[[A.D. 1818.]] Queen Charlotte appeared in public no more, for her health was declining, and she went to Bath to try and restore it, without avail. Towards the close of the year she was again at Kew, where she was confined to her bed with dropsy. She could not see the king, for he was at Windsor, and it was deemed unsafe for her to move. At last her case was pronounced hopeless, and she expired on the sixteenth of November. Her last breath was drawn in the arms of her eldest son, who, during her final illness, had been unremitting in his attentions. The queen's funeral took place on the 2d of December, the procession consisting of horse and foot soldiers, as if they had been escorting a warrior to the tomb instead of a woman. The arrangements throughout were very inappropriate, and few members of the peerage felt called upon to do honor to their late sovereign. Her will, which had been made only on the day preceding her death, was a very sensible one, but she left debts to the amount of nine thousand pounds. These were contracted for purposes of charity, and were of course paid, for Queen Charlotte was exceedingly benevolent without the least ostentation. Her superb diamonds, valued at a million of pounds, were divided by her request among her four daughters. {203}George III. survived his wife two years, but was never informed of her death, because he was not in a condition to bear the sad news when he could have understood it, which was only at rare intervals. He now occupied a long suite of rooms, in which were pianos and harpsichords; on these he would occasionally play a few notes from some composition of Handel's, and then stroll on. His bodily health was good and his appetite was excellent, and this made the loss of his reason only the more pitiable. He generally wore a blue robe-de-chambre fastened with a belt in the morning, and changed it for a costume of brocaded silk in the afternoon. As he wandered through his apartments, which he could do even though he had become totally blind, the old king would speak to the dear ones, whom he fancied were near him, but always made the replies himself, or he would address an imaginary parliament, and, when exhausted, fall back in a kind of delirium. [[A.D. 1820.]] As the new year opened the health of George III. began to fail, and he was soon reduced almost to a skeleton. For a month he was confined to his bed, and on the 29th of January breathed his last, without the slightest pain. He was nearly eighty-two years of age at the time of his death. {204} CHAPTER VII. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, WIFE OF GEORGE IV. (A.D. 1768-1821.)