RETRIBUTION.

1784.

Nine years passed, after the death of Queen Matilda, before retribution overcame Juliana Maria for the part she had played in compassing her ruin. By that time all the conspirators who had taken part in the palace revolution of 1772 had been banished or disgraced, except two, Eickstedt and Guldberg, and of these the latter was by far the more powerful. The sex of the Queen-Dowager did not permit her to preside in person over the Council of State; her son, the Hereditary Prince Frederick, who was a puppet in the hands of his mother, nominally presided, but he was there only as a matter of form. Guldberg in reality presided, and behind Guldberg was Juliana Maria, for she ruled entirely through him. The mental condition of Christian VII. made it impossible for him to take any part in the government, though he still reigned in theory. The whole of the regal power was transferred from his hands to those of Juliana Maria and her other self, Guldberg, who eventually filled the post of Privy Cabinet Secretary to the King, and acted in many ways as Struensee had done.

Their rule was not successful. The one measure to be placed to their credit was a law passed in 1776, which decreed that only natives of the kingdom could hold office, though the King had the power of naturalising deserving foreigners. In home affairs the Government became more and more unpopular. The democratic reforms instituted by Struensee were nearly all repealed: the orthodox clergy were gratified by the reintroduction of public penance for sexual sins, the nobility and landowners by the restoration of serfdom. The result of this legislation was that the peasants were more oppressed than before, the taxes grew heavier, and the old abuses flourished again vigorously. The foreign policy of Denmark was to lean more and more towards Prussia. The King of Prussia had, by means of his relative Juliana Maria, acquired great influence over the foreign policy of Denmark, and under his direction it grew hostile to England. The Danish Government was weak and vacillating in foreign affairs, and its administration of home affairs was feeble and corrupt. As the years went by, it became greatly discredited, and the Queen-Dowager, who was regarded, rightly or wrongly, as the cause of this loss of national prestige, became more and more hated. Indeed, so unpopular was the Government of Queen Juliana Maria that the wonder was it lasted so long; it only endured because no strong man arose to overthrow it.

The hopes of the Danish nation were centred in the Crown Prince Frederick, the son of Queen Matilda. At one time there was a design to set both him and his sister aside,[115] but the Queen-Dowager and her friends were afraid the nation would not suffer it. The Crown Prince grew up under the care of Eickstedt, and his education was entrusted to a learned professor named Sporon. Taking their cue, no doubt, from the Queen-Dowager, the ministers treated the heir to the throne with scant deference or respect: he was tyrannised over by Eickstedt, neglected by Sporon and insulted by Guldberg. By the Lex Regia he came of age at fourteen, but the policy of the Queen-Dowager was to keep him in the background as much as possible, and he was not confirmed until he had reached his seventeenth year. Reports were spread abroad that he was afflicted with the same mental imbecility as his father. Nothing could be more untrue, for the Crown Prince was endowed not only with sound sense and a firm will, but a strong constitution. He was about his father’s height, his complexion was fair, and his hair so flaxen as to be almost white. In face he much resembled his mother, and it was said that he cherished her memory.

The Crown Prince showed his character soon after he attained his legal majority, for though only a lad of fourteen, he expressed strong dissatisfaction concerning the cabinet orders reintroduced by Guldberg—the same kind of cabinet orders as had cost Struensee his head—and protested. Guldberg sent an insulting message in reply to the Crown Prince’s protest, and Eickstedt forced the young Prince to make an apology. Frederick’s remonstrance was ill-timed, and it was probably the cause of his confirmation being delayed for three years. But Guldberg’s insult had the effect of determining him to overthrow his domination and that of the Queen-Dowager at the earliest opportunity. To this end he carried on a secret correspondence with Bernstorff (who had resigned office in 1780 because of the French and Prussian policy of the Queen-Dowager) and other opponents of the Guldberg ministry, including Schack-Rathlou and Reventlow.

At last, on April 4, 1784, the Crown Prince was confirmed in the royal chapel of the Christiansborg Palace, and before the confirmation his public examination took place in the presence of the foreign ministers and the court. This examination effectually dispelled the rumours which had been industriously spread concerning the young Prince’s mental abilities, for he answered clearly and directly the questions put to him, and spoke with a firmness which carried dismay to the hearts of the Queen-Dowager and her supporters.

