THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.

1775.

We last saw the Queen with her hand on the door, as she bade farewell to Wraxall and wished him God-speed on his journey. “She never perhaps looked more engaging,” he wrote later, “than on that night, in that attitude and in that dress. Her countenance, animated with the prospect of her approaching emancipation from Zell—which was in fact only a refuge and an exile—and anticipating her restoration to the throne of Denmark, was lighted up with smiles, and she appeared to be in the highest health. Yet, if futurity could have been unveiled to us, we should have seen behind the door, which she held in her hands, the ‘fell anatomy,’[104] as ‘Constance’ calls him, already raising his dart to strike her. Within seven weeks of that day she yielded her last breath.”[105]

Queen Matilda’s end was tragically sudden—so sudden as to call forth the wildest rumours of foul play. A report was current in Celle that the Queen was poisoned at the instigation of her deadly enemy, Juliana Maria, acting through the agency of a negro, named Mephisto, who was cook at the castle. It was said that he first gave a poisoned cup of chocolate to a young page in the Queen’s household, and seeing that it worked with fatal effect, he poisoned the Queen in the same way. The death of the Queen at the moment when their plans were nearing fruition doubtless seemed suspicious to her Danish adherents who spread this report, which was firmly believed by the common people in Copenhagen and Celle. But the evidence of her physicians,[106] who sent a detailed account of the Queen’s last illness and death to George III., leaves no doubt that she died from natural causes.

Like all the children of Frederick Prince of Wales (except Augusta of Brunswick and possibly George III.), Matilda was not of a strong constitution. The climate of Denmark never agreed with her, and the awful experiences she had gone through at Copenhagen shattered her health. She was naturally of a plethoric habit of body, and though in Denmark she had kept this tendency in check by continual exercise, such as riding, walking and dancing—harmless amusements which her enemies urged as offences against her—in her five months’ imprisonment at Kronborg she could take no exercise at all, and afterwards at Celle she voluntarily gave up riding and dancing lest she should call forth unkindly comment. The result was she became exceedingly stout—in so young a woman much too stout for health. She had always lived an active life, and the forced inaction to which she was condemned at Celle was very bad for her, and the dulness and monotony weighed on her spirits. Moreover, during the last few months, she had been leading a life of suppressed excitement; the thought of her possible restoration continually agitated her, and one day she would be greatly elated, and another day correspondingly depressed. All this told upon her strength, and rendered her the more susceptible to illness, should any come her way.

In the spring of 1775 (in fact, while Wraxall was there) an epidemic called indifferently “military fever” or “the purples” had spread to a great extent in Celle, and there were many deaths. Queen Matilda was accustomed to walk freely about the town, and she therefore may have exposed herself to infection; but she does not seem to have taken any harm from the epidemic until after the death of her page. This boy, who died on May 5, was a great favourite with the Queen; she felt his death very much, and insisted on going to see him when he was lying dead in one of the rooms of the castle. Her ladies tried to dissuade her, but she would go, and either then, or at some other time, she caught the infection. On coming back from the page’s room she learned that the little girl, Sophie von Benningsen, whom she had adopted, was also down with the fever. The Queen, very much depressed, went for a walk in the French garden, and when she came back she was so tired that she could scarcely mount the steps of the castle. She dined as usual with her court, but ate scarcely anything, and after dinner felt too unwell to play cards and withdrew to her chamber.

The next morning, after a bad night, she complained of a sore throat and chill. Her physician, Dr. Leyser, was called in, and compelled her to remain in bed. Towards evening her condition showed a slight improvement, but the next day symptoms so alarming appeared that Leyser sent for Dr. Zimmermann, a celebrated physician at Hanover. The Queen seemed to have a presentiment of death, for she said to Leyser: “You have twice helped me through a dangerous illness since October, but this time I shall die.” The doctors affected a cheerfulness which they were far from feeling, for the Queen’s condition grew worse every hour, and the fever became very violent. Prayers were offered for her in the churches; she was deeply touched when her women told her that the whole of Celle was praying for her, and even the Jewish community had offered up supplications on her behalf.

