On 25 October 1760 King George II of Great Britain woke in the early morning at Kensington Palace, his servants remembering that he appeared normal, with no 'apparent signs of indisposition'. He called for his page, who brought him a drink of hot chocolate - one of the king's favourite beverages. George drank, looking out of the window, apparently concerned about the wind, and how it might affect the delivery of some correspondence he was expecting that day. During breakfast, he opened the window, telling his servants that it was a 'fine day' and that he would walk in the gardens. As they left the room at around 7am-8am to tidy up the breakfast plates, they heard a loud sigh coming from the king, and rushed back in to find him 'dropped down from his seat'. He had an injury on one of his temples, sustained in the fall. In a faint, weak voice, he told a servant to 'Call Amelia', his daughter, and then fell into unconsciousness.
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| Portrait of George II, Rijksmuseum, Public Domain |
The king's servants immediately lifted him onto his bed, and royal surgeons and doctors were called to attend to the injury on the king's head, but it became obvious that the king was already dead. One reporter notes that they also tried to 'bleed' the king, performed by making a cut in a vein and dripping blood into a bowl, 'but the issues of life were dried up'. As Amelia arrived she was told that her father was no longer alive, but, possibly not hearing them correctly, rushed in and leaned 'tenderly over her father, as thinking he might speak to her in a low voice'. On realising, she lost control and was thrown 'into an agony' and inconsolable grief.
In the hope of finding out what had caused the king's death, an autopsy was performed on the 77-year old monarch's body, at Kensington Palace the following day. Attended by two of the king's doctors, they found some 'watery bladders' on the surface of one of his kidneys, and the monarch's heart 'extraordinarily distended', from a 'rupture in the substance of the right ventricle of the heart'. They concluded that this was the cause of the king's death.
On 11 November George was buried at Westminster Abbey in the Lady Chapel built by Henry VII. He was buried with his wife Queen Caroline, who had died in 1737, and they both lie in a vault underneath the chapel. It was said in 1760 that the cost of the king's funeral, including all the wax candles, lamps, torches and various vocal and instrumental performers, came to £50,000, a huge sum in Georgian Britain.
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