THE KING'S MALADY

Throughout his life George had persevered in a course of systematic abstinence and regular exercise, and he had endeavoured to strengthen an apparently sound and vigorous body by outdoor pursuits. He rose early both in winter and summer, never remained at any entertainment later than midnight, and usually went to bed before that hour. Corpulence was the bane of his family, and, perturbed at the thought that he might suffer from it, he discussed the question with his uncle, William of Cumberland, whose stoutness was notorious. "It is constitutional," said the latter, "and I am much mistaken if your Majesty will not become as large as myself, before you attain to my age." "Perhaps," suggested George, "it arises from your not using sufficient exercise?" "I use, nevertheless, constant and severe exercise of every kind," his uncle assured him. "But there is another effort requisite, in order to repress this tendency, which is much more difficult to practise; and without which, no exercise, however violent, will suffice. I mean, great renunciation and temperance. Nothing else can prevent your Majesty from growing to my size."[231] Always inclined to moderation in food and drink, after this conversation the temperance of George's life became almost proverbial. "It is a fact," says Wraxall, "that during many years of his life, after coming up from Kew, or from Windsor, often on horseback, and sometimes in heavy rain, to the Queen's House; he has gone in a Chair to St. James's, dressed himself, held a levÉe, passed through all the forms of that long and tedious ceremony, for such it was in the way that he performed it; without leaving any individual in the Circle unnoticed: and has afterwards assisted at a Privy Council, or given audience to his Cabinet Ministers and others, till five and even sometimes till six o'clock. After so much fatigue of body and of mind, the only refreshment or sustenance that he usually took consisted in a few slices of bread and butter and a dish of tea, which he sometimes swallowed as he walked up and down, previous to getting into his carriage, in order to return into the country."[232] It is probable, however, that his complaint was increased by his extreme abstemiousness, and his rigid morality, for, as Lord Carlisle has stated, "the family disorder introduced by his mother required high living and strong wines. The French call it, 'les humeurs froids.'"[233]

Although wine was recommended to him to assist digestion, he declined to believe in its efficacy;[234] and it is amusing to read that he desired the members of his suite to be as abstemious as himself. Miss Burney has narrated a story of that quaint wag, Colonel Goldsworthy, who, after his return from hunting with the King, damp, muddy, and tired, was called by the King. "'Sir,' said I, smiling agreeably, with the rheumatism just creeping all over! but still, expecting something a little comfortable, I wait patiently to know his gracious pleasure, and then, 'Here, Goldsworthy, I say,' he cries, 'will you have a little barley water?' Barley water in such a plight as that! Fine compensation for a wet jacket, truly!—barley water! I never heard of such a thing in my life! barley water after a day's hard hunting." "And did you drink it?" Miss Burney asked. "And did the King drink it himself?" "Yes, God bless his Majesty!" replied the equerry, "but I was too humble a subject to do the same as my King."[235]

Wraxall and many other contemporaries have stated that the King enjoyed almost perfect health until 1788, but this only shows with what success the truth was hidden, for, as we have seen, he was seriously ill in 1762, and in danger of losing his life and reason three years later; while in 1766 his health temporarily gave way under the mental excitement occasioned by affairs of state,[236] and, a little known chronicler states, in 1782 he was again "extremely indisposed".[237]

The mental derangement of 1788 is usually stated to have been first discerned in the autumn, but as a matter of fact the symptoms were obvious much earlier in the year, although it was then declared the King was suffering only from a bilious disorder. In the spring Sir George Baker attended him, and gave it as his opinion that the bile did not flow properly; but the patient declined to take medicine, and, as Mrs. Papendiek states, "he was up and down in his condition—better or worse, but did not rally." At Easter, Dr. Heberden was called in, and, considering the case alarming, invited Dr. Munro to consult with him. "The great desire," according to Mrs. Papendiek, "was to keep the circumstance secret as much as possible from the public, to hasten the session, and direct their hopes to the ease of summer business, to change of air, and other restorations. The King was aware of the probability of his malady, but was unconscious of its having already having made great strides. Dr. Munro retired and was not again called in."[238]

"Having had rather a smart bilious attack, which, by the goodness of Divine Providence, is quite removed," the King wrote to the Bishop of Worcester on June 8, "Sir George Baker has strongly recommended me to the going for a month to Cheltenham, as he thinks the water efficacious on such occasions, and that an absence from London will keep me free from certain fatigues that attend long audiences."[239] The departure was postponed until July 12, when the King went with the Queen and the Princesses to Cheltenham, where he stayed at Bay's Hill Lodge, the seat of the Earl of Fauconberg. From there he made excursions to Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Worcester[240] and some other places; but neither the change nor the waters benefited him, and on August 16, the royal family returned to Windsor.

