[124] George the Second kept his word. He never married again, though he survived the Queen thirty-three years. But within a year of Caroline’s death he brought Madame de Walmoden over to England, and later created her Countess of Yarmouth. [125] _Vide_ Hervey’s _Memoirs_. Also letter of Colonel William Douglas to Lord Carlisle, 12th November, 1737 (Carlisle MSS.). [126] Letter of Lady A. Irwin to Earl of Carlisle, 17th November, 1737 (Carlisle MSS.). [127] Hervey’s _Memoirs_. According to another account, she said: “I hope you will never desert the King, but continue to serve him with your usual fidelity,” and pointing to her husband, she added: “I recommend his Majesty to you”. Mahon’s _History_, vol. ii. _Vide_ also Horace Walpole’s _Reminiscences_. [128] Letter of Hon. Peter Wentworth to the Earl of Strafford, 1st December, 1737. Ranby was then seeking a divorce. [129] Coxe’s _Life of Walpole_. Horace Walpole also makes a statement to the same effect, though not so definite. CHAPTER XVI. ILLUSTRISSIMA CAROLINA. Queen Caroline’s funeral took place on the evening of Saturday, December 17th (1737), in Westminster Abbey. It was her special request that her obsequies should be as quiet and simple as possible, and the King respected her wish, though he commanded a general mourning, and arranged every detail of the ceremonial. During the month that elapsed between the Queen’s death and her funeral, the body, encased in a lead coffin and an outer one of English oak, rested in the chamber wherein she died, which was transformed into a _chapelle ardente_ for the time being. The walls were hung with purple and black, and tall tapers burned night and day around the bier. The doors were guarded by gentlemen pensioners, with their axes reversed, and the King allowed no one to enter the room except himself and those who watched by the body. The night before the funeral a brief service was held in the death chamber by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which the King, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Princesses Amelia, Caroline, Mary, and Louisa attended. This was the King’s farewell of all that was mortal of his Queen, for he was too ill, and too much overcome by grief to attend her funeral. The service over, the coffin was privately conveyed by torchlight from St. James’s Palace to the Princes’ Chamber adjoining the House of Lords. Here the late Queen’s pages watched all night, and were joined in the morning by her Majesty’s maids of honour. The body lay in state all that day, guarded by twenty gentlemen pensioners.