by Jean Plaidy
‘George! For God’s sake, don’t say that.’
For a second or so they looked at each other in horror and then the Princess Dowager said very quietly: ‘We must find a way to save Caroline Matilda. I think George that this is a matter which you will have to lay before your ministers.’
George nodded. He had had to call in North and use the Civil List to extricate Henry from his scandal, but this was a matter between nations. This was a far more serious and dangerous affair.
Scandal Abroad
FROM THE WINDOW of her prison on the Sound near Elsinore, Caroline Matilda could see the lights of Copenhagen. The city was en fête to celebrate her downfall, so she had been told. So much was she hated.
And not more than I hate them … all of them, she thought. But George will come and take me away. They will have to remember that I am the sister of the King of England and he is a good king; he loves his family; he would never desert his little sister.
Oh please, George, send quickly.
She closed her eyes to shut out the sight of those garish illuminations and thought of home. Kew and Richmond; Hampton and. Kensington; Buckingham House of which Charlotte was so proud. Lucky Charlotte, who had been married to a stranger just as she had, but that stranger was George – the dearest and kindest of men.
Oh, George, send quickly. Take me away from here. Bring me home.
Everything had gone wrong since she left home; everything would be right once she was back. Her mother would scold her; she would blame her; but she would answer back. What of you, Mother, you and Lord Bute. Why shouldn’t I have a lover too? I had to do something; and I hated the King and Struensee was so clever, so handsome, so skilful, everything that Christian was not.
When her mother had come to see her two years ago she knew that the Princess Dowager was prepared to remonstrate with her. But she had given her no opportunity. John Frederick Struensee had been constantly in her company then and they had taken a mischievous delight in never allowing the Princess Dowager to have a word alone with her daughter. Even when the Princess asked it, she, Caroline Matilda had given orders that they were-to be constantly interrupted.
‘For if,’ she had said to John Frederick, ‘she begins to scold me for my friendship with you, I shall not be able to prevent myself asking about hers with Bute. Far better for family relations if the subject of our extra-marital relationships are not allowed to be brought up.’
That was in the carefree days; the Princess Dowager had gone home dissatisfied and Caroline Matilda and her lover had continued to enjoy life.
How had it all started? Oh, God, she thought, those awful days when I arrived and saw this thing they had given me for a husband. What can they expect of a girl of fifteen, taken from her home to a strange land, handed to a strange man who is little more than a lunatic, even parted from the few attendants she had brought with her and surrounded by others whose language she does not fully understand! How could I have dealt with the situation I found? Christian has been compared with the Emperor Caligula and I don’t find the description wildly exaggerated. And waiting for me was Juliana Maria, my husband’s stepmother, who had a son of her own, Frederick, and naturally she would feel some resentment towards me and she must hope that I would be barren so that her son would inherit the throne. And as if that were not enough there was Sophia Magdalena the Queen Dowager, widow of Christian’s grandfather, quiet and dull, watching everything with those old brooding eyes of hers.
What a situation for a young inexperienced girl to find herself in!
And when Christian had taken Count von Holck to be his constant companion, day and night, appointing him Marshal of the Court so that he could be in constant attendance, she had felt outraged. How dared they marry her to such a man!
But they had managed to have a child. She had her little Frederick who was some consolation; but she was too young to be shut away and merely play the mother in a hostile Court.
Those two women Juliana Maria and Sophia Magdalena had put their heads together and clucked over the decadent behaviour of Christian and insisted on his taking a mistress. But it was von Holck who had all the influence with Christian and he tried to run not only Christian’s household but hers. He had succeeded in having dismissed old Frau von Plessen who had been her Mistress of the Robes. She had not felt any great affection for Frau von Plessen who had been most severe in her criticism, but now she realized how important that criticism, and the advice which went with it, were; and that had Frau von Plessen stayed with her, she might not be where she was today.
How she had raged when Christian had gone on his travels and not taken her with him. The idea of him in England had tormented her; a wave of terrible homesickness came over her at that time and she hated her husband, hated her life and vowed that she would not be treated in this way.
On his travels Christian had taken with him a young physician named John Frederick Struensee and had found him to be a very good physician indeed, with the result that on his return, Struensee remained in the royal service. At first Caroline Matilda had disliked him as she disliked all those who were her husband’s friends.
She herself suffered from ill health now and then; she had her family’s tendency to put on weight and believed she had a touch of dropsy.
She kept to her apartments and Christian for some odd reason suddenly became interested in her. When he came to her apartments and found her lying on her bed, he asked what ailed her and she said that she thought it might be dropsy.
‘I shall see one of the doctors,’ she added.
‘I’ll send Struensee,’ Christian told her.
‘I don’t want that man near me.’
‘He’s the best doctor in Denmark.’
‘I don’t think so and I will decide on my own doctor.’