Miss Burney has told us how the King was very sensible of the great change there was in himself, and how he said to Lady Effingham, when she came to visit him, "You see me, all at once, an old man." Slowly but surely the disorder increased, and it became more and more obvious that his intellect was affected.[241] Then, on October 16, he went out in the dew, and instead of changing his damp shoes and stockings, he rode to town in them, and held a levÉe. It was clear that he had caught cold, and on his return to Kew the Queen begged him to take a cordial, but instead he ate a pear and drank a glass of cold water, after which he felt unwell, and went to bed earlier than usual. "About one in the morning," Sir Gilbert Elliot has recorded, "he was seized violently with a cramp or some other violent thing in the stomach which rendered him speechless, and was all but. The Queen ran out in great alarm in her shift, or with very little clothes, among the pages, who, seeing her in that situation, were at first retiring out of respect, but the Queen stopped them, and sent them instantly for the apothecary at Richmond, during which time the King had continued in the fits and speechless. The apothecary tried to make him swallow something strong, but the King, who appeared not to have lost his senses, still liked a bit of his own way, and rejected by signs everything of that sort. They contrived, however, to cheat him, and got some cordial down in the shape of medicine, and the fit went off."

After this, George was never really well until the attack had run its course. He slept but little, talked unceasingly and only stopped when actually exhausted, and was very weak. "I cannot get on without it," he said, showing a walking stick, "my strength seems diminishing hourly." On October 22, Sir George Baker informed ministers that the King's condition was critical yet "to stop further lies and any fall of the stock,"[242] he held a levÉe on the 24th, when, however, his disordered dress and vacant manner left no doubt as to the nature of his malady. On the following Sunday at church, in the middle of the sermon he started up and embraced the Queen and the Princesses in a frantic manner, exclaiming, "You know what it is to be nervous." A day or two later, after a private concert, he went up to Dr. Ayrton, and laying his hand on the musician's shoulder, "I fear, Sir," he said, "I shall not long be able to hear music: it seems to affect my head and it is with difficulty I bear it," and then added softly, "Alas! the best of us are but frail mortals."[243] About the same time, after a long ride, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "I wish to God I may die, for I am going to be mad."

We are indebted to Philip Withers for our knowledge of the King's first attack. "My office places me at the fountain head of information," he has written. "As senior Page of the Presence my apartment is situated between the grand Anti-chamber and the Closet of Private Audience. In each room there is a door of communication with my apartment, and I am constantly prepared to execute commands. The doors of my apartment open near the fireplaces of the Closet and Anti-chamber; and as there is a current of air passing through the doors (for they are opposite to each other) the Fireplaces are defended by lofty, magnificent screens so that either door may be left a little open without being noticed. In the common course of things I am accustomed to disregard both the company and conversation; and, indeed, it would be highly indecent."[244] That Withers was an unscrupulous fellow is obvious, for he was scoundrel enough to turn a dishonest penny by publishing the secrets he acquired by eavesdropping; but, in spite of the way it was obtained, his testimony is valuable. He was, however, an ingenuous youth, and after stating in his narrative that there was abroad a suspicion that the disease was hereditary, he begs that people "will forbear to credit an opinion in which so many innocent and amiable children are interested." "I do not deny the possible existence of hereditary disease," he continues. "In all ages of the world, and among every complexion of men, the opinion has been corroborated by fact. But what forbids our hoping better things in the case before us? Who will have the temerity to aver on oath that His Majesty's complaint is not the Gout, or some kindred disorder, unhappily driven to the seat of intelligence?" Withers has related how, about this time, the King and Queen, with himself in attendance, were driving one day through Windsor Park, when the King stopped the horses, and, crying, "There he is," alighted. His Majesty then approached an oak, and when within a few yards of it, uncovered and advanced, bowing with the utmost respect, and then, seizing one of the lower branches, shook it heartily, as one shakes the hand of a friend. The Queen turned pale and after a terrified pause told Withers to dismount and tell the King that her Majesty desired his company. From the words that were uttered, the page learnt that George imagined he was discussing European politics with the King of Prussia!