The dying Queen was eager to avail herself of the consolations of religion; Pastor Lehzen, her chaplain, prayed by her bedside, and read, at her request, her favourite hymns and some verses from the Bible. She went towards death without fear, indeed she seemed to welcome it. Her sufferings were agonising, but through them all she manifested a marvellous patience and fortitude. The Queen kept her senses to the last, and almost with her dying breath expressed her forgiveness of her enemies. Her last thought was of others; she inquired after the little girl, Sophie, and when the doctor told her that the child was out of danger, she whispered: “Then I die soothed,” and fell quietly asleep. In this sleep she died. The good pastor, who was praying by the Queen’s bedside when her spirit fled, thus described the end: “I never witnessed so easy a passing; death seemed to lose all its terrors. The words of Holy Writ: ‘O Death, where is thy sting?’ were literally true in her case. She fell asleep like a tired wayfarer.”

Queen Matilda died on the evening of May 11, 1775, at ten minutes past eleven, at the age of twenty-three years and nine months.

This “Queen of Tears” was married at fifteen; she died at twenty-three. What unhappiness, what tragedy, what pathos were crowded in those brief eight years! If she erred, she suffered greatly—imprisonment, exile, the loss of her children, her crown, her honour—surely it was enough! To those who are inclined to judge her harshly, the thought of her youth and her sorrows will surely stay their judgment. We would fain leave them to plead for her, without entering again on the oft-debated question of how far she erred in her great love for the man who showed himself altogether unworthy of the sacrifices she made for him. But her indiscreet champions have unwittingly done her memory more harm than good by claiming for her, throughout her troubled life at the Danish court, what she never claimed—absolute innocence in thought, word and deed. They rest their contention on evidence which we would gladly accept if we could. But alas! it does not bear the test of critical investigation.

Nearly a hundred years after Matilda’s death (in 1864) one of her many apologists, Sir Lascelles Wraxall, grandson of the Nathaniel Wraxall who had acted as agent in the plot for her restoration, published a letter which he said had been given him by her daughter the Duchess of Augustenburg, who had been allowed to take a copy of it by the King of Hanover from the original document preserved in the Hanoverian archives.[107] This letter purported to be written by the Queen when she was on her deathbed to her brother George III., and proclaimed her innocence. The Duchess of Augustenburg was the Princess Louise Augusta of Denmark, the infant daughter taken from Matilda’s arms at Kronborg, the Princess whose birth occasioned so much scandalous rumour. She, therefore (though formally recognised as the daughter of Christian VII.), was interested in the question of her mother’s innocence, and, coming from such hands, the genuineness of the letter at first sight would seem to be, as Wraxall says, “incontestable”. The letter ran as follows:—

“Sire,

“In the most solemn hour of my life I turn to you, my royal brother, to express my heart’s thanks for all the kindness you have shown me during my whole life, and especially in my misfortune.

“I die willingly, for nothing holds me back—neither my youth, nor the pleasures which might await me, near or remote. How could life possess any charms for me, who am separated from all those I love—my husband, my children and my relatives? I, who am myself a queen and of royal blood, have lived the most wretched life, and stand before the world an example that neither crown nor sceptre affords any protection against misfortune!

“But I die innocent—I write this with a trembling hand and feeling death imminent—I am innocent. Oh, that it might please the Almighty to convince the world after my death that I did not deserve any of the frightful accusations by which the calumnies of my enemies stained my character, wounded my heart, traduced my honour and trampled on my dignity.

“Sire, believe your dying sister, a queen and even more, a Christian, who would gaze with terror on the other world if her last confession were a falsehood. I die willingly, for the unhappy bless the tomb. But more than all else, and even than death, it pains me that not one of all those I loved in life is standing by my dying bed to grant me a last consolation by a pressure of the hand, or a glance of compassion, to close my eyes in death.

“Still, I am not alone. God, the sole witness of my innocence, is looking down on my bed of agony; my guardian angel is hovering over me, and will soon guide me to the spot where I shall be able to pray for my friends, and also for my persecutors.

“Farewell, then, my royal brother! May Heaven bless you—my husband—my children—England—Denmark—and the whole world. Permit my corpse to rest in the vault of my parents, and now the last, unspeakably sad farewell from your unfortunate

“Caroline Matilda.”

