11/20/1737 AD died
In the final years of her life, Caroline was troubled by gout in her feet, but more seriously she had suffered an umbilical hernia at the birth of her final child in 1724.
On 9 November 1737, she felt an intense pain and, after struggling through a formal reception, took to her bed. Part of her small intestine had poked through the hernia opening.
Over the next few days she was bled, purged, and operated on, without anaesthetic, but there was no improvement in her condition.
George refused Frederick permission to see his mother, a decision with which she complied; she sent her son a message of forgiveness through Walpole. She asked her husband to remarry after her death, which he rejected saying he would take only mistresses; she replied "Ah, mon Dieu, cela n'empêche pas" ("My God, that doesn't prevent it").
On 17 November, her strangulated bowel burst. She died on 20 November 1737 at St James's Palace.
Caroline was buried in Westminster Abbey on 17 December. Frederick was not invited to the funeral. George Frideric Handel composed an anthem for the occasion, The Ways of Zion Do Mourn / Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline. George arranged for a pair of matching coffins with removable sides, so that when he followed her to the grave (23 years later), they could lie together again.
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Caroline of Ansbach (Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach) Queen consort of G...
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