After this distressing episode, there ensued a period of fluctuation, when occasional paroxysms were succeeded by intervals of clear understanding, during which everybody at Windsor went about in fear and trembling, not knowing what would happen next. The Queen was almost overpowered with terror. "I am affected beyond all expression in her presence to see what struggles she makes to support her serenity," Miss Burney wrote on November 3. "To-day she gave up the conflict when I was alone with her, and burst into a violent fit of tears. It was very, very terrible to see."[245] At this critical moment Sir George Baker was far from well, and, feeling unable to undertake the entire charge of the royal invalid, and perhaps disinclined to take upon himself the entire responsibility, called in Dr. Warren, whom, however, the King declined to receive. "Dr. Warren was then placed where he could hear his voice, and all that passed, and receive intelligence concerning his pulse, etc., from Sir George Baker."[246]

Dr. Warren came to the conclusion that the disorder under which the King laboured was an absolute mania, and wholly unconnected with fever, which statement of the case he had later to announce to the sufferer. On November 5, the King broke out in violent delirium at dinner, flew at the Prince of Wales, clutched him by the throat, and threw him against a wall, crying, he would know how to dare keep the King of England from speaking his mind. That night George was hopelessly mad; his physical as well as his mental health was impaired, and his life despaired of. "The doctors say it is impossible to survive it long, if his situation does not take some extraordinary change in a few hours," Sheridan was informed. "Since this letter was begun, all articulation even seems to be at an end with the poor King; but, for the two hours preceding, he was in a most determined frenzy."[247] After a time he slept, and when he awoke the fever had somewhat abated, but he had still all the gestures and ravings of the most confirmed maniac, and a new noise in imitation of the howling of a dog. Then he became calmer and talked of religion, and declared himself inspired, but soon relapsed into a turbulent and incoherent state, and tried to jump out of a window.[248] On November 9 a rumour ran through the city that the King was dead, but on the 12th orders were sent to the office of the Secretary of State that it should be notified to foreign courts that no apprehensions were entertained of immediate danger of the King's life. On November 16 a public prayer was offered in all churches for his recovery.

The physicians in attendance had been divided upon the question of the possibility of the King's physical recovery, but they were in agreement as to the unlikelihood of his regaining his reason. The first ray of hope came on November 19 from Sir Lucas Pepys, who declared that there was "nothing desponding in the case," but advised stronger measures, the denial of dangerous indulgences, and greater quiet. In spite of this pronouncement, on the following day Dr. Warren had the unpleasant task to inform the King he was regarded as incapable of transacting business of any kind. "To-day, I have heard, is fixed upon to speak reason to One who has none," George Selwyn wrote to Lady Carlisle on November 20. "Dr. Warren, in some set of fine phrases, is to tell his Majesty that he is stark mad, and must have a straight waistcoat. I am glad I am not chosen to be that Rat who is to put the bell about the Cat's neck. For if it should please God to forgive our transgressions, and restore his Majesty to his senses, for he can never have them again till we grow better, I suppose, according to the opinion of churchmen, who are perfectly acquainted with all the dispensations of Providence, and the motive of His conduct; I say, if that unexpected period arrives, I should not like to stand in the place of that man who has moved such an Address to the Crown."[249]

The favourable opinion of Sir Lucas Pepys was confirmed by Dr. Addington, who, called in on November 26, was the only physician of all those consulted who had experience of mental cases, and even he was not professedly a practitioner in them. For some reason Dr. Addington discontinued his attendance after a few days, and then at last it was deemed imperative to add to the medical staff some one skilled in the treatment of insanity. Why this had not been done before is inexplicable except on the hypothesis that secrecy was essential in the public interest;[250] but now a summons was sent to the Rev. Dr. Francis Willis.

It was decided, further, for the sake of greater quiet, to move the King to Kew, but at first this seemed impossible unless violence were used, for he resolutely refused to leave Windsor. Eventually the object was achieved by strategy. "The poor Queen was to get off in private: the plan settled between the princes and physicians was, that her Majesty and the princesses should go away quietly, and then that the King should be told that they were gone, which was the sole method they could devise to prevail with him to follow. He was then to be allured by a promise of seeing them at Kew; and, as they knew he would doubt their assertion, he was to go through the rooms and examine the house himself."[251] This was done on November 29, and the King established himself at Kew in the ground floor rooms that look towards the garden. The bribe was not paid, however, and the anger it aroused in him produced the worst results. Indeed, his separation from the Queen was in his lucid hours one of his greatest troubles. "She is my best friend; where could I find another?" he asked on one occasion; and at another time complained bitterly, "I am eight-and-twenty years married, and now have no wife at all; is not that hard?"

