Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/123

 Puritan governor forbade Bishop Prescott to use the Church of England prayers. On the coffin being opened, the face was found dark and discoloured, the forehead and mouth had little of their muscular substance remaining, the cartilage of the nose was gone, but the left eye, though open and full at the first exposure, vanished almost immediately. The shape of the face was long, the nearly black hair was thick at the back of the head; the beard was a reddish brown. On examining the head, the muscles of the neck showed contraction, and the fourth cervical vertebra had been cut through transversely, leaving the severed surfaces smooth and even. The appearance was such as a blow from a heavy axe would have produced. In this chapel, sleep many kings and queens; Jane Seymour among them, and Henry the Eighth, by his own desire "near his true and loving wife, Queen Jane." The gigantic tomb, with six hundred and thirty-four statues and forty-four "historics," which the tyrant ordered, was never put up. His subjects had better things to think of.

Old King George's memory is held dear at Windsor. Thousands of honest old stories of him circulate in the neighbourhood, all showing what a dull, respectable, methodical, worthy, tiresome old fellow he was. He rose at half-past seven, attended service in the chapel, and breakfasted at nine with the queen and the princesses. The meal lasted only half an hour. The princesses were ranged according to the severest etiquette. After breakfast, the king rode out attended by his equerries and his daughters. If the weather were bad he sat within doors and played at chess. He dined at two, the queen and princesses at four. At five the king visited the queen and took a glass of wine and water. He then transacted private business with his secretary. The evening was spent at cards, all visitors retiring when the castle clock struck ten, and always supperless. The royal family separated at eleven o'clock for the night.

We all know from Peter Pindar how the king chattered, asked foolish questions, and answered them himself. His simple adventures are still narrated in many Windsor farms. One day he had to pass a narrow gate, on which a stolid ploughboy sat swinging. "Who are you, boy?" said the king. "I be a pig boy. I be from the low country, and out of work at present." "Don't they want lads here?" asked the king. "I don't know," replied the boy. "All hereabouts belongs to Georgey." "And who is Georgey?" "Georgey! Why, the king; he lives at the castle, but he does no good to me." The king instantly ordered the boy to be employed on his farm, and promised to look after him. He turned out a steady lad. The king once went into a cottage and began turning the meat for an old woman, and was so pleased with himself for doing it, that he left on the rude table five guineas to buy a jack, wrapped in a paper with that notification. There was no pride about him, and he was very kind hearted. Once he and Charlotte met a little boy—"the king's beefeater's little boy." The king said, "Kneel down and kiss the queen's hand." But the boy was obdurate and determined. "No," said he, "I won't kneel, for if I do I shall spoil my new breeches." The king was not so obstinate and pig-headed but that he could bend to common sense sometimes. One day Colonel Price differed with him about cutting down a certain tree which the king thought injured the prospect. "Ay," said the king, pettishly, "that's your way; you continually contradict me." "If your majesty," replied the colonel, "will not condescend to listen to the honest sentiments of your servants, you can never hear the truth." After a short pause the king kindly laid his hand on the colonel's shoulder, and said, "You are right, Price; the tree shall stand." Even when Prince George was a boy, Handel had noticed his fondness for music, and the taste continued till his death. When old, crazed, and blind, he would wander up and down the corridors of Windsor, dressed in a purple dressing gown, his long white beard falling on his breast, and used at lucid intervals to sing a hymn, and accompany himself on the harpsichord. One day towards the end of his life, in a sane moment, the king heard a bell toll. He asked who was dead. He was told it was a Mrs. S. The king had a great memory—memory is almost a royal prerogative—and immediately said: "Ah! She was a linendraper at the corner of —— street. She was a good woman, and brought up her children in the fear of God. She is gone to heaven. I hope I shall soon follow her." Latterly he became impressed with a sense that he was dead, and used to say, "I must have a suit of black in memory of King George the Third, for whom I know there is a general mourning." He would often hold conversation with imaginary noblemen, but the topics to which he referred were always past events. Sometimes he would sit for hours in a torpor, his head resting on both hands; often he would make his servants sit down, and would address them as if he were in parliament.

At last, in 1820, Death came mercifully, and gave the word of release. The lying in state took place in the audience chamber, where the yeomen of the guard stood, their halberts hung with black crape. The coffin was placed beneath a throne hung with black cloth. Two heralds in tabards sat at the foot of the coffin, and the mourners at the head. When all the public had been admitted, the Eton boys were allowed to pass through the rooms. The funeral took place by night, and was magnificent and solemn. The procession was marshalled in St. George's Hall, the Duke of York being chief mourner. About nine o'clock the symphony to the Dead March in Saul reverberated mournfully, the trumpets sounded, and the minute guns thundered. As the coffin passed by, every spectator stood uncovered. The torchlight lit the earnest faces, and gleamed on the towers, pinnacles, and battlements of the castle. A detachment of the Grenadier Guards lined the aisle, their arms and standards