THE IMPRISONED QUEEN.

1772.

All this time the unfortunate Matilda remained at Kronborg, with no consolation except that she was permitted to retain the infant princess. She was still very closely guarded, but after Keith’s spirited protest, the rigours of her imprisonment were slightly abated. Some clothes and other necessaries were sent her from Copenhagen, and by way of keeping up the fiction that she was treated with the respect due to her birth and rank, her suite was increased, and two gentlemen of the bed-chamber and two maids-of-honour were sent to Kronborg. Their duties must have been light, for, confined as the Queen was to one small chamber, they could rarely have seen their mistress during the first months of her sojourn in the fortress. But their presence at Kronborg was a device of the Queen-Dowager to throw dust in the eyes of the English and other courts, for the misfortunes of Matilda were now the subject of conversation in every court in Europe. Moreover, the persons sent to Kronborg were all, as Juliana Maria well knew, personally disliked by the young Queen, and they went rather in the capacity of spies than servants of her household. As it afterwards appeared at her trial, even the women who waited on the Queen were really spies, and her most casual expressions and trifling actions were distorted by these menials into evidence against her. Matilda was allowed no communication with the outer world, and she asked her maid, a woman named Arnsberg, what had become of Struensee. The woman told her he was imprisoned in the citadel. The Queen wept, and asked: “Is he in chains? Has he food to eat? Does he know that I am imprisoned here?” These questions, natural enough under the circumstances, were duly noted by the treacherous woman, and afterwards put in as evidence against the Queen at her trial.

When the first shock was over Matilda bore her imprisonment with fortitude. Her youth and strong constitution were in her favour, and she kept well, notwithstanding her deprivations. We find Keith writing a month after the Queen’s imprisonment: “The Queen of Denmark enjoys perfect health in Hamlet’s castle. I wish the punishment of her cruellest enemies, the late Minister, Struensee, and his associates, were over, that the heat of party might subside, and her Majesty’s situation be altered for the better.”[44]

In her lonely prison Matilda had ample time for reflection. She reviewed the events of the past few months and her present situation, and she saw, now that it was too late, that the advice and remonstrances of her mother and brother had been given in all good faith. She saw, too, that any hope of deliverance must come from England, and that she could expect nothing from her imbecile husband and the relentless Queen-Dowager and her adherents. For weeks she was kept uncertain of the fate that awaited her; her attendants either would not, or could not, give her any information on this head, and she lived in constant dread of assassination. In her anxiety and alarm she is said to have written impassioned appeals from Kronborg to Keith in Copenhagen, and to her brother George III., throwing herself on the protection of Great Britain.[45] Without accepting the genuineness of any particular letter, it is certain that the Queen managed to enter into communication with Keith, though he was not permitted to see her. Keith had great difficulty with Osten, who spoke fair to his face but granted nothing.

In the middle of February the news of the death of the Princess-Dowager of Wales reached Copenhagen, and Keith made some attempt to break the distressing intelligence to the imprisoned Queen by word of mouth. But here, too, he was foiled by Osten, who would only suffer the intelligence to be communicated to the Queen in a formal letter. Matilda was greatly distressed at her mother’s death, for she knew that she had lost not only her mother, but also a protectress, whose influence with the King of England was all-powerful. To her grief must also have been added a sense of remorse, for she had parted with her mother in anger; she knew, too, how the Princess’s proud spirit must have been abased by the news of her misfortunes, and this probably hastened her death. Yet, even so, Matilda could not forget the man who had brought her to this miserable pass; she hardly thought of herself; all her anxiety was for him and his safety. That he had brought her to shame and ruin made no difference to her love; all her prayers and all her thoughts were of him. Her love was now but a memory, but it was one she cherished dearer than life itself.

