The Lost Queen: The Tragedy of a Royal Marriage

by Norah Lofts

  COPENHAGEN; JANUARY 1772

  Juliana, at forty-two, had come to the point where women’s behavior often justifies the term “change of life.” When faithful wives take lovers, spinsters and widows make injudicious marriages, careful women indulge in disastrous investments. Now, looking back, she believed she saw where her mistake had been made; she had depended too much upon chance and circumstance to come to her aid; she had been passive where she should have been active.

  Her apartments on the first floor of the Christiansborg had been, ever since her return to the capital, a rallying ground for malcontents. She moved among them, watchful, calculating. She observed Count Rantzau, he who had been so insistent that there could be no doubt about Princess Louise-Augusta’s parentage. About that he had not changed his mind, he was a loyal monarchist, and it was as a loyal monarchist that, sitting in the Cabinet, he had been deeply shocked to learn that a bill, taken by Struensee to the King for his signature, had been brought back bearing instead of the one word “Christian” the words, “By order of His Majesty the King: Struensee.”

  (Christian now had periods when he could not be bothered to reach out that elongated arm and sign his name; and Struensee, working against time, was impatient.)

  Count Rantzau said, in his carrying voice, “In my opinion that is forgery. I would have resigned from the Cabinet there and then except that I feel that my resignation would be welcome.”

  Heer Guldberg, who was a lawyer, but well enough connected on his mother’s side to have access to Juliana’s circle, said, “Technically it is not forgery; no counterfeit signature was involved. It was an undue assumption of power, which, if not checked, could lead to anarchy. It implies,” he looked round at the company, every member of whom had great possessions, “that I could sell any property, by order of—and the owner’s name, signed Guldberg. That would be anarchy.”

  Somebody said, “Struensee thinks he is King.”

  “And why not? Who but a King sleeps with a Queen?”

  “That is a remark which I hotly resent,” Count Rantzau said, swinging around with his “calling-out” face. Nobody wished to be called out by Count Rantzau; nobody had made that remark.

  There were other remarks, made and stood by.

  General Eichstadt regarded the reduction of the army as deliberate sabotage. “Very shortly England will be at war with her American colonies; France will join in. There will be a situation of which, but for Struensee, Denmark could have taken advantage. It is complete nonsense to say that one volunteer is better than ten pressed men. It takes ten shots to lay ten pressed men low; one shot can dispose of one volunteer, however willing and cheap he may be.”

  Colonel Knoller agreed.

  Juliana had very little difficulty in picking her team and she had no fear of lack of support. Old Count Dannecker might gloat over his rents and praise the new regime, but for one of his opinion there were fifty who differed. There were those who had exacted more than their dues and found rent a poor substitute; there were those who had deliberately made the new way hard to work and seen their freed serfs load up their few possessions and trudge off in search of more accommodating landlords.

  Everyone agreed that Struensee must be brought low before he ruined the country absolutely but even when she had picked her team, and the goal—Struensee’s downfall—was sighted and agreed, there was no unanimity with regard to the rules by which the game should be played.

  General Eichstadt and Colonel Knoller were soldiers; they accepted the fact that in any engagement there must be casualties, people who simply were in the way and must be mown down in order that the enemy could be reached. Heer Guldberg was indifferent. But Count Rantzau and her own son, Frederick, thought that the Queen should be left out of the whole affair. Plot against Struensee, by all means, chop off his head, have him drawn and quartered; nothing was too bad for him. But why involve the Queen?

  “Because it is necessary,” said Juliana, who, over Christmas, over New Year had taken Caroline’s place as first lady and meant never, never again to be deposed. “Nothing but a charge of criminal communication with the Queen—which is treason—can bring him down completely. You must see this. To rid ourselves of him we must bring a capital charge.”

  “And blacken Her Majesty’s name?” Count Rantzau asked.

  “Could it be blackened more?” Juliana said. She had noted that even in the free-spoken company in her salon, even those who were disposed to believe that Struensee and Caroline were lovers were inclined to say things like “old enough to be her father,” and “taking advantage of youth and innocence,” but the guilt was tacitly admitted.

