“Sharp, sharp! The King! The King!” His Majesty’s attendants yelled as the doors on the far side opened.
“This is the King,” Sir George scolded me as I walked into the middle of the room.
“Whom I must cure,” I replied.
“Such arrogance,” Warren murmured behind me. I paid him no mind, though.
Those halls in Windsor echo such that I heard His Majesty’s voice well before I could see him. The way the words bounced on the stone it was indecipherable nonsense. It would even have been indecipherable nonsense to my ears had it not been such nonsense coming out of His Majesty’s mouth. At last I could discern some words as the King came closer.
“And you, sir, King Louis! I’ll have you torn apart and burned, in that order!” he exclaimed as he came close to the door, but I still couldn’t yet see him. “Those farms in France are all pits of sin, the vineyards of devils, and great mounds of waste straight as an arrow across the whole of Europe! Out of our kingdom, you frauds! Colonists, you know the French came to their aid, are all traitors! They’ve learned that from those fish in the straits of…”
He paused as he turned into the room. The doctors, myself included, bowed before His Majesty. His three attendants behind him all had addled countenances. Even their red dress uniforms were disheveled, a strange sight for such men. His Majesty, peculiarly enough, was clothed very well in a blue coat, red vest, immaculate white stockings, and black shoes. His face, though, looked little like the man I had seen on coins or in paintings. He had begun to grow a beard as they had not trusted him to shave with a razor, nor had any felt it wise to have a blade of any kind near him. He had also lost enough weight that one could easily see the bones of his face. His eyes sat in these deep wells, sinking further into his skull as he wasted away.
With a haunting gaze, His Majesty approached me. His lips moved, but he did not speak. His eyes rattled about randomly as he came closer. His Majesty is a good deal taller than I, and so the King towered over me. I could smell distinct odors or urine and excrement wafting from His Majesty, a reliable sign of derangement. Strangely, I sensed that there was another presence in the room beyond those I knew were there. I made sure to make a note of that in my mind for further inquiry.
His Majesty glanced over my shoulder toward Greville, who had lurked behind me since I had entered Windsor Castle.
“This gentleman is Francis Willis, a doctor from Lincolnshire who has made Your Majesty’s maladies his special study,” Greville announced.
“Ha! A mad doctor! Madmen are everywhere doctor, but not here! Not in Windsor, no, sir!” His Majesty barked, his rancid spittle landing on my face. “Sheep and pigs. That’s all there is in Lincolnshire!”
Up to that point, I had not seen anything truly unusual out of His Majesty. I had certainly seen far madder souls in my time as a physician. I decided to try to inject an air of good humour.
“I have a farm where my patients work. There are indeed sheep and pigs there, Your Majesty,” I said cheerily.
“TAMWORTHS?!” His Majesty screamed toward the ceiling. I had scarcely understood him.
“I beg Your Majesty’s pardon.”
“And you shalln’t get it!” he said, pushing me away. “I asked you if you have Tamworths on your farm. You know what they call me? Farmer George! FARMER GEORGE! Not even God himself knows more about crops and swine than I!”
“Blasphemy does not do a mind well, Your Majesty,” I scolded, pointing my finger sternly at him.
This elicited gasps from the others present.
“This is the King!” Greville admonished me, echoing Sir George from earlier.
“People get their heads chopped off for less!” the King shouted. “Captain Greville, cut off his head! I’ll speak with it later when it suits me!”
The King then said a series of absurd ramblings that I dare not repeat on these pages. If what His Majesty said previously included arrogant blasphemy, I am at a loss for words to properly describe the specific obscenities he uttered about the Virgin Mary, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. How he managed to combine the three in such a depraved way, I will never know.
“Mr. Greville, please bring my sons here,” I commanded, my patience running thin. They were just in the other room with a restraining chair we had brought for the purpose of curbing this aberrant behaviour.
My three boys all entered and pushed aside the other doctors.
“Ha! Are you threatening me, your Lincolnshire bumsucker!” he screamed. “Go back and fondle those pigs until they puke bishops from their mouths!”
I sighed and turned back toward my sons. John, my eldest and strongest, looked eager to do his duty. Thomas and Robert both had their apprehensions, but I knew they would do what I asked. In this instance, I did not have to say anything. John led them and lifted the King, who resisted mightily.
“GET OFF ME YOU MANIACS!” he screamed. “I’LL HAVE YOUR EYES PUT OUT AND THROWN INTO THE CHANNEL!”
He went on in that fashion for some time until John placed His Majesty in the restraining chair in the adjoining room and put the gag across His Majesty’s mouth. His Majesty wrestled furiously in the restraints but it was all pointless for him. We had built the restraints to control far stronger men. In time, he gave in and ceased his resistance. The king’s attendants, including Greville, as well as the three other doctors all simply stood aside in stunned silence.
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“On what authority did you do that?” Sir George protested.
“Medical authority,” I answered plainly.
“And what good will this do?” Warren snidely added. “You cannot keep His Majesty in that chair forever.”
“I need the opportunity to monitor His Majesty carefully, day and night,” I declared loud enough so that I knew His Majesty could hear me. “My methods require a constant watch.”
Sir Lucas dabbed sweat from his brow and tears from his eyes.
“I do hope you know what you are doing,” he said meekly.
His Majesty’s temper cooled throughout that afternoon and evening while we kept him in his restraints. He still babbled incoherently once we removed his gag, which I found was the predominant feature of his disturbance. I made note of a number of the more extraordinary items he uttered:
“I don’t mind the cold because I make it by means of mental powers!”
“They’ve killed the Queen and they’ll kill me next, too!”
