A fortnight afterwards, when King George had gone to Ireland to arouse the
nation's loyalty, his wife had passed where Privy Council ushers and
yeomen of the guard were powerless, where the enmity of man had no voice
in the judgment of God. She had been attacked by severe illness, and in
the course of five days she died, in the middle of a wild storm of
thunder, wind, and rain. The night before, a boatful of Methodists had
rowed up the Thames, within sound of the open windows of her sick-room,
and sung hymns to comfort her in her extremity. The heart of a large part
of the nation still clung to her because of her misfortunes and the
insults heaped upon her. The late Queen's body was conveyed back to
Brunswick. The funeral passed through Kensington, escorted by a mighty
mob, in addition to companies of soldiers. The last were instructed to
conduct the _cortege_ by the outskirts of London to Harwich, where a
frigate and two sloops of war were waiting for the coffin. The mob were
resolute that their Queen's funeral should pass through the city. The
first struggle between the crowd and the military took place at the corner
of Church Street, Kensington. The strange, unseemly, contention was
renewed farther on more than once; but as bloodshed had been forbidden,
the people had their way, and the swaying mass surged in grim
determination straight towards the Strand and Temple Bar. The captain of
the frigate into whose keeping the coffin was committed in order to be
conveyed back to Brunswick had been, by a curious, sorrowful coincidence,
the midshipman who, "more than a quarter of a century before, handed the
rope to the royal bride whereby to help her on board the _Jupiter_,"
which was to bring her to England.

One can fancy that, when that sorry tragedy was ended, and its perpetual
noisy ebullitions had sunk into silence, a sense of relief stole over the
palace-home at Kensington.