At length, too late, other and more sensible means were resorted to:  but the queen’s strength was failing fast.  It must have been a strange scene in that chamber of death.  Much as the king really grieved for the queen’s state, he was still sufficiently collected to grieve also lest Richmond Lodge, which was settled on the queen, should go to the hated Griff:[22] and he actually sent Lord Hervey to the lord chancellor to inquire about that point.  It was decided that the queen could make a will, so the king informed her of his inquiries, in order to set her mind at ease, and to assure her it was impossible that the prince could in any way benefit pecuniarily from her death.  The Princess Emily now sat up with her mother.  The king went to bed.  The Princess Caroline slept on a couch in the antechamber, and Lord Hervey lay on a mattress on the floor at the foot of the Princess Caroline’s couch.

On the following day (four after the first attack) mortification came on, and the weeping Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were informed that the queen could not hold out many hours.  Hervey was ordered to withdraw.  The king, the Duke of Cumberland, and the queen’s four daughters alone remained, the queen begging them not to leave her until she expired; yet her life was prolonged many days.

When alone with her family, she took from her finger a ruby ring, which had been placed on it at the time of the coronation, and gave it to the king.  ‘This is the last thing,’ she said, ’I have to give you; naked I came to you, and naked I go from you; I had everything I ever possessed from you, and to you whatever I have I return.’  She then asked for her keys, and gave them to the king.  To the Princess Caroline she intrusted the care of her younger sisters; to the Duke of Cumberland, that of keeping up the credit of the family.  ’Attempt nothing against your brother, and endeavour to mortify him by showing superior merit,’ she said to him.  She advised the king to marry again; he heard her in sobs, and with much difficulty got out this sentence:  ’Non, j’aurai des maitresses’ To which the queen made no other reply than ’Ah, mon Dieu! cela n’empeche pas.’ ‘I know,’ says Lord Hervey, in his Memoirs, ’that this episode will hardly be credited, but it is literally true.’

She then fancied she could sleep.  The king kissed her, and wept over her; yet when she asked for her watch, which hung near the chimney, that she might give him the seal to take care of, his brutal temper broke forth.  In the midst of his tears he called out, in a loud voice, ’Let it alone! mon Dieu! the queen has such strange fancies; who should meddle with your seal?  It is as safe there as in my pocket.’

The queen then thought she could sleep, and, in fact, sank to rest.  She felt refreshed on awakening and said, ’I wish it was over; it is only a reprieve to make me suffer a little longer; I cannot recover, but my nasty heart will not break yet.’  She had an impression that she should die on a Wednesday:  she had, she said, been born on a Wednesday, married on a Wednesday, crowned on a Wednesday, her first child was born on a Wednesday, and she had heard of the late king’s death on a Wednesday.