Sir Lascelles Wraxall

“ Such is everything that can be learned of the death of Caroline Matilda. Sacrificed in the first bloom of youth, and decked with the fillets of misery, she was sent, an inexperienced victim, to become the bride of a man who was a compound of insanity and brutality. In less than seven years she experienced all the honours, but also all the wretchedness, which a royal throne can offer. Then she died in the flower of life in exile, the victim of the most scandalous conspiracy. ”

“ On May 30, a lady belonging to the court went to Kronborg in one of the king's coaches to remove the young Princess Louisa Augusta, and conduct her royal highness to Christiansborg Palace. Hence the last moments which the feeling queen spent in Denmark were the most painful of all: she was obliged to part from her only consolation, her only blessing, her beloved daughter: she was forced to leave her dear child among her enemies. For a long time she bedewed the infant with hot tears—for a long time she pressed it to her heart. She strove to tear herself away ”

“ 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. ”

“ When her Majesty was informed of the circumstances connected with the tragical death of the two prisoners, she said to Fräulein Mösting, her maid of honour,
"Unhappy men! they have paid dearly for their attachment to the king, and their zeal for my service."
No thought of self, it will be noticed: Caroline Matilda entirely forgot the humiliation to which she had been exposed by Struensee's dastardly confession, and only evinced sincere compassion for his undeserved and barbarous fate. But she was ever thus: from the first moment to the last, she sacrificed herself for others. ”

“ It must reasonably insult Count Brandt to find that he whom his Majesty, through his own special favour, and as a reward for his faithful services to his king and master, raised to the rank of Count, selected for his daily intimate society, and honoured with many superfluous proofs of favour and confidence,—that he, I say, should see himself condemned to lose his dignity of count, his honour, life, and fortune, and have his body ill-treated by the executioner. ”

“ Count von Rantzau more particularly displayed a sustained hardness and fearful blackness of soul. He, doubtless, believed that by closing all access to clemency, by forcing to the scaffold two intimate friends, one of whom had been his benefactor, he should purge himself of the suspicion of complicity, and that by sheer hypocrisy he should cause his connection with the condemned men to be forgotten. At any other time, instead of sitting in the council and determining the fate of the culprits, he would have himself been the object of a severe sentence ”

“ On one occasion, Caroline Matilda, conversing on the early commencement of her misfortunes, observed that, since she was born to suffer, she found some consolation in being marked out so soon by the hand of adversity. "I may possibly live," said her Majesty, "to see Denmark disabused with respect to my conduct: whereas my poor mother, one of the best women that ever existed, died while the load of obloquy lay heavy upon her, and went to the grave without the pleasure of a vindicated character." ”

“ Still, in spite of Struensee's deficiency and all his mistakes, so much justice must be done him as to allow that he desired the welfare of the state. He originally possessed a not ignoble mind, which was lowered and degraded by his fabulous elevation and sudden fall. Being formed of much softer and more worthless stuff than the metal out of which great, or even second-rate statesmen are composed, he could not endure either fortune or misfortune. An idealist, trained in the school of enlightened despotism, he did not understand that a nation must be raised from the bottom to the top. ”

“ If he shuts the gates of his hôtel, and remains a silent or a passive spectator of so great a change, men will naturally conceive that his court and his master are unacquainted with, if not adverse to, the enterprise itself. It is even possible that, encouraged by such inaction on the part of the English representative, the adherents of the queen dowager may attempt, while the counter-revolution is yet scarcely completed, to overturn it, or to excite the populace of Copenhagen to insurrection. We may be the victims of the King of England's reserve. ”

“ Denmark had long sighed under the brutal dictatorship which the envoys of Russia exercised. Struensee broke this yoke, and did it so cleverly, that the ambitious czarina in Petersburg was obliged to give way, whether she liked it or not. The management of the foreign policy by Struensee least of all deserves blame, because it was based on the sensible principle that Denmark must live in peace and amity with all states, but not be subject to any one of them. The same praise cannot be afforded to Struensee's home administration. ”

“ But this selection was so bad a one, that the excellent son of Caroline Matilda frequently complained loudly in his maturer years that he had been purposely kept from learning anything. It was the design of the queen and Guldberg to keep the crown prince a minor as long as possible, and the best means for this unscrupulous object were certainly to allow the heir to the throne to grow up in ignorance, to imbue him with an immoderate preference for everything Danish, and to divert his inclinations to unimportant state-matters, such as playing at soldiers. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The king now lives very sadly, and his days pass away in melancholy. He still exclaims, "My wife, my wife! she has been torn from me. I ask for her again. My ministers, my Struensee and Brandt, where are they? They have been condemned to death. They have passed over into eternity, and I am left desolate."
[43] They write from Hanover that the Hereditary Princess of Brunswick has been at Goerde, accompanied, contrary to expectation, by her husband, which is looked upon as a convincing proof that a perfect harmony subsists between these two illustrious personages. ”

