ate.

The Duchess of Kendal was now at the zenith of her power and splendour.
While Sophia Dorothea, the true Queen of England, was pining away in
solitude in distant Ahlden, the German "Maypole" was Queen in all but
name, ruling alike her senile paramour and the nation with a tactful, if
iron hand. It is said that she was actually the morganatic wife of
George, that the ceremony had been performed by no less a dignitary than
the Archbishop of York; but, whether this was so or not, it is certain
that this "old and forbidding skeleton of a giantess" was more England's
Queen than any other Consort of the Georges.

She was present at every consultation between the King and his
Ministers--indeed the conferences were invariably held in her own
apartments, every day from five till eight. She understood and humoured
every whim of her Royal partner with infinite tactfulness, to the extent
even of encouraging his amours with young and attractive women, while
she herself, to emphasise her platonic relations with him, affected an
extravagant piety, attending as many as seven Lutheran services every
Sunday. The only rival she had ever feared--and hated--Madame
Kielmansegg, had long passed out of power, and as Countess of Darlington
was too much absorbed in pandering to her mountain of flesh, and filling
her pockets, to spare a regret for the Royal lover she had lost.

When George, on hearing of the death of his unhappy wife, Sophia
Dorothea, set out on his last journey to Hanover, his only companion was
the Duchess of Kendal, the woman to whose grim fascinations he had been
loyal for more than forty years; and it was she who closed his eyes in
the Palace of Osnabrueck, in which he had drawn his first breath
sixty-seven years earlier.

A French fortune-teller had warned him that "he would not survive his
wife a year"; and, as he neared Osnabrueck, the home of his brother, the
Prince Bishop, his fatal illness overtook him.

"When he arrived at Ippenburen, he was quite lethargic;
his hand fell down as if lifeless, and his tongue hung
out of his mouth. He gave, however, signs enough of life
by continually crying out, as well as he could
articulate, 'Osnabrueck!' 'Osnabrueck!'"

As night fell the sweating horses galloped into Osnabrueck; an hour
later George died in his brother's arms, less than twelve months after
his wife had drawn her last breath in her fortress-prison of Ahlden.

The Duchess of Kenda