The confirmation of the Crown Prince was followed, as a matter of course, by his admission to the Council of State, and this took place on April 14, 1784. As it was an occasion of some ceremony, the King himself occupied the presidential chair; the Crown Prince was seated on his right, and Prince Frederick, the King’s brother, on his left. The Queen-Dowager had taken the precaution of appointing two new members of the Council of State, her creatures, who were sworn to carry out her wishes, and outvote any proposals of the Crown Prince. The first business of the meeting, therefore, was the swearing in of these two new members, and of Count Rosencrone, another nominee. When the three men advanced to sign the oath and formally take their seats, the Crown Prince rose and begged the King to command them to wait until he made a proposition. The King bowed assent—he was in the habit of assenting to every proposal—and before any one could interpose, the Crown Prince produced a memorandum which he read from beginning to end. It proved to be a most revolutionary document: he requested his father to dissolve the present cabinet, to recall two of his own supporters—Rosenkrantz and Bernstorff—to the Council of State, and to appoint two others, also his supporters—Huth and Stampe—thus giving him a majority in the Council. The Crown Prince then laid the memorandum before the King for signature, and, dipping a pen in the ink, placed it in the King’s hand. At that moment Prince Frederick, who, with the other members of the Council, had been taken by surprise, recovered his self-possession, and attempted to snatch the paper away from the King, who was about to sign it, but the Crown Prince intervened and held it fast. One of the newly appointed members of the Council, Rosencrone, entered a protest, and said: “Your Royal Highness, you must know that His Majesty cannot sign such a paper without due consideration.” The Crown Prince turned to Rosencrone with an air of great dignity. “It is not your place, sir,” said he, “to advise the King, but mine—I am heir to the throne, and, as such, responsible only to the nation.” To the astonishment of all, Guldberg remained silent, and, taking advantage of the momentary hesitation, the Crown Prince obtained his father’s signature to the document, and further got him to write “approved” across the corner. He put the paper into his pocket.

The imbecile King, who was greatly frightened at this scene, took advantage of the pause to run out of the council chamber to his apartments. Prince Frederick, foiled in obtaining the paper, resolved at least to secure the King, and ran after him with all speed, bolting the door from the outside when he left the room.

The Crown Prince at once assumed the presidency of the council, and, turning to four Privy Councillors—Moltke, Guldberg, Stemen and Rosencrone—declared that the King no longer required their services. At the same time he announced the dismissal of three other members of the Government. He then broke up the meeting, and endeavoured to follow his father, but finding the door locked which led to the King’s apartments, he went round another way. Here, too, he found the door barred against him. He declared that he would have it broken down by force, and had given orders for this to be done when the door opened and Prince Frederick appeared, leading the King by the arm, with the intention of conducting him to the Queen-Dowager’s apartments. The Crown Prince sprang forward, and, seizing the King by the other arm, endeavoured to draw him back, assuring him that nothing would be done without his sanction, and that he only wished to secure the King’s honour and the welfare of the country. The feeble monarch seemed inclined to stay with his son rather than go with his brother, and this so incensed the Prince Frederick that he seized the Crown Prince by the collar, and endeavoured to drag him away from the King by force. But the younger man was the stronger, and clutching his father with his left hand, he used his right so energetically against his uncle that Prince Frederick was obliged to let go. At that moment the Crown Prince was reinforced by his page, and between them they drove Prince Frederick down the corridor, and shut the door on him. The King, who had been almost pulled asunder by the excited combatants, ran back to his apartments, whither he was followed a few minutes later by his son, who now had his father in his safe keeping.

Thus was effected the palace revolution of April 14, 1784—a revolution which overthrew not only the Government, but the Queen-Dowager and her son. Its success or its failure turned on the result of this undignified struggle for the possession of the King’s person, for if Prince Frederick had succeeded in carrying the King to the Queen-Dowager’s apartments, the recently signed ordinance would have been revoked, and steps would have been taken to prevent a repetition of the Crown Prince’s efforts to assert himself.

