THE TRAINING OF A KING.

1749-1766.

The Crown Prince Christian (afterwards Christian VII. of Denmark and Norway) was born on January 29, 1749, and was therefore two years and six months older than his first cousin and betrothed bride, Princess Matilda.

When he was in his third year Christian lost his mother, Louise, daughter of George II. of England and consort of Frederick V. of Denmark. Queen Louise was very beautiful, and had inherited from her mother, Queen Caroline, her grace and dignity and her virtues and talents. She was possessed of great tact, and won the love and reverence of all classes, and, what was more difficult, of all races of her husband’s subjects, whether Danes, Norwegians or Germans. The Danes compared her to their sainted Dagmar, and her early death was regarded as a national calamity. During Louise’s illness the streets of Copenhagen were thronged from early dawn by people waiting for news, and the churches were filled with praying and weeping men and women. Every night, outside the palace gate, crowds waited patiently for hours, their faces, white in the darkness, turned towards the wing of the palace where the Queen lay dying. Louise died in 1751 (the year that Caroline Matilda was born), and left behind her the legacy of a bright example. The Danes owed England a debt of gratitude for sending them this admirable princess, a debt they amply repaid a century later when they gave to the English people a descendant of Queen Louise, a princess even more beautiful and beloved than her illustrious ancestress—our gracious Queen Alexandra.[25]

King Frederick was overwhelmed with grief at his consort’s death and refused to be comforted. He could not mention her name without weeping; he commanded the deepest court mourning for a year and prohibited all public amusements for the same period. Yet, like many bereaved widowers, before and since, the more deeply this royal widower mourned his wife, the more quickly he sought consolation by giving her a successor. Six months of the stipulated mourning had scarcely passed when the King cast off his sables and wedded Princess Juliana Maria of Brunswick-WolfenbÜttel. This princess was the youngest of six daughters, two of whom had already made great alliances. The eldest was married to Frederick the Great, and the second to Prince Augustus William, the heir presumptive to the throne of Prussia. One of her nieces came near to be married to George III., but was rejected by him on the advice of his mother. This slight upon her house did not tend to make Juliana Maria well disposed towards the English royal family; and the love of the Danes for the English princess who was her predecessor contrasted vividly with her own unpopularity. Juliana Maria was a handsome and determined woman, rigidly correct in her conduct and unblemished in her morals, but she was of a cold and selfish nature, a profound intriguer and dissembler. Frederick V. married her from a sense of duty; he wanted a queen to preside over his court, and a wife to give him another son. Juliana Maria fulfilled both these conditions; she looked every inch a queen, and in due time presented her husband with a prince, who was named Frederick. But though she shared her husband’s throne she had no place in his affections.

Frederick V. was popular with his subjects, who named him “Frederick the Good”. The first part of his reign as fully justified this title as the latter part belied it. Queen Louise was his good angel and led him to higher things, but when her beneficent influence was gone he abandoned himself to evil habits, especially to his besetting one of drunkenness. So much did he give way to this vice that he became a confirmed dipsomaniac, and the reins of government passed out of his hands into those of his Prime Minister, Count Moltke, and of his mother, the Queen-Dowager, Sophia Magdalena.

This princess, the widow of Christian VI.,[26] was a daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Culmbach. She had obtained considerable political influence in her husband’s lifetime, and she continued to hold it throughout the reign of her son. She was a woman of narrow and strict views, but had a great love of display. Between her and Moltke an alliance existed for a time. They played into one another’s hands so cleverly that Juliana Maria, despite her ambitious and intriguing disposition, found herself outwitted by her mother-in-law and the Prime Minister. Sophia Magdalena’s superior knowledge of Danish affairs gave her an advantage over Juliana Maria, who, though the King’s wife, laboured under the disability of not being in the King’s confidence. Count Moltke was not a minister of great ability, and he was suspected of selling his country’s interests to other powers. Certain it is that during the last years of Frederick V.’s reign the foreign envoys of France, Russia and England were in turns the real rulers of Denmark. With Moltke the French influence was generally paramount.

The Crown Prince Christian suffered an irreparable loss in his mother’s death, for she was devoted to her son and kept him with her as much as possible, though this was contrary to the traditional etiquette of the Danish court. After Queen Louise died the Crown Prince and his sisters were handed over to the loveless care of governesses and tutors, and their father never troubled about them. Juliana Maria was not an affectionate stepmother, and left her husband’s children severely alone. Even if she had wished to give them personal supervision, the etiquette of the Danish court would have prevented her. Moreover, any movement she might have made in that direction would have been regarded with suspicion. Juliana Maria regarded the Crown Prince Christian as an obstacle in the path of her ambition. If he were out of the way her son Frederick would succeed to the throne. She probably wished him out of the way, but the stories that she plotted against the life of her stepson rest on no trustworthy evidence, and may be dismissed as unworthy of credence.

At the age of six Christian was taken out of the nursery and given an establishment of his own. Count Berkentin, a privy councillor, was appointed his governor, and Count Reventlow his chamberlain and tutor. Berkentin was an old man, indolent and easy-going, who was glad to shift the responsibility of his troublesome charge on other shoulders, and asked for nothing more than to draw his salary and be left in peace. The training of the Crown Prince therefore devolved wholly on Reventlow, who was a Danish noble of the most reactionary and barbarous type. Reventlow’s one idea of education was to harden the lad, to make, as he said, a man of him—he might rather have said to make a brute of him. He took no account of the idiosyncrasies of Christian’s character, or of his nervous, highly strung temperament. He sought to crush him down to one low level, the level of himself. The boy was brought up in slave-like fear of his brutal master, and sometimes beaten for trifling errors so inhumanly that foam gathered on his lips and he writhed in agony. Even in his boyhood, Christian’s nervous paroxysms sometimes degenerated into fits of an epileptic nature, and so encouraged the growth of a terrible malady.