If this document were genuine, it would go far to prove the innocence of the Queen, for it must be remembered that the evidence against her, even at its worst, was presumptive only, and it is unlikely, from all we know of the genuine piety of her later years that she would have faced death with a lie on her lips. But after patient inquiry nothing can be found to prove its genuineness. The most convincing proof, of course, would be the existence of the original letter in the Queen’s well-known handwriting; but no such letter exists in the Hanoverian archives; nor does it exist among the Guelph domestic papers, which the King of Hanover took with him into exile after the war of 1866. While there was still a king in Hanover the late Mr. Heneage Jesse[108] applied to the Hanoverian officials for information concerning this letter, and received the following reply from Baron von Malortie, minister and chamberlain to the King: “In the royal Hanoverian archives there is not the letter alluded to of the late Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark. Solely the royal museum contains a printed copy of a letter pretending to be written by the said late Queen on her deathbed to her royal brother, George III. of Great Britain, and it is presumed that the Duchess of Augustenburg was permitted by the late King, Ernest Augustus’ Majesty, to take a copy of this printed copy, now in the family museum.” He then went on to say that all the officials of the Hanoverian archives were strongly of the opinion that the Queen “never did write, nor could write, on her deathbed such a letter, and that the pretended letter of her Majesty is nothing but the work of one of her friends in England, written after her death and then translated. The history of her Majesty’s last illness and of her death is here well known, and excludes almost the possibility of her writing and forwarding such a letter to her royal brother.”[109]

There still remains the theory put forward by some—that the Queen, in writing this letter, protested her innocence only in general terms, and she may have been referring to the charges made against her of plotting with Struensee to poison or depose her husband, of which she certainly was innocent. But this theory is untenable from another plea put forward by the Queen’s defenders, and which perhaps deserves more respectful consideration than the letter. Some years after the Queen’s death Falckenskjold published his Memoirs, and in them we find the following statement:—

“In 1780 I had an opportunity at Hanover of forming the acquaintance of M. Roques, pastor of the French Protestant Church at Celle. One day I spoke to him about Queen Caroline Matilda.

“‘I was summoned almost daily by that Princess,’ he said to me, ‘either to read or converse with her, and most frequently to obtain information relative to the poor of my parish. I visited her more constantly during the last days of her life, and I was with her a little before she drew her last breath. Although very weak, she retained her presence of mind. After I had recited the prayers for the dying, she said to me in a voice that seemed to become more animated: “Monsieur Roques, I am about to appear before God. I protest that I am innocent of the crimes imputed against me, and that I was never faithless to my husband.’”

“M. Roques added that the Queen had never before spoken to him, even indirectly, of the accusations brought against her.

“I wrote down on the same day (March 7, 1780) what M. Roques said to me, as coming from a man distinguished by his integrity of character.”[110]

If Falckenskjold is to be believed, this, it must be admitted, is remarkable evidence; but in his Memoirs he can be more than once convicted of misstatements, and, at best, this one rests on second-hand information obtained five years after the Queen’s death. It was Pastor Lehzen, and not Pastor Roques, who attended the Queen in her illness, and he published afterwards an edifying account of her last moments, which contained no statement of this nature.[111] As Lehzen was the Queen’s chaplain throughout her residence at Celle, and rector of the principal church there, it seems more likely that she would have confided in him than in the minister of the French Protestant chapel, whom she only saw from time to time in connection with little deeds of beneficence to the poor among his congregation.

It is not necessary to invest Matilda with the halo of a saint to feel sympathy for her sorrows and pity for her fate. She loved greatly and suffered greatly for her love. Let it rest there.

“Our good Queen is no more,” announced Pastor Lehzen, as he came from her deathbed to the long gallery, where the whole of the late Queen’s household, some fifty in number, were assembled. There was not one of them who did not hear the words without a sense of personal loss, for there was not one, even the meanest, to whom the Queen had not endeared herself by some kind word or deed. The castle was filled with weeping and lamentation. The ill news was quickly communicated to the town, and every house became a house of mourning, for during her residence at Celle Matilda had endeared herself alike to the highest and the lowest, and was spoken of by all as their “lieben und guten KÖnigin” (their beloved and good Queen).

Owing to the danger of infection the Queen’s funeral took place within fifty hours of her death. It was found impossible to delay her obsequies until the King’s instructions could be received from England, and therefore at midnight on May 13 the Queen was interred in the burial vault of the Dukes of Celle in the old church.

