proved innocent

They had been right. She had been foolish to come— foolish, foolish.
Foolish

as I ever was,
she thought.

She gave instructions to be driven home.

And as her carriage passed through the crowd she heard the jeering laughter.

————————

The next day she was very ill.

‘I pray you give me the magnesia quickly,’ she cried to Lady Anne; and she

mixed such a close that it was like a paste so that she had to eat it with a spoon.

‘And laudanum too,’ she added. ‘It will deaden this pain and perhaps let me

sleep.’

Lady Anne was alarmed and tried to dissuade her but Caroline took the stuff

and after a while slept.

A few days later she recovered and talked to Lady Anne about that

humiliating experience.

‘I should never have gone. I should have listened to advice. But then I never

did listen to advice, did I? I shall go to the theatre. I said I would go to see

Edward Kean and I will go.’

‘Your Majesty is not well enough—’

‘Nonsense, my dear Lady Anne. I wish to see how the people treat me. They

were very unkind on Coronation Day. They have changed. They quickly change, I

fear. The play is Richard III. Don’t try to dissuade me, my love I must go.’

And so to Drury Lane with a fearful Lady Anne.

She fainted half way through the performance but recovered by the time the

play was over. The audience was neither friendly nor unfriendly. This was

Coronation time— and George was their King.

When she returned to Brandenburg House she collapsed on to her bed.

Magnesia could bring her little relief and even laudanum could not give her sleep.

‘I fear,’ she said, ‘that I am very ill.’

The doctors came and bled her. They gave her more magnesia and castor oil.

She had been ill for some time, her doctors said. It was an inflammation of the

bowels which she had tried to pretend did not exist.

She sent for Willikin and embraced him.

‘You have been a great comfort to me, dear boy,’ she told him. ‘We have had

some good times together, have we not?’

Willikin wept and said that was so.

‘Do not fret, my little Willikin. You will not want. I have taken care of that.’

Brougham came to her bedside and she laughed at him. She began to talk of

all the places she had seen during her travels and of the strange life she had led.

She had grown animated and seemed unconscious now of pain.

‘Your Majesty is going to recover,’ said Brougham.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I shall not. Nor do I wish to. It is better for me to die. I am

tired of this life.’

Believing that she would recover, he left her.

But she asked for her friends to come to her bedside. There was Willikin and

Lady Anne, Sir Matthew Wood and one or two more.

‘My friends,’ she said, smiling at them. ‘Bury me in Brunswick, it is better

that I should return to the home which perhaps I should never have left. In my

will you will find the inscription I wish to be engraved on my coffin. Will you see that it is done?’

They assured her that it would be; and she smiled and died.

————————

According to her wish, her body was to be buried in Brunswick, and the King,

suspecting trouble as the cortege travelled through London on its way to the coast gave orders that it was not to pass through the City.

The rain was streaming down yet the people had come out in their thousands

to pay their last tribute to Queen Caroline. Now that she was dead she had again

become a heroine and when it was discovered that the procession was to be

diverted that it might not pass through the City the crowd decided otherwise.

As it came down Kensington Gore and Knightsbridge the mob surrounded it

and insisted on leading it to Temple Bar.

There was a clash between the soldiers who had been sent to guard the

cortege, and in the mêlée two men were shot.

But the people had their way, and the crowds waiting in the city madly

cheered the departing Queen.

She was buried in Brunswick. Willikin and Lady Hamilton were among those

present. They stood solemnly thinking of her and the strange life she had led; and the words she had asked should be engraved on her coffin were:

HERE LIES CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, THE INJURED QUEEN OF ENGLAND.