Probably it was the knowledge of this impenitent condition (for everything Matilda said or did was reported through spies) that made Juliana Maria provide spiritual consolation for the hapless captive. The Queen-Dowager was a fanatical woman, who had no charity but much bigotry; it is possible, therefore, that she may have been sincere in her wish to “convert” Matilda. At least, that is the only excuse that can be offered for the insults which were heaped upon the unfortunate young Queen in the name of religion. Acting on the instructions of the Queen-Dowager, the commandant of Kronborg every Sunday morning compelled his royal prisoner to come out of her small room, where at least she had the refuge of seclusion, and marched her over the rough stones of the courtyard to the chapel of the fortress.[46] There, seated in a pew with a guard on either side, and the ladies and gentlemen of her household (who put in an appearance on these occasions) behind her, the poor Queen was thundered at ferociously by the garrison preacher, one Chemnitz, who, also acting under instructions, preached at her for an hour together, and hurled at her head the fiercest insults from the safe shelter of his pulpit. For instance, on one Sunday he chose as his text: “And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors” (Isa. xiv. 2). On alternate Sundays another preacher, named Hansen, took up the parable, and was even more violent than his colleague. On one occasion he hurled at the Queen the following text: “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?” (Isa. lxiii. 2), and then proceeded to draw a parallel between the hapless prisoner and the scarlet woman. What added to the indignity of these cruel insults was the fact that they were addressed to the Queen in the presence of the other prisoners, many of them common criminals, and in the face of the rough soldiers of the fortress. But the exhortations of these Boanerges fell on deaf ears, so far as the Queen was concerned. It was noticed that she went very white, but she otherwise showed no sign of emotion. She left the chapel as she had entered it, with her head held haughtily erect, and a dignified air. Though naturally the most kind-hearted and unassuming of women, this royal daughter of England could summon all her dignity to her aid when she chose, and look every inch a queen. It was impossible to humiliate Matilda; nor were these the methods to win her from the error of her ways. When the preachers sought to gain admittance to her cell, she absolutely refused to see them, and showed so much determination that they dared not force their way into her presence. She might be dragged to the chapel and publicly pilloried, that she suffered under protest; but the men who had so insulted her she positively declined to receive, and all exhortations and threats were unavailing. But though the insults of the preachers failed to shake Matilda’s composure, her enemies, of whom Juliana Maria was the chief, had at last obtained a document by which they hoped to humble her proud head to the dust.

By the third week of February the commissioners appointed to collect evidence against the state prisoners at Copenhagen had concluded their investigations, and were ready to examine the two principal offenders, preliminary to sending them to trial. Struensee was taken first. He had now been in close confinement five weeks; the heavy irons, the rough treatment and the mental anxiety had told upon his health, already failing before he went to prison. It was a feeble, broken man, very different to the arrogant minister of former days, who was dragged forth from his dungeon to be interrogated before the Commission on February 20. Extraordinary precautions were taken to guard the prisoner. The examination took place within the walls of the citadel, though in another part of the fortress—the house of the commandant. The two gates of the citadel were closed the whole day, and in the city the garrison and burgher guard were patrolled in readiness for any outbreak. At ten o’clock Struensee was taken across the yard of the citadel in the commandant’s coach, under the guard of an officer and six men, to the hall of examination. As the morning was very cold he was permitted to wear his fur coat, and before he was brought into the room where the Commission was sitting, his fetters were taken off. He trembled violently while his chains were being removed, but this may have been due to physical causes, for he had worn them day and night for five weeks, and they were very heavy. He could scarcely stand, so he was allowed to sit in an armchair when he confronted his enemies.

Notwithstanding his weak condition, Struensee astonished the commissioners by his calmness, and the collected way in which he answered their questions. He declared that all the orders he had given to the military during the last weeks of his administration were precautions to ensure the public safety, and he scouted the idea of his alleged plot against the person and authority of the King, of which, indeed, no vestige of proof existed. The first day his examination lasted nearly eight hours, from ten o’clock in the morning until two, and again from half-past four in the afternoon until seven o’clock in the evening. At the close Struensee was again put in irons, and conducted back to his dungeon.

The next morning he was brought forth again, and examined from ten o’clock until two. At none of these sittings did the prisoner inculpate himself in the slightest degree. At the third examination he was closely questioned with regard to his intimacy with the Queen, but he made no confession, and, on the contrary, declared that his relations with her were innocent. It is said that one of the commission, Councillor Braem, having spoken roughly to the prisoner because he would not admit his guilt, Struensee calmly told him to imitate his tranquillity, and added that the affair surely concerned him more than anybody else. Incensed by this calmness Braem threatened him with torture, and said that instruments were ready in the next room which would tear the truth from the most obstinate criminal. Struensee replied that he had already spoken the truth, and he did not fear torture.[47] The third examination closed at half-past two on the second day without any admissions having been extorted from the prisoner. In the interval the commissioners conferred together, and determined to change their tactics.

