III THE DEATH OF GEORGE II[44]
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The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I can not expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger. Change will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and then you will form your judgment more easily.
This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called for and drank his chocolate. At seven, his valet de chambre heard a groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bed-chamber he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She had been confined some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without further notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They had not closed his eyes; she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke to her, tho she could not hear him—guess what a shock when she found the truth.
She wrote to the Prince of Wales—but so had one of the valets de chambre first. He came to town, and saw the Duke [of Cumberland] and the Privy Council. He was extremely kind to the first—and in general has behaved with the greatest propriety, dignity, and decency. He read his speech to the Council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on himself to wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he means to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of York and Lord Bute are named of the Cabinet Council. The late King's will is not yet opened. To-day everybody kissed hands at Leicester House, and this week, I believe, the King will go to St. James's. The body has been opened; the great ventricle of the heart had burst. What an enviable death! In the greatest period of the glory of this country, and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship-load of bad news: could he have chosen such another moment?
The news is bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the Austrians behaved so savagely that even Russians felt delicacy, were shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary prince has been much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and forced to raise the siege of Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand had sent him most unadvisedly: we have scarce an officer unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I conclude, sail, to give an éclat to the new reign. Lord Albemarle does not command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, tho both applied.
Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary changes in the Household. Committees of council are regulating the mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies, militia, and approaching elections, was likely to be a desert all the winter, is filled in a minute, but everything is in the deepest tranquillity. People stare; the only expression. The moment anything is declared, one shall not perceive the novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a nation without curiosity.