The grand marshal of the court of Hanover, Baron von Lichtenstein, took charge of the funeral arrangements. The Queen’s coffin was carried on a hearse, drawn by six horses, from the castle to the church under an escort of soldiers, and the route was guarded by soldiers bearing torches, and lined with rows of weeping people, all clad in black. The Queen’s household, headed by Baron Seckendorf, her chamberlain, and the Baroness Dowager d’Ompteda, her chief lady-in-waiting, followed on foot. The church was crowded with the chief people of Celle, including Prince Ernest of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Madame de Plessen. The simple service was conducted by Pastor Lehzen, and the coffin was lowered to the ducal vaults.[112]

The Sunday after the Queen’s death mourning services were held in the churches of Celle. At the town church, where she was buried, Pastor Lehzen concluded his sermon with the following words:—

“She endeavoured to win the love of every one, even of the humblest, and the many tears shed for her prove that she succeeded in her endeavour. Those who were nearest her person testify how she strove in a higher strength to exercise the most difficult of Christian virtues [forgiveness of her enemies], and that not from a lofty, worldly pride, but from reasons set forth for us by the Pattern of all virtues. The last steps of her life were taken with submissive surrender to the will of God, with trust and hope. O God! we thank Thee for Thy grace, and for its blessed working; we honour, we extol, we praise the same, and offer to Thee our most hearty thanks for all the goodness wrought in this immortalised soul. May she now enjoy the rest, the reward, the bliss of the perfected just! May a blessing rest on her royal children, such as this loving mother sought for them so often from Thee, O God, with many tears! Lighten the sorrow which the news of this unexpected and grievous event will cause to the hearts of our gracious King and Queen [George III. and Charlotte], and for the blessing of the world, and of this country in particular, bring their Majesties to their full term of happy years, and permit them to see their royal house flourish and prosper. Look upon those who are nearest to the deceased Princess, and mourn a Queen who was always full of graciousness and gentleness. Console them in Thy mercy and loving providence, and teach them that Thy counsel is very wonderful, and wise and tender. And thou, Celle, overcome by the death which leaves thee forlorn, look up through thy tears to God! Honour Him with childlike trust, and pray Him to compensate your loss by manifestations of His mercy in other ways, and by granting a long and happy life to our gracious King.”

It was thought that the ducal vault of Celle would prove only a temporary resting-place for the Queen, and, in accordance with her expressed wish, her remains would be removed to England to rest in Westminster Abbey beside those of her father and mother. But George III. did not see his way to grant this last request, and all that is mortal of Matilda remains at Celle to this day. On one side of her George William, the last Duke of Celle, and his consort, ElÉonore d’Olbreuse, sleep their last sleep; on the other is the plain leaden coffin of their unfortunate daughter, Sophie Dorothea, whose troubled life in many ways closely resembled that of her great-granddaughter Matilda.

I visited this vault a few years ago. Queen Matilda’s coffin is easily found, as it is the only wooden (mahogany) one there. It is of extraordinary breadth—almost as broad as long—and at the head is the following inscription in Latin: Here are deposited the mortal remains of Caroline Matilda, Princess of Great Britain and Brunswick-LÜneburg, Queen of Denmark and Norway. Born July 22, 1751, died May 11, 1775. A few faded wreaths were lying near the coffin; many of these were deposited many years after her death by pilgrims to her last resting-place; but I was assured that some of them had been there since the funeral. The vault is now closed.

When the news of Queen Matilda’s death reached England general mourning for three weeks was commanded for the King’s sister, and court mourning for six weeks. Among the few English friends who knew her profound sorrow was felt at the early death of this unfortunate daughter of England. On May 24 a deputation of the House of Lords and a deputation of the House of Commons waited on the King at St. James’s, and presented addresses of condolence on the Queen of Denmark’s death. To each George III. replied: “The King returns his thanks to the House for the concern they have expressed for the great loss which has happened to his family by the death of his sister, the Queen of Denmark.” The few thousand pounds the Queen left behind her, and her personal effects, George III. committed to the charge of the regency of Hanover, with orders to guard the property for her children until they came of age, and Baron Seckendorf was entrusted with the administration of the Queen’s estate.