So far they had told Struensee nothing of what had happened to Queen Matilda, but thought to entrap him by leaving him in complete ignorance of the details of the palace revolution. At a loss to explain Struensee’s calmness, they now shrewdly guessed that he was counting on the protection of the young Queen. It was remembered that he had often boasted, in the hour of his prosperity, that no harm could come to him, for the Queen was absolutely identified with all his measures, and to attack him would be to attack her too; she was his shield against his enemies. He never dreamed that they would dare to attack her, for she had absolute ascendency over the King, and moreover was the sister of a powerful reigning monarch, who would assuredly defend her from peril, or at least would use all his influence to prevent a scandal for the honour of his house. When, therefore, the prisoner was again summoned before his examiners, they told him without more ado that, if he were trusting to the protection of the Queen, he was trusting to a broken reed: the Queen herself was arrested and imprisoned, and would shortly be put upon her trial, with the consent of the King of England, who, equally with his Danish Majesty, viewed with abhorrence the guilty connection between her and Struensee. He might therefore as well make a clean breast of it, for everything would assuredly become known.

The effect produced on the prisoner’s shattered nerves by this revelation was all that his enemies hoped; Struensee was completely overcome, and broke down at once. So confidently had he counted on the Queen’s protection that, now he learned she was in the same plight as himself, all his firmness forsook him; he burst into tears and lamentations, and begged to be allowed to retire to regain his composure. But the commissioners were careful not to allow this opportunity to pass; they pressed home their advantage with renewed questions and threats, even holding out hopes of mercy if he would tell the truth. Before long Struensee, instead of “lying like a gentleman,” confessed without reserve that his familiarity with the Queen had been carried to the furthest limit. The commissioners did not conceal their exultation; this base confession did more than anything else to brand the man before them as a profligate adventurer.

Some extenuation might be urged for Struensee if in a moment of terror and confusion he had been taken off his guard and blurted out the truth, or if on consideration he had recalled his words; but his subsequent conduct leaves no room for this extenuation. There is no doubt that he thought, by dragging the Queen (now that she could no longer protect him) into the mud with himself, he would save his shameful life. He probably argued that a public trial would be avoided for the honour of the royal houses of Denmark and England, the affair would be hushed up, and he would be allowed to escape with banishment. It is more than probable that his crafty examiners held out this inducement for the wretched man to confess everything. Struensee needed little encouragement, for, having once embarked upon his story, he seemed to take a positive pleasure in telling the most unnecessary details. He evidently thought that the more deeply he incriminated the Queen, the better chance he would have of saving his life. Not content with this, the pitiful coward threw all the blame upon her—an inexperienced woman fourteen years younger than himself, who loved him to her destruction, who had showered benefits upon him, and to whom he owed everything. It was the old story, “The woman tempted me.”

There is no need to quote in full here the confession of this wretched man. He not only made it once but repeated it with ample details four days later; these details were marked by a total absence of reticence, and even decency. According to this confession—and it must be remembered that the man who made it was a liar as well as a coward—the intimate relations between the Queen and himself began in the spring of 1770, not long before the tour in Holstein. The Queen first gave him marks of her affection at a masquerade; he strove to check the intimacy, and afterwards to break it off, but without success. He even quoted the rudeness and lack of respect with which it was notorious he had frequently treated the Queen to prove the truth of his statement. He declared that he had been obliged to continue the intimacy lest he should lose his mistress’s confidence—that he was thus “placed in the alternative of ruining his fortunes, or succumbing to the will of the Queen”. This shameful confession Struensee signed.

Having now got all they wanted, the commissioners dismissed Struensee to his dungeon until they should have further need of him. The traitor retired well pleased with himself. Hope sprang once more within his breast, and this was fostered by several indulgences now shown to him. He was allowed to be shaved, his diet was made fuller, and he was given wine. His valet was permitted to attend him under strict order of silence. The man, who was devoted to his master, brought with him the silver toilet bowls and perfume bottles—they were suffered to remain in the cell, mute testimony of the change from effeminate luxury to sordid misery.

Armed with Struensee’s confession, the Government at last felt equal to dealing with the imprisoned Queen. Hitherto they had been in difficulty how to proceed. From the beginning of her incarceration the Queen, on being told whereof she was accused, had passionately demanded a fair trial. She was now informed that she would receive it.

