Life and Times of Her Majesty Caroline Matilda, Vol. I (of III)

USEMENTS-TRAVELLING IMPRESSIONS-THE CORONATION-THE FIRST QUARREL-THE KING GOES TO HOLSTEIN-DEATH

ther-in-law, Prince Charles of Hesse, welcomed Caroline Matilda. We can easily forgive the young king, if, at the sight of such beauty as hers, he forgot court proprieties, and embraced and kiss

yet possessing a considerable degree of agility and strength. His complexion was remarkably fair; his features, if not handsome, were regular; his eyes blue, lively, and expressive; his hair very light; he had a good forehead and aquiline nose; a handsome mout

8, on which day she made her solemn entrance into the capital, seated by the side of her sister-in-law, the Landgravine Louise,

ments." He passed through several rooms, and, on reaching the queen's ante-room, the king ordered him to enter her rooms, which he did. Frau von Plessen, however, rushed at Prince Charles like a dragon, and declared that he should never enter the queen's bedroom. Th

pair; and on the reverse, an allegorical female form, reclining upon an anchor, and holding a wreath of flowers in her hand,

first set her foot on the soil of. Denmark. I did not join in the shouts of the multitude; but I was charmed with her appearance. Everything she saw was grandeur and festivity; she was

in this enthusiasm. The youth of the princess could not but cause anxiety, because the king, her husband, was, so to speak, a child too. Hence the court of St. James sent the British agent the following warning advice in reply to the above outburst:-"Her Majesty is entering on the most important period of her life. At so tender an age she has be

worst influences had been at work on the young king's mind and senses, and the following confirms my assertion. We have seen that the marriage took place on November 8, and on November 25, Ogier, the sharp-sighted French envoy at Copenhagen, considered himself justified in reporting to Paris:-"The princess has produced hardly any impression on the king's heart, and had she been even more amiable, she would have experienced the same fate. For, how could she please a

ady, although respectable, was austere, haughty, and decidedly in opposition.[44] Her apartments were twice a week the meeting-place of all the malcontents, and the ministers and old courtiers, after dining with the king,

dalena, who was sixty-six years of age, and whose heart was distracted between fear of God and ambition, could not thoroughly sympathise with the girlish Car

liged to be cautious, however: she was not popular with the nation, and had held no sway over her husband, who toward the end of his reign hated and avoided a woman who was the opposite of his prematurely lost Louisa. Hence Juliana Maria hailed Matilda as the consort of Christ

r, in the great royal market, which is now the Academy, and the memory of her benefactions to the poor still flourishes among the Danish people.[46

t, to which only the élite were invited. At the commencement of Christian's reign only Danish plays and ballets were performed at the theatre, but now the king orde

rrison and the foreign envoys were invited. During the reign of Frederick V., jovial though it was, no attempt had been m

Among other pieces performed was Voltaire's Zaire, which exactly suited Christian's taste. It was played in the original, and the king represented one of th

ive amusements, which were madness in a poor and indebted state. Still, the public might have pardoned it if the court had managed to attract respect, for nations, though victims to the magnificence of their sovereigns, readily forgive, and even take a pride in lavish expenditure when they believe they share it; but the king, indulging in the most puerile amusements, running without object from one palace to the other, and decried by the complaints of his own ministers about his private conduct, entirely forfeited public respect. A proof of this was furnished during the first winter of his reign. A b

ormed from the following interesting letter which she wrote home, describ

, December

dear B

may call it Travels through part of Germany and Denmark, with

rent from that of England, in regard to populousness, agriculture, roads and conveniences for travelling, I was glad to be safely landed, and vowed to Neptune never to invade his empire; only wishing that he would be graciously pleased to let me have another passage to the Queen of the Isles. What I have seen of Germany exhibits a contrast of

ns, that these princes may justly boast of a race of illustrious progenitors, as it seemed they had lived there from time immemorial. As we judge of everything by comparison, I observed that there is more comfort, more elegance, more conveniency, in the villa of a citizen of London than in these gloomy mansi

art of the Germans are the tenants of the little needy princes, who squeeze them to keep up their own grandeur. These petty sovereigns, ridiculously proud of titles, ancestry, and sho

and gentry infinitely worse than the stage-coaches in England;

may see more on a fair day from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange than I have met upon the road from Altona to Copenhagen. The gentlemen and ladies who were sent to compliment me, and increased my retinue