The news of the Queen’s death travelled to Copenhagen as quickly as to London, and completed the revulsion of feeling in her favour. She was henceforth regarded by the people as a saint and martyr, who had been sacrificed to the intrigues of the Queen-Dowager, and the unpopularity of Juliana Maria and her Government was greatly increased. The Queen-Dowager could not conceal her satisfaction at Matilda’s death. The English envoy relates how the Danish court received the news. Writing on May 20 he says:—

“An estafette from Madame Schimmelmann brought the melancholy news from Hamburg to Count Bernstorff very early yesterday morning, and I had the grief to receive the confirmation of it soon after by the post.... Orders were given yesterday, as I am positively assured, to put the Prince and Princess Royal into the deepest mourning worn here for a mother, and I am likewise further assured that Count Bernstorff was the adviser of that measure. But as consistency is not to be expected here, he could not prevent the Royal Family’s appearing at the play on Wednesday and yesterday evenings, and what was worse, their assisting on Thursday night at a ball in dominoes at the theatre, where they made the King of Denmark dance, though they had ordered young Schack to acquaint him on Wednesday with the circumstance he was in, with which he was most [deeply] affected. And yesterday at Court (where I was not) his countenance and manner were such as startled the Foreign Ministers who approached him. The Prince Royal did not see company. And to-day they all went to dine out of town, the King assisting at the launching of two frigates, which resolution was taken suddenly at twelve o’clock. They say they will wait till I, or M. Reiche, notify the Queen of Denmark’s death, in his Majesty’s name.”[113]

In accordance with this resolution no notice was taken of the event by the Danish court, nor was any mourning donned, until George III. sent a letter to the King notifying the death of Queen Matilda. This notification was formally delivered by the English envoy at the Christiansborg Palace the day when a court ball was appointed. The Queen-Dowager so far forgot her discretion, or was so blind to decency, that she did not order the ball to be postponed, and the court danced merrily the evening of the day that the Queen’s death was notified at Copenhagen. But the next morning the Danish court went into mourning—not as for the Queen of Denmark (for the Queen was considered politically to have died three years before), but as for a foreign princess who was connected with the Danish royal house—as a princess of Great Britain Caroline Matilda was first cousin to Christian VII. This court mourning lasted for four weeks—the usual time—and the only concession seems to have been that the late Queen’s children, the Crown Prince Frederick and his sister, Princess Louise Augusta, remained in mourning for a longer period.

It is said that George III., to whom the news of the court ball was communicated, deeply resented the affront offered by the Danish court not only to his dead sister but to him. No trace of this appears in the official despatches. On the contrary, we find, soon after this wanton insult to the Queen’s memory, a despatch from England, saying that “the King hoped the Queen’s death would make no difference to the good relations existing between the two courts”.[114] George III. was not a man to allow personal considerations to stand in the way of what he considered to be public good, and he had recently obtained a pledge from the Danish Government to the effect that they would not offer any help, direct or indirect, to the American colonists, recently goaded into revolt. A sister’s memory was nothing to the King in comparison with the prosecution of an unrighteous war which he believed to be righteous.

It was only in little Celle, among the people who had known and loved her the last years of her brief life, that the memory of Matilda was treasured and held sacred. Soon after the funeral a public meeting was held at Celle and attended by the principal burgesses of the town and the leading noblemen of the principality of LÜneburg, and after resolutions had been passed lamenting her death, it was resolved to petition George III. for permission to erect a monument to her memory. In this petition it was stated: “Our only object is to raise a lasting proof of the general affection and respect with which we regarded the great and noble qualities of her Majesty Queen Matilda, and, by a permanent memorial of the grief for her death felt by all true subjects of your Majesty, to give an opportunity to our remotest descendants to cherish with silent respect the memory of the best and most amiable of queens.” The petition was graciously received by George III., and he willingly granted his permission.

A monument of grey marble was sculptured by Professor Oeser of Leipzig, and erected in the French garden of Celle—the garden of which she had been so fond—and stands to this day. A medallion of the Queen, as she appeared in the last year of her life, is carved upon an urn, which is upborne by allegorical figures of truth, maternal love, charity and mercy—the virtues by which the Queen was pre-eminently known; and an inscription runs round the pedestal setting forth her name and titles and the dates of her birth and death. This handsome monument stands out in bold relief against a background of sycamores, and looks across the trim gardens to an avenue of ancient limes—the very trees, maybe, under which Queen Matilda paced with Wraxall a few months before her death.

I saw it first on a June evening five years ago. At the base of the monument blue forget-me-nots were planted, and red and white roses clambered up the low railing around it—a touching testimony to the fact that the Queen is not yet forgotten in Celle, and the memory of her good deeds is still living in the hearts of the people.