On March 8, 1772, a fortnight after Struensee’s confession, a special commission, acting in the King’s name (though he was probably ignorant of the proceedings, or at any rate indifferent to them), arrived at Kronborg—nominally for the purpose of examining the Queen, in reality to extort from her by fair means or foul a confirmation of the confession made by Struensee. It was imperative that her enemies should obtain it, for it would justify the Queen’s treatment to the English Government, which, owing to the exertions of Keith, was becoming unpleasantly troublesome in its demands. It is said that Keith had contrived by some means to secretly warn the imprisoned Queen of the impending arrival of the commissioners, so that she should not be taken by surprise. He advised her that she should receive them with calmness, and treat them as subjects who had come to pay court to their Queen; when they began to interrogate her, she would do well to say that she had no answer to give them; she could not recognise their right to question her, as she recognised no superior, or judge, but her lord the King, to whom alone she would account for her actions. But unfortunately Keith knew nothing of Struensee’s confession.

The commission consisted of two members of the Council of State—Count Otto Thott and Councillor Schack-Rathlou[48]—who were well known to the Queen in the days of her prosperity, and two members of the committee of investigation who had examined Struensee, Baron Juell-Wind, a judge of the Supreme Court, and Stampe, the Attorney-General. These four men, it is scarcely necessary to say, had been opponents of the Struensee administration. As the Queen’s room was too small to admit all these men, some of whom could hardly have stood upright in it, the commission sat in the large hall adjoining, generally used for the guard—a room with a painted ceiling and pictures of Danish worthies around the walls. There, when they had arranged themselves at a table, with pens, ink and paper, her Majesty was informed that they awaited her pleasure.

The Queen did not respond immediately to the summons, but first robed herself with care. Presently she entered the room, followed by her women. She acknowledged with a bow the salutations of the commissioners, who rose at her entrance, and then, passing to a chair, waved to them to be seated. She was very pale, but otherwise her bearing showed majestic dignity and composure. The commissioners, who had expected to find her broken down by weeks of solitary suffering and suspense, were astonished at this reception, and for a moment knew not how to proceed. Schack-Rathlou, who owed the Queen a grudge for the part which he unjustly believed she had played against him, undertook to begin the examination. For some time this proved fruitless. The commissioners found the Queen armed at all points: she admitted nothing, denied their right to question her, and, when she answered under protest, her replies were of the briefest. Though she was examined and cross-examined by the four men, two of whom were eminent lawyers, she showed neither confusion nor hesitation. It was evident that the Queen could not be made to incriminate herself by fair means; therefore the commissioners resolved to resort to foul ones. They could not threaten her with torture, so they determined to surprise her in the same way as Struensee had been surprised, and throw her off her guard.

Schack-Rathlou, who acted as president of the commission, therefore told the Queen that, as she would admit nothing of her own free will, it was their duty to inform her that they held damning evidence of her guilt. Thereupon he produced Struensee’s confession, and read it aloud. For the first time during the examination the Queen showed signs of emotion; she flushed either with shame or anger at the scandalous accusations, but she listened without interruption to the end. Then, when Schack-Rathlou put the formal question to her, she denied everything with passionate indignation, and declared that it was impossible that Struensee could have made such shameful statements, the document must be a forgery. For answer, Schack-Rathlou held the paper up before the Queen, that she might read with her own eyes Struensee’s signature. The Queen took a hasty glance, and recognising the well-known characters, she uttered an exclamation of horror, fell back in her chair, and covered her face with her hands. The commissioners had trapped their victim at last.

Presently Schack-Rathlou leaned across the table, and said significantly: “If Struensee’s confession be not true, Madam, then there is no death cruel enough for this monster, who has dared to compromise you to such an extent.” At these words Matilda let her hands fall from her face, and gazed with startled eyes at her merciless accusers. All her self-possession had fled, and for the moment she was utterly unnerved. She understood the covert menace only too well: by thus maligning the reigning Queen he was liable to death by the law of Denmark, and death the most barbarous and degrading. She still loved this man; even his shameful betrayal of her had not weakened her love. It had probably been extorted from him by trickery and torture; in any case, she refused to judge him. He had brought all the happiness she had known into her life; if he now brought shame and ruin, she would forgive him for the sake of the happiness that was gone. She had sworn never to abandon him, and should she now, because of one false step, throw him to the wolves? No! She would save him, even though it cost her her honour and her crown.