“Pitt, Fox, North, all of them actual pigs! Rolling around in their own waste! Parliament is but a mushroom.”
As one can plainly see, His Majesty’s interminable ramblings were deranged, though not completely incomprehensible. There were the truly odd utterances that made no sense whatsoever, but none of that was especially peculiar within the realm of treating a lunatic.
I established my desk and papers just outside of the room in which we kept His Majesty and simply observed the King’s incessant babble. One finds that lunatics tend to return to certain topics that are at the core of their troubles. The challenge for physicians is to sort out those common themes from the quagmire of nonsense. That requires patience and observation.
The halls of Windsor were almost entirely black, save for the orange glow of the dozens of candles, including the set of three candles I kept on my desk. The castle felt utterly empty that night, even with His Majesty’s words attempting to fill the void. Even as I tried to maintain an admirable accounting of the King’s utterances, I found myself distracted, staring at the melting candle wax in front of me. I know not how much time passed until the next notable occurrence.
At once, the candles’ flames leapt upward, as though they had caught a puff of wind. There was, however, no gust of any kind. Initially, I thought my eyes might have deceived me, but they leapt upward again, looking like skeletal fingers.
A strange shriek came from His Majesty, unlike anything I had heard before. He then made some unnatural rumbles. Warily, I rose from my desk and rounded the corner into the room. The King rocked back and forth in his chair, repeating the same words over and over again.
“Yn ddwfn yn y palas, yn farw ac yn aflonydd, yn farw ac yn crio, yn farw ac yn sgrechian, yn farw ac ar ei ben ei hun,” he sang in a haunting, resonant tone unlike anything I had ever heard before.
When I rounded the restraining chair, his eyes shocked me. They were wider than seemed possible. His pupils had phased to an inky blue. His mouth stayed open wide, almost as though it were but a tunnel for the voice that came through it. His eyes locked on me and he continued his singing, his voice getting louder.
“YN DDWFN YN Y PALAS, YN FARW AC YN AFLONYDD, YN FARW AC YN CRIO, YN FARW AC YN SGRECHIAN, YN FARW AC AR EI BEN EI HUN!”
The king’s shouts were so loud that they rattled the windows. At that moment, Greville ran into the room with Sir Lucas and Doctor Warren, all of them in their nightgowns.
“What’s the meaning of this?! What’ve you done to the King?!” Greville screeched.
“I have not done a single thing. This began while I was keeping my watch,” I protested, albeit calmly. I wanted to avoid disturbing His Majesty while he continued his strange song.
Doctor Warren, who had entered without his wig, revealing his smooth-shaven head, walked forward carefully toward the King. Warren cupped his hand over his ear as if it were somehow necessary to grasp the deafening song.
“I dare say that this is nothing terribly different than we have seen previously,” Warren said with an unconvincing smirk. “The King is merely speaking nonsense.”
“That isn’t nonsense!” Sir Lucas protested. “It’s Welsh.”
Warren rolled his eyes.
“As I said, nonsense.”
“You said that it’s Welsh, Sir Lucas?” I queried, though the King’s overpowering voice, if it was indeed his own voice, made difficult my efforts to even hear myself think.
“I’m certain of it!” Sir Lucas insisted.
“There’s something odd about that,” Greville mumbled. “I’ll summon the Queen.”
I do not recall what further conversation past between those who remained in the room with His Majesty. When the Queen arrived, we all bowed out of respect. Queen Charlotte had a very plain appearance even when she would travel the country in public. In private it was even more so. Marring her appearance even further, she cried when she saw the peculiar state in which her husband.
“Vat have you savages done to him!” she bellowed in her strong German accent.
“This has been going on for some time under its own powers,” I stated politely, even though her accusation had irritated me. “I have not touched the King nor administered any treatments. Whatever has befallen His Majesty, it isn’t our doing.”
Queen Charlotte dropped to her knees before the restraining chair and began praying aloud for the King’s recovery. She then recoiled from him when she spent time to listen to what he was speaking.
“Vat is this? Vat is he saying?” she asked.
“He is speaking Welsh,” Sir Lucas answered.
“Velsh?” she asked.
“Yes, Welsh,” I answered.
“He doesn’t know Velsh!” she exclaimed.
I gave the others a curious glance and then pointed toward His Majesty, who continued to sing his Welsh phrases, albeit in a more hushed voice by that point.
“And yet he is speaking it,” I countered.
“Yes, but I tell you as his vife that he doesn’t know it! Twenty-seven years I’ve been at his side,” she angrily growled at me. “Never any Velsh. He asked for a translator vhen he vould see it. He doesn’t know a vord!”
That answered for me a question I had about what we saw that night. It had not sounded like the King’s voice and it made less sense that he should be speaking Welsh. With the queer flickering of candles and other astonishing varied phenomena that night, my prior experience in dealing with extraordinary cases suggested it was obvious that a more mysterious force at work.
“Sir Lucas. You said that you know it is Welsh,” I said, alternating my attention between His Majesty and Sir Lucas. “Do you know what His Majesty is singing?”
All eyes then turned toward Sir Lucas, who shook and scratched repeatedly at his brow, his lips quivering.
“It’s probably not exact,” he laughed anxiously. Seeing us all gazing at him convinced him that he should at least try to translate it. "Deep in the palace, dead and restless, dead and crying, dead and screaming, dead and alone."
I felt ill when Sir Lucas said it. I turned my attention toward His Majesty, who now had become serene, his face returning to normal and his singing stopped. There was a quiet lull.
“Octavius!” he shouted, shattering the silence. “Dear little boy! OCTAVIUS!”