Reventlow superintended the Crown Prince’s education, that is to say, his training and his daily life. He did not teach him his lessons. The learned German author, Gellert, was first asked to undertake this duty, but he refused. The King then appointed one Nielsen, who had been tutor to several of the young Danish nobility. Nielsen was a very learned man, but unfortunately had not the capacity of imparting his learning in a lucid and attractive manner, and he was too fond of abstruse speculations to teach things which would be useful to the royal pupil. Nielsen was a Lutheran clergyman, but he was notoriously unorthodox, and he mixed his religious instruction with a good deal of profane philosophy. The poor little prince was not old enough to understand theological, or philosophical, disquisitions; they weighed like a nightmare on his youthful mind, and the result of this teaching in after life was a curious mixture of freethinking and superstition. The Crown Prince was taken to church twice every Sunday, where he sat between his two tormentors, Reventlow and Nielsen, and listened to dull and interminable sermons. If his attention flagged for a moment Reventlow would pinch him, and when he came out of church Nielsen would catechise him concerning the sermon, and make him repeat the preacher’s arguments at length. Christian regarded these religious exercises with intense dislike, and dreaded Sunday as his chief day of torment.

In the Crown Prince’s hours of recreation he was neglected, and allowed to keep bad company. His chief companions were two youths employed about the court; one was Sperling, a page of the chamber and a nephew of Reventlow; the other was Kirschoff, a servant of the chamber, and a friend of Sperling. Both these youths were vicious and corrupt. They were older than the Crown Prince and acquired great influence over him. They set him a bad example by their evil habits, they poisoned his mind by retailing all the scandals of the court, and they corrupted his heart by mocking at everything good and noble. It has been well said that they occupy the same place in the history of Denmark as Louis XV.’s infamous servants Bachelier and Le Bel do in the history of France.

It stands to Juliana Maria’s credit that she objected to these youths as playmates of the Prince and to Reventlow’s system of education, and remonstrated with the King, but Frederick V. would not listen to her. Later Bernstorff made similar representations and with more success, for when Christian was eleven years of age a change took place for the better. A Swiss named Reverdil[27] was appointed to instruct the Crown Prince in mathematics and French, and he gradually extended his teaching to other branches of learning. Reverdil was an upright man, and did his duty according to his lights. He saw clearly that the boy’s physical and mental health was being ruined by Reventlow’s barbarous methods, and did what he could to improve things. But well meaning though he was he made his pupil’s life unhappier by introducing a new torture in the form of public examinations. The Crown Prince was examined twice yearly in the knight’s hall of the Christiansborg Palace[28] in the presence of the King, the Ministers, and the corps diplomatique, and if we may judge from the courtly reports of the foreign envoys he acquitted himself well. Yet, this testimony notwithstanding, it is certain that he was not well educated, for he was ignorant of solid acquirements. But he could dance a minuet with much grace and could play the flute, sing, ride and fence well. He was a fair linguist and spoke German and French. More important still he was taught the Danish language, which had been neglected at the Danish court, and the household of the Prince, except his French and German tutors, were forbidden to speak to him in other language but Danish.

The Crown Prince was precocious in some things and backward in others. He was naturally quick-witted and had a gift of sarcasm and mimicry in which he freely indulged; he made buffoon parodies of the preachers and their sermons, and he mimicked ministers of state, high court officials and even the august royal family. Some of his boyish sarcasms show that he felt the cruel way in which he was treated and the subordinate position in which he was kept. For instance, Frederick V., in one of his generous moods (probably after a hard spell of drinking), made Moltke a present of the palace of Hirschholm and all its contents. It was a common ground of complaint that Moltke took advantage of his master’s weakness to enrich himself. The Crown Prince, hearing of this princely gift, waylaid Moltke coming from the audience chamber of the King, and thrust into his hand a picture of Hirschholm.[29] “Content yourself with this, your Excellency,” said the Prince, “for, believe me, unless you get the crown as well, Hirschholm will never be yours.” The Prime Minister, taken aback at this display of authority on the part of the heir apparent, wisely forebore to press the matter further, and Hirschholm remained the property of the crown. On another occasion, when the King and his favourite minister were drinking together, the Crown Prince was present. The King commanded Christian to fill glasses for himself and Moltke. Christian hesitated. The King repeated his order, and told him that he could fill his own glass as well. The Prince then filled Moltke’s glass to the brim, the King’s glass half full, and into his own he poured only a few drops. “What do you mean by this?” said the King. “I mean, sire,” replied his son, “to denote our relative importance in the state. His Excellency being all-powerful I have filled his glass to the full. You being only second in authority I half filled yours; as for me, since I am of no consequence, a drop suffices.”

Despite his precocity, Christian had some extraordinary crazes and superstitions. One of them he cherished from the nursery. His Norwegian nurse had told him many legends of Scandinavian Vikings whose physical perfections rivalled the gods, mighty warriors who were invulnerable in battle, like the legendary heroes of ancient wars. At this time there was a very widespread belief in northern Europe in a foolish superstition called the “Art of Passau,” a secret charm which made men hard and invulnerable in battle. The young Crown Prince’s imagination was fired by it, and he determined to acquire the secret of the charm and so attain his ideal of supreme physical perfection. Gradually he came to believe that he had found it, and soon the hallucination extended to his thinking that he was also endowed with superhuman mental attributes, and he saw himself a mightier ruler and warrior than Peter the Great or Frederick the Great, and a greater philosopher than Leibniz or Voltaire. The fulsome despatches of Cosby, the assistant English envoy,[30] would almost seem to warrant this preposterous belief, for he describes the Crown Prince in the most extravagant terms.