London, December 24th, 1737.  My Lord, I received the favour of yours of the 17th December yesterday.  I have nothing material to say to you since my last.  His Majesty saw the Queen’s women servants first, which was a very mournful sight, for they all cried extremely; and his Majesty was so affected that he began to speak, but went out of the room to recover himself.  And yesterday he saw the foreign ministers and his horses, which I remember Dean Swift gives a great character of; and was very sorry to leave them for the conversation of his countrymen in England.; and I think he was much in the right.

[See P. 98.  Reminiscences, Chapter Vii)

Marlborough House, Nov. 15, 1737.  It is not many days since I wrote to your lordship by post, but one can’t be sure those letters are sent.  However, I have a mind to give you an account of what, perhaps, you may not have so particularly from any other hand.  This day, se’nnight the Queen was taken extremely ill; the physicians were sent for, and from the account that was given, they treated her as if she had the gout in her stomach:  but, upon a thorough investigation of the matter, a surgeon desired that she would put her hand where the pain was that she complained of, which she did; and the surgeon, following her hand with his, found it was a very large rupture, which had been long Concealed.  Upon this, immediately they cut it, and some little part of the gut, which was discoloured.  Few of the knowing people have had any hopes for many days; for they still apprehend a mortification, and she can’t escape it unless the physicians can make something pass thro’ her, which they have not yet been able to do in so many days.  The King and the Royal Family have taken leave of her more than once; and his Majesty has given her leave to make her will, which she has done; but I fancy it will be in such a manner that few, if any, will know what her money amounts to.  Sir Robert Walpole was in Norfolk, and came to -London but last night.  I can’t but think he must be extremely uneasy at this misfortune; for I have a notion that many of his troops will slacken very much, if not quite leave him, when they see he has lost his sure support.  But there is so much folly, and mean corruption, etc.

London, December 1st, 1737. . . . .  As to what has passed in the Queen’s illness, and since her death, one can’t depend on much one hears; and they are things that it is no great matter whether they are true or false.  But one thing was odd:  whether out of folly, or any thing else, I can’t say, but the Duke of Newcastle did not send Sir Robert Walpole news of her illness, nor of her danger, as soon as he might have done; and after he came to town, which was but a few days before she died, and when she could no more live than she can now come out of her coffin, the physicians, and all that attended her, were ordered to say she was better, and that they had some hopes.  What the use of that was I cannot conceive.  And the occasion of her death is still pretended to be a secret:  yet it is known that she had a rupture, and had it for many years; that she had imposthumes that broke, and that some of the guts were mortified.  This is another mystery which I don’t comprehend; for what does it signify what one dies of, except the pain it gives more than common dissolutions? etc.