Dr. Willis was the incumbent of a Lincolnshire living, and, having taken a medical degree at Oxford, he frequently acted as physician to his parishioners. He was especially successful in treating mental cases, and when this became known, so many persons from all parts of England came to him that at last he founded an asylum at Gretford, where, it is said, he never at any time had less than thirty cases under his care.[252] When Willis took up his quarters at Kew on December 6, the King asked him if he, who was a clergyman, was not ashamed of himself for exercising such a profession, "Sir," said the specialist, "our Saviour Himself went about healing the sick." "Yes," retorted George, "but He had not £700 for it."[253] Willis, who was at this time seventy years of age, seems to have won golden opinions at Court, except from some of his colleagues who inclined to regard his methods as more in place with the quack than with the qualified practitioner. "In the practical knowledge of insanity, and the management of the insane, Willis was unquestionably in advance of his associates," Dr. Ray has written, "but following the bent of his dictatorial habits, he often spoke without meaning his words, and often overstepped the limits of professional etiquette."[254] Miss Burney thought him "a man in ten thousand, open, honest, dauntless, lighthearted, innocent, and high-minded;" "an upright, worthy man, gentle and humane in his profession, and amiable and pious as a clergyman," said Mrs. Papendiek; while Wraxall thought Willis "seemed to be exempt from all the infirmities of old age, and his countenance, which was very interesting, blended intelligence with an expression of placid self-possession."[255]

Pitt introduced the physician to the King: "We have found a gentleman who has made the illness under which your Majesty is now labouring his study for some years, and we doubt not that he can render comfort, and alleviate many of the inconveniences your Majesty suffers." "Will he let me shave myself, cut my nails, and have a knife at breakfast and dinner?" asked the King who resented the precautions that had been taken; "and will he treat me as his sovereign, and not command me as a subject?" "Sir, I am a plain man, not used to courts, but I honour and respect my King;" and he won George's confidence by letting him forthwith shave himself. Willis watched the King for twenty-four hours, and then expressed his opinion that "the malady had been too long suffered to remain, but that if the constitution could bear the remedies necessary to work out the disease, he had no fear for a cure."[256]

"In the consultation which settled the respective functions", Dr. Ray has stated, "Willis was to have charge of all the domestic and strictly moral management—in accordance, however, with such general views as had been agreed upon. The medical treatment was arranged in the morning consultations, and it was understood that Willis was to take no decisive measure, either medical or moral, not previously discussed and permitted. Pepys, Gisborne and Reynolds attended, in rotation, from four o'clock in the afternoon until eleven the next morning. Warren or Baker visited in the morning, saw the King, consulted with Willis and the physicians, who had remained over night, and agreed with them upon the bulletin for the day. Willis was soon joined by his son John, whose particular function seems not to have been very definitely settled. Willis professed to regard him as equal to himself in point of dignity and responsibility, but his colleagues considered him merely as an assistant to his father. Two surgeons and two apothecaries were also retained, each one, in turn, staying twenty-four hours in the palace. The personal service was rendered by three attendants whom Willis had procured from his own establishment, and the King's pages—one attendant and one page being constantly in his room."[257]

It would be out of place in this work to enter into the details of Willis's treatment, but it may be stated that for the mode of restraint used before he came on the scene, he employed one that, while exercising a more firm coercion, was not so teasing to the patient. It has been told how when the King, convalescent, was walking through a corridor at Kew with one of his equerries, he saw a straight-jacket lying in a chair, "You need not be afraid to look at it," he said to his companion, who, somewhat embarrassed, had averted his eyes, "Perhaps it is the best friend I ever had in my life." Willis did not, however, rely entirely upon coercion, as did most of the physicians of that day in cases of insanity; but endeavoured by kindness to establish a hold upon the King. "Willis has, I understand, already acquired a complete ascendency over him," William Grenville wrote a couple of days after the mad-doctor took charge, "which is the point for which he is particularly famous."[258] Sheridan, too, remarked, in one of his speeches that Willis professed to have the gift of seeing the heart by looking at the countenance, and, with a touch of delicious humour, added, looking at Pitt, that this simple statement seemed to alarm the right honourable gentleman.