The Queen-Dowager’s rage when her son told her what had occurred in the Council of State, and that the King was now in the keeping of the Crown Prince, may be better imagined than described. She vowed and protested that she would never submit to the power being thus snatched from her hands; she wished to go to the King at once, but was told that the Crown Prince and his friends would surely not admit her. She threatened to summon the palace guard to take the King away by force, but she was told that the Crown Prince had taken the precaution to secure the good-will not only of the palace guard, but, through commander-in-chief, of the whole army, and she was, in fact, already a prisoner. Then at last Juliana Maria realised that she was outwitted, and her reign was over for ever. The bitterness of her defeat was intensified by the thought that it had been effected by the son of the woman whom she had imprisoned and driven into exile.

The Crown Prince was proclaimed Regent the same day amid scenes of the greatest enthusiasm. In the afternoon he walked alone through the principal streets of Copenhagen; there was no guard, and the crowds which filled the streets everywhere made room for him to pass, and welcomed him with shouts and acclamations. As he said, the Danish people were his guard, and when he returned three hours later to the Christiansborg Palace, he had firmly riveted his hold on the affections of his future subjects.

The Crown Prince behaved, as his mother would have done if she had been restored to the throne, with magnanimity: there was no bloodshed, and he treated even his bitterest enemies with great clemency. The rule of Juliana Maria was at an end, and henceforth neither she nor her son had the slightest influence in affairs of state. But the Crown Prince treated them both with every respect and courtesy: they were permitted to retain their apartments at the Christiansborg Palace,[116] and the palace of Fredensborg was made over for the use of Juliana Maria. She lived in retirement until her death, which took place in 1796, at the age of sixty-seven years. Until the last she was pursued by popular execration, and even after her death, until comparatively recent time, it was the habit of many of the Danish peasants to spit on her tomb at RÖskilde as a mark of their undying hatred.

Her son, Prince Frederick, who had neither his mother’s abilities nor her evil traits of character, had not the energy to meddle in affairs of state, and spent the rest of his days in promoting the arts and sciences. He died in 1805. He had married in 1774 Sophia Frederika, a princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.[117] His elder son succeeded to the throne of Denmark in 1839 as King Christian VIII.[118]

Of Queen Matilda’s two children little remains to be said. Her daughter, Louise Augusta, grew up a very beautiful and accomplished princess, who in wit and affability strongly recalled her mother, and between her and her brother there existed the fondest ties of attachment. She married the Duke of Augustenburg, and died in 1843, at the age of seventy-two. The daughter of this Princess, Caroline Amalie, married, as her second husband, Prince Christian Frederick, son of the Hereditary Prince Frederick (who, on the death of his cousin, Frederick VI., without male issue, became Christian VIII.), and thus the rival races of Juliana Maria and Matilda were united. Queen Caroline Amalie survived her husband for many years, and died in 1881, aged eighty-five years.

Queen Matilda’s son, who, after a long regency, became, in 1808 (on the death of his father, Christian VII., at the age of fifty-nine), Frederick VI., was a liberal and enlightened prince; yet neither his regency nor his reign was very successful. When Regent he made repeated efforts to obtain the hand of an English princess in marriage, one of the many daughters of George III.; but the King of England, who had taken a violent dislike to Denmark after its cruel treatment of his unfortunate sister, would not listen to the proposal. The heir to the Danish monarchy, thus repulsed, married Marie Sophie Frederika, a princess of Hesse-Cassel, who bore him two daughters, Caroline, who married the Hereditary Prince Ferdinand, and Vilhelmine Marie, who married Prince Frederick Carl Christian. His self-love was deeply wounded by the way in which his overtures had been spurned by his uncle, George III., and henceforth his foreign policy became anti-English, and he threw in his lot with France. To this may be traced directly, or indirectly, many of the disasters that overcame Denmark during the reign of Frederick VI.—the naval engagement of 1801, wherein the English attacked Copenhagen and forced the Danes to abandon it, the second attack by the British on Copenhagen, and its bombardment in 1807, which resulted in the surrender of the whole of the Danish and Norwegian fleets, and, in 1814, through the alliance of Denmark and France against Great Britain and Sweden, the loss of Norway to Denmark.

These disasters naturally engendered a feeling of bitterness on the part of the brave Danes towards the English for a time, but this feeling has long since passed away, and the two nations, whose history is intimately connected, and who are akin in race and sympathy, are now united in the bond of friendship—a bond which has been immeasurably strengthened by the auspicious union which has given to us the most beautiful Queen and the most beloved Queen-Consort that England has ever known.

THE END.