  She said, “What I propose will in fact clear her name. Both must be arrested, for the sake of formality; he goes to strict confinement, the Queen to a comfortable place. He will deny the charge of criminal communication, then, a little pressed upon, he will admit it. But she will continue to deny it. Then he is guilty of violating Her Majesty, by claiming to be what he never was. Can you see?”

  Heer Guldberg had schooled her well.

  “There are too many suppositions for my liking,” Prince Frederick said. “Suppose he denies and continues to deny. The capital charge will not be proved and the Queen will have been uselessly humiliated.” He had no doubt of the guilt; but when he thought of the young, innocent creature who had arrived at Roskilde, found herself married to an idiot and then thrown into close contact with an experienced seducer he could blame her for nothing worse than silliness and lack of judgment.

  Count Rantzau said, “I dislike the term ‘pressed upon.’ What pressure can be put upon a man to make him admit a crime which will cost him his head?”

  “An appeal to his vanity,” said Juliana. “He is a very vain man. Skilled lawyers know how to take advantage of weaknesses of character.”

  She could speak with confidence for behind her front team she had another, picked men, haters of Struensee, ready to take over the administration, willing to take orders from her.

  “I still contend,” Prince Frederick said, “that it would be far better to charge Struensee with what he has indubitably done and leave the Queen out of it altogether.”

  Juliana looked at him with impatience, but of course, dear boy, he did not know all.

  She said, “The other charges, peculation of funds, mishandling the Crown Prince—what do they amount to? Not enough to hang him. In jail or in exile he would be the focus of plots for the next twenty years. With the people who profited by his reforms he is very popular. There will be outcry enough when his policy is reversed without him lingering somewhere waiting for riots and shouts of ‘Bring back Struensee.’ “

  “That is a point to be considered,” Count Rantzau said.

  “And here is another,” Prince Frederick was stubborn. “If the Queen is accused, England will not like it.”

  “England has troubles enough of her own. As for being accused, is she not being accused now, in every coffeehouse, in every alehouse, in all but a few homes? Isn’t the baby known as Little Cuckoo? I’m sure that if the whole situation could be explained to Caroline she would agree that this was the one way to clear her name, for good. Unfortunately...”

  Unfortunately. Here at least they were in agreement. Even Count Rantzau who believed, because he must believe, that a Princess of Denmark was the daughter of the King of Denmark, knew that it would not be safe to take the Queen into confidence. She so fully approved of Struensee with all his English-flavored laws.

  Arguments such as these were lengthy and repetitive. Once, when they were alone together, Juliana said to her son, “Don’t you wish to be Regent?”

  “Of course I do. I wish to save Denmark.” He knew Christian to be an idiot; he believed Struensee to be a villain; he felt within himself the ability to make an excellent Regent, capable of undoing the harm already done and of fighting off the threatened anarchy. “I simply wish that I could become Regent without wading through a lot of filth. And there is another thing; this will
strike a blow at royalty everywhere.”

  “That is nonsense. It will strike a blow against upstarts like Struensee and the royal person concerned will emerge unscathed—or do you doubt that. Do you believe that they will both confess?”

  “I think neither will; and we shall be left exactly where we were.”

  “No!” she said, “No! With the removal of Struensee you will be Regent. That in itself is enough to justify...”

  Yes, I shall be Regent—and you will be surprised.

  At the moment she was dominant and he was but one voice, sometimes halfheartedly backed up by Rantzau. Once he was Regent he would not only save Denmark, but Caroline too. She had been foolish, but excusably foolish, in taking up with that great, clumsy, self-opinionated oaf, but the Prince Regent would rehabilitate her; she would be the first lady in Denmark, he would show her every respect. Denmark had its heir; there would be no need for the Regent to marry.

