For the next few days, notwithstanding that the King seemed sometimes better than at other times, he grew steadily worse. He became appreciably weaker; he walked like a gouty man; he had talked away all his voice, and his hoarseness was pitiful to hear. Nevertheless he was as amiable as ever:—“he seemed to have no anxiety but to set the Queen at rest, and no wish but to quiet and give pleasure to all around him.” In the meantime the poor Queen is overcome with nameless apprehension; walks up and down the room without uttering a word, shaking her head in manifest distress and irresolution. So matters wear on until the 3rd November when Dr. Heberden is called in, “for counsel [it is announced], not that His Majesty is worse.” Yet on the following day the Queen is in deeper distress than before; the King is in a state almost incomprehensible; and all the household is uneasy and alarmed. On the 5th, His Majesty goes out for an airing with the Princess Royal; and the Prince of Wales arrives from Brighton. Then between six and seven, an inexplicable stillness comes upon the Upper Lodge, as if something had happened. No one stirs; no one speaks. The evening concert is stopped. The equerries are gloomy and uncommunicative, though it is vaguely understood that the King is much worse, and that the Queen herself has been taken ill. At last Miss Burney learns the truth from the Vice-Chamberlain. At dinner His Majesty had broken into a positive fit of delirium, and the Queen had been in violent hysterics. “All the Princesses were in misery, and the Prince of Wales had burst into tears.[65] No one knew what was to follow—no one could conjecture the event.”
What did follow has been told and retold, and much of it belongs to history. But Miss Burney’s _Diary_ reveals the domestic details of the story as it is not recorded in the periods of the politician, or in the professional evidence of the doctors She depicts the wearing suspense of the household, the confusion and clash of conjectures, the grief and agony of the Queen, the waiting rooms and passages filled with silent pages and attendants, the thick, depressing November fog, the hoarse voice of the King, talking, talking, talking incessantly,—but still breathing nothing but consideration for those about him.[66] Then comes, by order of the physicians, to whom a third has now been added, the separation of the wife and husband. This was on the 6th. On the morning of the next day Miss Burney hears the Prince of Wales tell the Queen what had happened the night before. The King had got up, and insisted upon going into the next room, which to his amazement, he found crowded with members of the household ranged in dead silence around it on chairs and sofas. He inquired what they did there, spoke fondly of his favourite son, the Duke of York (then present, but not seen) and finally penned Sir George Baker [the Queen’s physician] into a corner, calling him an old woman, who did not understand his complaint, which was only nervous. During all this, no one dared approach him. At last Colonel Digby (who, in his own family, had some experience of demented persons) took him by the arm, and begged him to go back to bed. The King refused, and asked him who he was. “I am Colonel Digby, Sir”—he answered—“and your Majesty has been very good to me often, and now I am going to be very good to you, for you must come to bed, Sir, it is necessary to your life.” The King was so surprised that he let himself be drawn away like a child.