“ Struensee replied, "and I assure you they are this very moment just the same."
"Do you trust in the redemption of Christ as the only ground of your being pardoned before God?"
"I know no other means of receiving God's mercy, and I trust in this alone."
"Do you leave this world without hatred or malice against any person whatever?"
"I hope nobody hates me personally; and as for the rest, you know my sentiments on this head; they are the same as I told you before." ”

“ To prevent any reflections on the part of the court of Copenhagen at his having seen and conversed with an agent of the Danish nobility and the queen, in case that the present attempt were either discovered or found unsuccessful, the king judged it fit not to admit Mr. Wraxall to a personal interview. It was therefore his pleasure that Mr. Wraxall should communicate to him on paper, through Baron von Lichtenstein, every circumstance touching the business; explaining the causes and reasons which had induced the exiled nobility at Altona to confide to his honour so secret and delicate a matter. ”

“ Count Brandt, for his part, equally little regarded it as audacious, either when the affair occurred, or afterwards. For, just as he described it, in its full details, in presence of the commission, when nothing could induce him to do so but the innocence which, according to his opinion, lay in the whole affair, if the circumstances connected with it were taken into consideration in the same way, his open confession proves the confidence he placed in his innocence, as the affair could not be proved by witnesses; and the man who knows himself to be innocent is never criminal. ”

“ It is not easy to understand how Count Brandt, of whom it must be confessed that he possessed common sense, and might have been useful to the king and country as a native, allowed himself to be persuaded to become a promoter of the Struensian undertakings. Nor is it possible to discover what could induce him, as a person of rank and family, to deny that hauteur which is generally observed toward people of low origin, unless it was caused by an unbounded desire for honours and wealth, and that he consequently behaved like those who consort with, and are the accomplices of, thieves. ”

“ During this awful tragedy Struensee sat in his coach, which was standing near the scaffold. When Brandt went up, Münter ordered the coach to be turned in such a way that they might not witness Brandt's execution. But Struensee's eyes had already found his unfortunate friend, and hence he said:—
"I have seen him already."
After some further exhortation, Münter said to the prisoner:—
"Christ prayed for his murderers even on the cross. May I rely upon your leaving the world with the same sentiments of love toward those whom you might have reason to think your enemies?" ”

“ Still I do not think it should be passed over, as it affords an idea of the sentiments of the queen's party.
Keith laid before the king the letter of separation for his signature, which the king was about to sign without reading. "No, no, your Majesty," the envoy said, "read it first. It concerns you. It is the separation between yourself and your consort, which the court of England solicits for the reasons given." The king cried in confusion, "What! I am to lose my wife? State it even in writing? No, I cannot. I love and long for her again. Where are Struensee and Brandt? ”

“ Owing to the mortification that at once set in, it was found absolutely necessary to deposit the body in the vault of the Dukes of Celle until the King of England had arranged the funeral ceremonies. This was done at midnight, on May 13, with great order and decorum by Grand Maréchal von Lichtenstein. At the sermons in the church, the whole congregation, from the highest to the lowest, burst into tears. The queen's affability and gentleness had gained her the hearts of even the lowest people, who offered up heart-felt prayers for their lieben und guten Königinn. ”

“ If we take into consideration the energy of the intriguing lady, and the nimbus of sovereignty which had surrounded her for twelve years, we must applaud the precaution that the artillery under General Huth, and the palace guard, were held in readiness, in case any further resistance should be offered to the downfall of the late government, or the refusal of the king to sign the order, had rendered the proclamation of the crown prince as regent, which had been fully decided on, necessary. ”

“ In the same way as Count Brandt displayed faithlessness toward his king in the previous point, he furthermore showed it in the following affair, by joining Count Struensee in robbing the royal treasury of various sums of money.
It is an easy matter for a person who is daily with his king, and in such a manner that no one else can reach him, to grow rich. But such an enterprise cannot be so easily excused, even if there be the king's assent to it, for the king's favour must be as little abused in money matters as in other things. ”

“ On October 20, the queen made her entrance into Celle, and took up her abode in the royal château. This old residence of the former Dukes of Lüneburg was at this time a fortified castle surrounded by moats and walls. Although the apartments were spacious and habitable, and well furnished, the exterior of the castle resembled a prison rather than a palace. But the queen soon gained the hearts of all the inhabitants by her amiability and resignation, and thus converted the unfriendly asylum into an abode of peace and consolation. ”

“ The English envoy, Gunning, who was not ill-disposed toward him, expressly stated, in a despatch of April, 1770, that Struensee did not at all display in his conversation the liveliness and pleasantry by which other men pave the way to fortune. "His mode of behaving and expressing himself is dry and even unpleasant, so that it was a subject of general surprise how he contrived to acquire such unbounded influence over the king and queen." ”