I did not see a river navigable for a barge of the same burden as those that come up the river Thames to London. Spring and autumn are seasons scarcely known here; to the sultry heat of August succeeds a severe winter, and the frost continues for eight months, and with little alteration. It seems as if the soil were unfavourable to vegetable productions, for those t

salage; and the nobility, who are slaves at court, tyrannize over their inferiors and tenants in their dominions. These poor husbandmen, with such discouragements to industry, are obliged to maintain the cavalry in victuals and lodgings; likewise to furnish them with money. These disadvantages, added to their natura

itants, to the palace, when the king, the queen dowager, and Prince Frederick, her son, with the nobility of both sexes, who had, on this occasion, displayed all their finery, received me with extraordinary honours, according to the etiquette. The king's youth, good nature, and levity, require no great penetration

unmerited slights cannot be resented without an open rupture, I rather bear with them than disunite the royal family, and appear the cause of court cabals, by showing my displeasure. It seems the king

the modern taste, but ill-contrived, and situated in the most unhealthy s

where the kings and queens of Denmark were formerly buried. Several of their monu

Copenhagen, I postpone mentioning other particulars till t

d dear

affectiona

da Ca

is life was out of danger. On the following May 1, their Majesties' coronation was performed in the chapel of the Christiansborg Palace, by the Bishop of Seeland. On this occasion, his Majesty assumed the motto of Gloria ex amore patri?. As the kings of Denmark do not receive the crown from any other hands than their own, the ceremony of putting it on

much mastery over Christian VII. as Sophia Magdalena had held over Christian VI., she, as her confidante, would easily be able to direct matters as she pleased. The speculating lady, unfortunately, fancied she had discovered the best

coy reserve and assumed coldness toward her hot-blooded husband. When he wished to pay the queen an evening visit, he was p

rst serious quarrel took place. She was the more to be pitied, honest Reverdil tells us, because she was enceinte, and, through an instinct common to nearly all wives, had grown into an inclination for the father of her child. She attributed he

was to some degree pacified. The account which Reverdil gives us of the royal tour is very lamentable. Christian offended the old Danish nobility by his frivolity

ally became. He would have liked to forget business and etiquette, become a private person, and try what success his personal qualities would obtain him in society. He strove

brother, the Duke of York. The young prince left England in August, and proceeded to Paris, where he

Edward, Du

dear B

a strong analogy to the volatile genius of the French. No,-my motive is, that I should be glad to see at home those people who have been for so many centuries past our rivals in arts and army. Pray write to me a good account of Paris, which, I

st affe

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by the whole family, and by none more than Caroline Matilda, who had been keeping her own troubles locked in her bosom, till she could impart them to an affectionate b

d revere

on the circumstances of the untimely death of this amiable prince in a foreign land, and perhaps deprived of the comfort and assistance he should have found in his native country, I still more lament his fate. I am extremely concerned for your royal highnes

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Copenhagen to meet him. He received her with all the empressement of which he was capable; he got into her carriage, an

esence of his domestics. This was a famous opening for these creatures, who took all possible trouble to direct Christian's attention to other ladies. One of the royal runners, of the name of Hjorth, hence said to the king one day that it would be easy to avenge himself for the queen's coldness, as there were plenty of fair dames who would accept the king's visits more than willingly. His Majesty only required to keep a mistress, and

a watchful eye on everything that might have an injurious effect on the character of the young king, were not sorry to see the autocrat yielding to the seductive i

lck, the virtuous Swiss could not refrain from speaking out. "Sir," he said, "though you may turn into ridicule a hundred times an expression which I have frequent occasion to repeat, I say again, that a man can be neither a good subject, nor a good servant, w

d excursions followed each other uninterruptedly. The king, however, preferred, to all these distractions, any opportunity of yielding to his temperament without the trammels of a court. Holck frequently gave brilliant luncheons at the Blaagard, a castellated

ained a secret hint that the doer of the mischief was his most sacred Majesty the King. Only in that way was it possible to save the king from abuse, or even from personal violence. Holck, it is further said, did the reckless young king a real service, because, in the end, he induced him to give up his connexion with the notorious Milady, who had not only led the king into illicit amours, but had also persu

ed to wade through. In giving what I have, it was rather my purpose to offer a sketch of court life a hundred ye

nted to a small paragraph from the "Annual Regis

fold, to prepare themselves for death, and work out their own salvation. A little while ago one of these wretches murdered a child out of the same principle. In order, however, to take from these wretches all hope of obtaining their end, and to extirpate the evil, the king has issued an ordinance, by which his Majesty forbids the puni

f the above paragraph has doubtless left in the mouth o

the Society of Artists lately established at Copenhagen, to which he has ordered a yearly pension of 10,000 crowns, to be issued fro