These thoughts flashed through the Queen’s brain as she confronted her judges. Then she gripped with her hands the arms of her chair, and, leaning forward, said: “But if I were to avow these words of Struensee to be true, could I save his life by doing so?” The lie was ready: “Surely, Madam,” said Schack-Rathlou, “that would be adduced in his favour, and would quite alter the situation. You have only to sign this.” So saying, he spread out a document already prepared, which the commissioners had brought with them. In it the Queen was made to confirm Struensee’s confession. The unhappy Queen glanced at it hurriedly. “Ah, well! I will sign,” she said. She seized the pen which Schack-Rathlou thrust into her hand, and wrote her signature to a document that would ruin her for ever. She had hardly done so when she fell back fainting.[49]

When the Queen recovered, the commissioners had gone, and with them the fatal document; only the women who spied upon her remained, and the guards who had come to conduct her back to her chamber. When Matilda reached it, she threw herself on her pallet, and, clasping the little Princess in her arms, gave way to unavailing lamentation. It is stated by some authorities that the threat of taking her child away from her was also used by the commissioners to extort her signature, and the promise was made that, if she avowed her guilt, the child would remain. This promise, if given, like all others, was subsequently falsified; but at the time it must have carried with it every appearance of probability, for the Queen, by admitting her guilt, also cast a slur upon the legitimacy of her child. Now that it was too late, she regretted the precipitation with which she had signed the paper. Her enemies’ eagerness to induce her to sign showed her clearly how she had erred: she ought to have demanded time for reflection, or insisted on adequate guarantees. She had signed away her crown, her honour, her children, perhaps her life, and it might be all in vain.

The commissioners, who had succeeded almost beyond their hopes, hastened back to Copenhagen to lay before the Queen-Dowager the crowning evidence of Matilda’s guilt. Juliana Maria was overjoyed: her enemy was delivered into her hands; nay, she had delivered herself. In this paper she found a full justification for all that she had done, and a complete answer to the remonstrances of the English envoy and his master. Keith, it is said, at first refused to believe the evidence of his eyes, and then fell back on the argument that the Queen’s signature had been wrung from her either by force or fraud. He realised that she had committed an irretrievable mistake. For the Queen-consort to be unfaithful to her husband’s bed was, by the law of Denmark, high treason, and as such punishable with death. Questions of high treason were, as a rule, solved by the King alone; the Lex Regia expressly prohibited the judges from trying such matters. But in this case the King could not be trusted; he probably had no wish to divorce his Queen, whether she were guilty or not guilty—much less to punish her with imprisonment or death; he regarded offences against morality with a lenient eye, and he had positively forced his unhappy consort into temptation. So he was not consulted.

The Queen-Dowager took counsel with her legal advisers, with the result that an old statute was raked up (Section 3 of the Code of Christian V.), and a special commission, consisting of no less than thirty-five members, who formed a supreme court, was appointed to try the case of the King against the Queen. The court was composed of representatives of every class: five clergy, the Bishop of Zealand and four clerical assessors; four members of the Council of State, Counts Thott, Osten, Councillor Schack-Rathlou and Admiral Rommeling; the members of the commission who had examined Struensee; the judges of the Supreme Court not members of the commission; two officers of the army; two of the navy; several councillors of state; and one representative of the civic authority. The court was thus composed of some of the most eminent men in Denmark, and representative of both the church and state. Some of them were creatures of the Queen-Dowager, and pledged to carry out her wishes, many were upright and honourable men, but all were hostile to the Struensee administration, which had been carried on in the name of the Queen.

The English envoy offered no protest to this trial, though he must have known that the judges were men prejudiced against the Queen, and the sentence of divorce was already virtually determined upon. But the blame for this inaction does not rest with Keith; he had received no instructions from the King of England, to whom Matilda’s confession had been communicated with the least possible delay by the Danish Government. George III. held that, primarily, the question was one between husband and wife, and if his sister had forgotten her duty as a wife and a queen, her husband was justified in putting her away. Hence he offered no objection to the divorce proceedings which followed, though they were conducted from first to last with the utmost unfairness. True, he entered a plea for a fair trial, but he must have known that, surrounded as his sister was with enemies, a fair trial was impossible. If George III. had entered a vigorous protest at this juncture, the trial would never have been allowed to go forward, and a painful scandal, discreditable alike to the royal houses of England and Denmark, might have been hushed up. Moreover, decided action at the outset would have rendered unnecessary the crisis which brought England and Denmark to the verge of war a few months later.