Page:The Wentworth Papers 1715-1739.djvu/31

 is to be brought hither, where she is to He upon a bed of state, dressed out as when she was aHve, till September next, when she is to be buried."

To Brigadier Cadogan he writes, on February 24 : —

" News I have not a word to send you from hence, and intriguing in this place is dull in the action, and would be much more in the relation ; besides, you know none of our beau mo?ide here, who are all, at present, under the cloud of large black veils, for our mourning for the late Queen is very deep here, and indeed this Court has lost its chiefest orna- ment and diversion, for she was a princess of extraordinary qualities. All her fault was she had too much wit, and could not spare her friends, which made her enemies. Her husband mourns as all other husbands used to do ; he cried and took on extremely at first, wears a long black cloak, but his grief wears off apace. He sighs when he talks of his Queen in public, and smiles in private when they tell him of marrying again. The eldest sister of the King of Sweden seems to be the fairest in view at present, but he has a mind his son should have the youngest, and does not know well how to reconcile that matter, though some tell him a father and son may marry two sisters."

And to his aunt. Lady Bathurst, 6 June, 1705 : —

" We are making great preparation here for the late Queen of Prussia's funeral, which is to be in about a fortnight's time, and my house stands in the street where the corpse and pro- cession is to pass, and you will judge how fine the show is to be when I tell you that my footmen are offered ^5 English for to let out the two windows that is in the room below stairs where they eat ; and I am so barbarous a Prince that to their affliction I will not give them leave to take money because it is in my house. Her poor mother, the Electress of Hanover, seems still much afflicted for the Queen, and since I have been out of town she has writ me a very melancholy

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