He would see her as she was then, young and very handsome . . . and this poor woman in the bed was what she had become.

‘Don’t lie there staring before you like a calf waiting to have its throat cut!’ he called out angrily.

Then he was tender again and he would berate the women for not being quiet enough in the sick chamber. And the Queen continued to cling to life.

Sir Robert Walpole came to her; he had been in the country and had ridden up with all speed when he heard the news.

He was weeping as he knelt by her bed and kissed her hand.

‘My good Sir Robert, we have been friends.’

‘We are friends ... Madam, friends always.’

‘I have not much time left, Sir Robert.’

‘I beg of Your Majesty, conserve your strength.’

‘Ah, you see me in a different situation. I have nothing to say to you, good Sir Robert, but to recommend the King, my children, and the kingdom to your care.’

‘You must recover your health, Madam. We need you ... the country needs you.’

She smiled and said: ‘May God bless you.’

She lingered on in pain and often delirious. The King was constantly at her side, forcing food into her mouth because the doctors had said she needed her strength to be built up. She was pleased to have him there, though; for she knew in those days that in spite of all she had suffered through him, in spite of the fact that she had seen so clearly all his conceits and vanities, his follies and his tantrums, yet she loved him, and he was in her thoughts more than anyone else.

She had been ill for eleven days and she knew that her end was rapidly approaching.

She wanted her family about her. She wanted to tell Caroline to take care of her little sisters; she wanted to take her last farewell of Amelia and her beloved William; and then she wanted the last moment of her life to be the King’s.

At the last she put her hand in his and said: ‘Farewell, my beloved King and husband. Farewell.’

Then she took the ruby ring from her finger and gave it to him. It was the one he had put on at the time of the coronation.

‘This is the last thing I have to give you. Naked I came to you; naked I go from you. I had everything I possessed from you and to you everything I have, I return.’

The tears were falling down the King’s cheeks. He tried to speak, but he was too overcome by grief.

‘Do not grieve too long for me,’ she said. ‘When I am gone you should marry again.’

‘No,’ cried the King. ‘Never. I shall have mistresses.’ And her dying face was twisted suddenly in a smile as she said, ‘That would not stop you.’

Then the King began to weep again and to tell her that he had never loved as he loved her. That he would never know happiness again when she was lost to him.

She rallied and sank, but the end was in sight.

The King was at her bedside when she died. Frantically he kissed her face and hands as though by doing so he could persuade her to return. Then he sent for a picture of her and shut himself in his room with it and stayed there for two hours.

After that he came out and said: ‘Take the picture away. There was never a woman worthy to buckle her shoe.’