‘You’ll have Struensee,’ said Christian threateningly. This was typical of him. Why should he have cared what doctor she had? Did he care for her? Certainly not. He merely wanted to go against her wishes.
Christian strode out of her apartment and she sent for one of her women and told her to call a doctor of her choosing.
She would show Christian that she had no intention of bending to his will on every occasion. If he sent Struensee – but of course if he met von Hoick on the way from her apartments he would probably forget all about her and her need for a doctor – that man would find another doctor attending her.
The door of the apartment opened and there was Struensee.
Angrily she demanded what he wanted.
He bowed and said he came on the King’s command.
‘I do not wish …’ she began.
‘The King wishes that I attend you, Madam.’
Tears of mortification filled her eyes; everyone would be listening. She was like a slave, forced to obey the King’s will.
‘Come,’ said Struensee, ‘allow me to examine you. I swear I will use all my skill to make you well again.’
There was a magnetism about the man. She had to admit it on that first occasion. He showed the utmost attention while she talked of her ailment and it was the first time since she had come to Denmark that anyone had made her feel so important.
When he rose to go he said: ‘With Your Majesty’s permission I will come and see you later in the day. We will see what effect the ointments have had then.’
She found she was waiting eagerly for his return.
They had not become lovers immediately. The deadly attraction was there for her, but she was not sure that he was aware of her feelings for him.
When she was better she told her woman that Struensee was a wonderful doctor, a miraculous healer; he had not only cured her he had brought her out of her depression; he had dispelled her homesickness completely, for why should she want to be in a place where Struensee was not.
He visited her often; he told her that she would be wise to come to some understanding with her husband. Should she not accept him as he was. Let him have friends like the Count von Holck,
but she should live on amicable terms with him.
She listened to him and since Christian did the same there was a slight improvement in the relationship between the King and the Queen. When a small pox scare came to Copenhagen Struensee inoculated the Crown Prince and the operation was an absolute success. Struensee was now installed in his own apartments at the Christiansberg Palace, and there he and Caroline Matilda had become lovers.
In those first days they had been reckless. Caroline Matilda was in love; and the whole world was changed. She no longer railed against the fate which had brought her to Denmark. She would not be anywhere else than Denmark. Let Christian have his friends. What did she care?
Her women’s attitude towards her was becoming furtive; she caught them exchanging sly smiles. Once when Struensee was coming from her bedchamber in the early morning he had heard a door quietly shut.
He said: ‘We are being watched.’
Then they were careful.
‘Who knows,’ said Struensee, ‘what form Christian’s revenge would take?’
‘He doesn’t want me.’
‘He might not want anyone else to have you.’
So for a while they met less frequently, but this state of affairs Caroline Matilda declared to be unendurable and very soon they were meeting more frequently than ever, and since it was not possible to keep their relationship a secret, they did not attempt to. The whole Court was aware of the nature of the friendship between Struensee and the Queen.
But Struensee was more than a skilled doctor and a practised lover; he was an ambitious man. His great aim was political power.
He was already dabbling in politics; the King’s feeling for him and the Queen’s devotion, allied to his own ability to plot, gave him high hopes of success. He envisaged Denmark ruled by a Regent Queen with himself the power behind the throne; and to do this it would be necessary to have the King shut up as a lunatic. Christian was showing signs of mental instability, so it was not an impossible dream.
Struensee’s power had grown rapidly; he had undermined the Government; and all the time he was working towards that goal which was to rule Denmark. The King was almost as much under his spell as Caroline Matilda was; this was evident when Count von Holck fell from favour. Who else but Struensee could have brought that about? The man fascinated the royal pair equally. He became Master of Requests and later a Cabinet Minister; and following on that his rise was so rapid that it was said that an order from him carried more weight than one from the King. He took the title of Count; he filled the cabinet with his own creatures; he had climbed where he wished to, but his political ambition would never be entirely satisfied until he was to all intents and purposes the ruler of Denmark.
He had not taken into consideration the people’s reaction. Who was this adventurer? they had asked. What right had he to set himself up? A doctor who had pleased the King and because the King was a near imbecile and the Queen a wanton he would rule the land!
We should have seen the disaster, thought Caroline Matilda. The writing on the wall was very plain.
Had Christian seen it? One could never tell what penetrated his clouded mind. But he had been kinder to her since Struensee had become her lover. He showed no objection to their intimacy; in fact at times she had believed he encouraged it.
He had told her that they should have another child and this was true. So she had sacrificed herself, stayed away from her lover, been a wife to Christian until she became pregnant again.
It was after this that she noticed the change in Struensee. His caresses were mechanical. He was concerned with power, not with a woman.
Naturally everyone was suspicious at the birth of little Louisa Augusta. ‘The King’s?’ asked the people openly. ‘Or Struensee’s?’
