Caroline Of Brunswick

The Queen's Coffin Plate.

The facts respecting this much-talked of subject, have been misrepresented.—The Queen, it is known, requested in her Will, that the plate on her coffin, should bear this Inscription:—

"To the Memory of Caroline, of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England."

After duly deliberating on this request, the Cabinet Ministers refused to comply with it, and ordered that the Latin inscription adopted from time immemorial, on the interments of Queens, should be placed on the plate, and directed the Herald's College, to prepare it as follows:—

Depositum,

Serenissimæ Principissæ

"Carolinæ Ameliæ Elizabethæ,"

Dei Gratia Reginæ Consortis,

Augustissimi Potentissimi Monarchæ,

Georgii Quarti,

Dei Gratia Britanniarum Regis Fidei

Defensoris Regis Hanoveræ ac Brunsvici

at Luneburgi Ducis

Obit VII. die mensis Augusti

Anno Domini MDCCCXXI

Ætatis Suæ LIV.

By some omission this plate was not finished when the procession left Brandenburgh-house; but when the coffin was deposited for safe-keeping in the church at Colchester, on the road to Harwich, Dr. Lushington, and others, entered the church in the night and fixed on the coffin a plate having the inscription prescribed in the Will. Soon after, Mr. Thomas, of the Lord Chamberlain's office, having received the plate with the Latin Inscription, repaired to the church to put it on the coffin, and finding the other plate fixed to it, expostulated against it to Dr. Lushington, and others, who remained round the coffin. A disgraceful scene ensued.—Both sides using loud and threatening language. The church was full of auditors of this uncommon scene; which was not closed, until the Mayor of the town ordered a party of the militia to enter the church and to disperse the sacrilegious disputants. Mr. Taylor then substituted the Latin for the English Inscription, and the procession moved on to Harwich.