  He looked ahead. He did not believe that Struensee would confess; on minor charges he would go to jail or into exile. The poor infatuated child—he always thought of her as the fifteen year old, a little bewildered, at Roskilde—would grieve for a while; but she would recover. He would lift all these parsimonious rules that Struensee, the Lutheran pastor’s son, had imposed; he would argue that when you were poor it was essential to appear rich; and on many glittering occasions, the Queen of Denmark and the Regent would stand or sit, side by side...”

  COPENHAGEN; JANUARY 16—17, 1772

  A masked ball, the gayest and least formal of functions, took place on the evening of January 16. Heer Reventil had chosen the date, though with rather less assurance than he had shown on former occasions. The King’s behavior on Count Holmstrupp’s wedding day had slightly shaken his faith in his moon theory, and since then what he called “good” days had become less frequent. It was on what should have been a good day that Christian had refused, absolutely, to sign some document for Count Struensee; he had on that occasion been equally impervious to Heer Reventil’s coaxings. He had become violent, too.

  Struensee knew exactly what was being said, even by his picked Cabinet, about that signature and he was anxious that the King should make an appearance, looking like a man who could perfectly well sign his name but had not bothered to do so, trusting everything to his Prime Minister; he wanted the King and Queen to be seen in public, and on good terms together, and both on good terms with himself. This crumbling façade needed to be propped up for just a little while longer. He thought with longing of the day when he could let it fall, when he could abandon this masquerade—on the political front. He had already drawn up a rough draft of a proposed Constitution of Denmark, based, not on universal suffrage, even his progressive ideas did not extend so far, but on a limited vote by responsible citizens who would elect members for a Parliament which would, in its turn, choose and appoint ministers. Once this was done, and he hoped that having forced through so much in so short a time, he might bring it about by Easter, it would no longer matter if Christian’s real state of mind were known. The poor mad man could be left in peace. Autocracy in Denmark would be at an end. The Parliament could choose its own figurehead—a Regent. It might propose Caroline, but he would advise her against accepting, she was so completely non-political, so completely a domestic creature. He would opt for Prince Frederick. And if he himself were invited to serve as Prime Minister, he would of course accept and do his best to guide the young Parliament’s first wobbly steps. If not he would not mind; his job was done. Starting off in 1768 as the King’s personal physician he would have, in four years, completely changed Denmark; and without a drop of blood shed. That fact particularly gratified him.

  When he looked ahead, beyond Easter 1772 when he hoped that his real work would be done, his ideas were somewhat vague. So much depended upon the Parliament he intended to bring about. This year he would be thirty-five, a young man still, by years, but he had—long before he left Altona—always done two men’s work in half the time. He thought idly of himself, semi-retired and acting in a consultant capacity; of Caroline rearing the children; the eyes of the world no longer so sharply focused on them; but there would be time to think of that, later. For the moment, because he had in a moment of desperation dispensed with the King’s signature; and because his latest reform dealt with the regulation of lawsuits and had set every lawyer in the land against him, and even Brandt had said, “Meddling with lawyers is always dangerous,” it was necessary for the King to appear and behave well at this masked ball where narrow little bands of black velvet conferred a purely suppositious anonymity.

  Arranging it, Caroline said, “Darling, we shall be able to dance together. Just once. Everybody else will be so concerned with partners not available at ordinary balls, nobody will notice us.”

  As with so much else in a stultified and stylized society, the masked ball had its rules, never broken. Until midnight when everyone unmasked, nobody knew anybody, all were strangers, and when midnight struck and the music stopped and the trumpeter blew a great blast, expressions of surprise, some genuine, many false, were in order...Gracious, who would have thought?

  Struensee said, “So long as you dance with him, too.”

  “Even masked he would never ask me.”

  “Then you must ask him. Darling, this is very important. If you could so contrive it that at the moment of unmasking, when everybody is laughing and saying who would have thought, you could be there, beside him, laughing...it would make a good impression and be immensely helpful to me.”

  “I will see to it,” she said. “But the Running Steps I wish to dance with you. What with one thing and another I never have, and it is the best dance of all.”