During those first months after the child’s birth she had not cared so deeply that Struensee was no longer her ardent lover. She had her baby, and the child, with little Frederick, absorbed her. She had begun to think that with her children she could be happiest and she was beginning to suspect that Struensee’s deep feelings had been more for the Queen than the woman.
She should have been prepared. Riots in the streets. Lewd placards about the Queen and her lover. And in the Court plots to remove Struensee.
He was more long-sighted than she was, and saw the danger coming.
She remembered the occasion when he came to her and told her that he believed he should leave the country.
‘Why?’ she had demanded. ‘Would you desert me?’
That brought forth protestations of devotion. He would never leave her while she needed him, but …
‘Then you will stay here,’ she told him coolly.
‘There are wild rumours,’ he replied. ‘They are saying that you and I intend to put the King away, to set up a Regency and take control together.’
‘Well,’ she had replied, ‘are they wrong?’
He could not understand her. She was no longer his devoted mistress. She had remembered, since the birth of her child, that she was a queen. He was responsible for the change in their relationship, she told herself. Had he never shown during that period when he thought he could do without her that love for her had its roots in the power she could bring to him, she would not have changed.
It was hardly likely that Juliana Maria would stand by and do nothing. She had her own son Frederick to consider. Some time before she had gone to Fredensborg. from where she watched events at Court with great concentration. She was surrounded by supporters; and there she had plotted.
In the Christiansberg Palace a masked ball was being held. Caroline Matilda and Struensee were dancing together when the conspirators entered. Conspirators! They would call themselves the patriots. Their schemes had matured in the apartments of Juliana Maria; and the people were with them.
Struensee was arrested. She saw him carried off under her eyes; but she had not believed that they would dare touch her.
She had cried: ‘I am the Queen. Take your hands from me.’
But they took no heed of her orders and struggling she was carried away and no one in the great hall attempted to prevent this outrage.
Her first thoughts were for her children. She begged not to be parted from them. They had become more important to her than anything else. The guards considered and at length her little daughter was brought to her. Her son Frederick was not allowed to see her; he was the Crown Prince and belonged to the state. But at least she had Louisa.
And so they had brought her to the prison on the Sound and the days of captivity had begun.
What was happening in Copenhagen, in Frederiksberg, in London, she wondered; and her thoughts dwelt on London. George would hear what was happening to her and he would never allow these people to treat a sister of his in this way.
She had wanted to scream at them: ‘Do you realize that I am the sister of the King of England?’ But she had remained silent. She would get messages to him; and he would never desert her. People might laugh at George, say he was simple, respectably bourgeois, but he was kind and he would never desert his sister.
What frightening days she endured in prison when she had heard news of Struensee’s trial; when they tortured him and under torture he confessed to his intrigue with her – all the details, the private intimate details; and she knew that they did not wish to incriminate him only, but her. They wanted to take her out of this prison to her execution. They wanted to humiliate her, to kill her.
And they had brought to her her lover’s confession. Is this true? they demanded. And she regarded them silently. It was true. She had loved this man; there had been a time when nothing in the world had been important to her but him; and now they had him under restraint; the penalty for his sins was horrible death.
She had cried: ‘The fault is mine. I take the blame.’ And that had pleased them; that was what they had wanted her to say.
So they had brought their case against her; she was to be divorced from the King; her lover was to die … barbarousl
y. And herself? What of herself?
She had waited for news of her lover’s death. There was no news; and one April day she was overcome by a terrible melancholy; and she said to herself: ‘This is the day.’
Later she heard that she was right. She shuddered to think of the torturing of that once handsome body; she could not shut out of her mind the thought of his corpse.
And herself. What of herself? Her only hope lay with George.
*
George paced up and down his mother’s apartment.
‘What do you think they will do to her, eh, what? Are they planning to execute her as they did Struensee?’
‘We cannot allow it,’ said the Princess Dowager.
‘No, we will not allow it. Caroline Matilda.’ George’s eyes grew soft. His little sister who was so bright and pretty. Something must be done to save her.
‘I will speak to North,’ he said. ‘We must delay no longer. Who knows what these Danes will do next. We must prove to them the might of England, eh?’
‘How I wish this marriage had never taken place.’
‘And I!’ agreed George. ‘But what can we do? Can we leave our women unmarried … spinsters, eh? What? Not a good prospect for them. And so few Protestant sovereigns in Europe.’
‘None could be worse than this Christian. A lunatic, George. Nothing more. My poor, poor daughter.’
The Princess Dowager had become a little more sentimental since she felt so ill. Now she was thinking of Caroline Matilda, her youngest, the posthumous child of the Prince of Wales. She remembered so well those months when she had awaited the child’s birth and dear Lord Bute had been waiting too. When Caroline Matilda had come into the world, the Princess Dowager had ceased to mourn for her husband; then she had turned happily to Lord Bute. This had happened all those years ago; and now this daughter of hers was in great trouble; and she felt too ill to listen, to care as she should have done.