  Except in a cotillion, as one of eight, she had not dared, since Lüneberg to dance with Johann at all. The new dance, just come from Virginia, called sometimes Running Steps and sometimes the Waltz, she had only tried, being careful, being discreet, with her brother-in-law, Prince Frederick, who, despite his slight physical malformation was an excellent dancer. The Running Steps was quite different from any other dance where one touched hands, or linked arms at most; in the new dance the partners almost embraced. It was considered very daring and many old-fashioned people refused to try it at all. It was always accompanied by soft, sweet music with a distinctive beat, so that conversation was possible between partners, and unlike many dances it was very easy, nothing to remember, simply the one, two, three. It was not running, that was a misnomer; it was gliding, and with Prince Frederick it was delicious; with Johann it would be heaven.

  Despite Heer Reventil’s fears, the King was cooperative and seemed to understand what was required of him. Brandt took charge of him and for a few moments stood beside him, in a prominent, somewhat isolated, position—the King, in converse with a friend, watching his guests enjoy themselves. Christian had decided to sleep inwardly as he had through so many functions, to stay in his secret cave and let nothing disturb him. But the light of thousands of candles in glittering chandeliers and wall sconces, the sound of the music, the myriad-colored dresses and uniforms roused and excited him; he began moving his head and tapping his foot, and then, breaking away from Brandt, he pushed his way into the nearest group of dancers, then engaged in the third figure of a cotillion. The gentleman thus displaced stood aside; the ladies—considering themselves honored—made extra and more profound curtsies. Christian blundered through the dance, muddling all the moves as he had often done before, but remembering to bow at the end and to kiss the fingers of the lady whom he had partnered.

  Brandt, the watchful, joined him as soon as the last chord sounded and Struensee made his way toward them. Then Christian said in a puzzled way, “Where’s Knut? And Conrad?” He repeated the question in a louder, more demanding tone.

  “Somewhere about,” Brandt said, soothingly, “with the masks it is hard to tell.”

  There was something wrong with that; I know you, you’re Brandt. I know Struensee, too. So where are the others?
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  At this moment Caroline rustled toward them; partly in pursuance of the usual policy of keeping him, on such occasions, buffered from the uninitiated; partly so that what Johann wished to be seen, should be seen, the three of them together, in accord; and partly so that when the music began again she would be so close to Christian that he must ask her to dance—if he failed to then she would ask him.

  He knew her too. He’d wanted Knut and he’d got Matilda! He gave his high, shrill laugh, and moving quickly behind her put his hands on her waist and shouted, “Charles, lead the Kerhaus!” He had himself dismissed Prince Charles of Hesse from Court more than three years before and the Kerhaus was usually the last dance. However, Brandt, with presence of mind, acted as though the order had been given to him and shouted “The Kerhaus! The Kerhaus.” Anything was better than risking Christian’s losing his temper; and the Kerhaus always ended in such confusion with the rearrangement of clothes and hairdresses and the search for cool drinks and ices that he might be able to get the King safely away. Brandt was finding his job as first favorite, first Gentleman of the Bedchamber, a heavy responsibility and he looked forward eagerly to the day when Struensee would have completed his program and the whole pretense could end. He proceeded to lead a fast and furious Kerhaus, intent upon exhausting everybody, of reducing Christian to a state where he would volunteer to go to bed. On his own hips, where the brocaded jacket flared out, the Queen’s hands lay lightly. On Caroline’s waist Christian’s hands, now full of the lunatic strength which occasionally tested even Peppo’s muscles, clenched like an iron girdle, tighter, tighter, harder and harder. His left hand pressed on the site of the pain which was never quite quiescent, but with which she had learned to live. She could no longer wear her stays tightly laced, and all her dresses have been let out at the waist. Certain postures exacerbated the pain, and she had learned to avoid them. The pain also increased in moments of agitation; but it had never been like this. She turned her head and said over her shoulder, “Christian, please. Don’t hold me so tightly. You are hurting me.”