Sometimes after Struensee left the queen’s room, her maids entered and saw her naked in bed. While dressing Matilda, her ladies exclaimed over the bruises on her throat and breasts. She would only laugh and say it was nothing. In the evening, spying at the keyhole, they saw the prime minister massaging the bruises.
Armed with indisputable proof of adultery, Juliana organized a highly placed group of conspirators. Many were nobles who had lost power and money at Struensee’s hands and bore him a seething resentment. One of them was Count Schack Karl Rantzau, a close friend of Struensee’s from Altona, who felt slighted that the prime minister had not adequately rewarded him with a high-level position. The conspirators set the date for the coup in the wee hours of January 17, following a masked ball at court. They hoped that the noise and drunkenness of the ball would cloak their treasonous plot until it was too late.
As a diversion for the discontented, Struensee had ordered that the ball be particularly ornate. It was held in a theater, the boxes newly regilded and hung with purple curtains. Hothouse flowers and colored lanterns added to the festive atmosphere. At ten P.M. Struensee arrived wearing a blue velvet coat and rose satin breeches. On his arm he wore the queen, dressed in a gown of white brocade embroidered in pink roses, a sparkling cascade of diamonds dripping down the length of her bodice. In the royal box, Christian sat down to cards while Struensee and Matilda opened the dance.
Reverdil later recalled how beautiful the queen looked that evening as she stepped the minuet, and how powerful and commanding Struensee. She was more in love with him than ever, and for his part he believed the threat of revolution had passed.
At midnight the supper was over, and Christian was led back to his rooms. Matilda and Struensee danced until three A.M. With their departure the ball was over and guests ambled out. The lamps were guttering, the flowers wilted. Wine goblets were overturned, red stains soaking the snowy white tablecloths. Plates were heaped with bones, and chairs were askew. Here was a mask on the floor, its sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. There was a silken cape dropped by a tipsy reveler. Matilda and Struensee, warmed by wine and dancing, went to the queen’s apartments and made love by the fire’s glow. Sweet and urgent, their shadows dancing on the wall, the lovers clung to each other. It was to be the last time.
Juliana, meanwhile, strode briskly through dark palace corridors. She knew that to effect a coup she must first force Christian to sign the arrest warrants of Struensee and his allies, and then take possession of the king himself. For whoever had Christian ruled Denmark. When she roused the sleeping monarch, Christian sat up with a shriek. “For God’s sake! What have I done? What do you want?” he cried. Juliana told him that a revolution was forming against Struensee and the queen, and the people were going to storm the palace.
The king burst into tears. “Terrible, terrible,” he moaned. “Where shall I go? What should I do?”
“Sign these papers,” Juliana urged, “and Your Majesty’s life will be saved.”
Christian looked at the papers but, seeing his wife’s name, cast aside the pen and tried to get out of bed. Juliana pushed him back and forced the pen back into his hand. Suddenly docile, he signed everything—the arrest warrants of his wife, Struensee, and their friends, and the appointment of two of the conspirators to supreme command.
The order for Matilda’s arrest stated, “Madame, I have found it wisest to send you to Kronborg, as your conduct obliges me to do so. I am very sorry, it is not my fault, and I hope for your sincere repentance. Christian.”79
Juliana bade her stepson to dress quickly and hustled him off to the security of her own apartments. There she harangued him on the dangerous plots of Struensee and Matilda to murder him and rule Denmark themselves. It took only moments to convince him that those he had loved most were actually his bitterest enemies, and he signed a pile of new orders repealing all of Struensee’s laws.
With the king safely in hand, officers were sent to arrest the dictator. Roused from a deep slumber by men storming into his bedroom, Struensee had trouble clearing his head of wine and music and sleep. Given two minutes to dress, he flung on the clothes he had worn at the ball. “What crime have I committed?” he asked.80 But there was no answer.
In prison, Struensee was sent to the cell used for the most violent criminals. Faced with a cold dark room furnished only with a pallet and chamber pot, Struensee lost his composure, ranted at the jailer, rushed past him, and tried to reach the door. Informed of his tirade, the prison governor had him chained to the wall.
When the soldiers first stomped into Struensee’s rooms, which were directly below Matilda’s, she heard the noise but thought it was more after-the-ball revelry. She sent one of her ladies down to Struensee’s rooms to request quiet, as she wanted to sleep. The lady never returned, and Matilda fell asleep.
At 4:30 A.M. another lady woke the queen urgently whispering that the hall was full of uniformed men. “Count Rantzau is there, with several officers,” she said. “He demands admittance in the King’s name.” “In the King’s name!” Matilda gasped. She realized what was happening—a coup. She ordered her woman to slip downstairs by the secret staircase to warn Struensee. “The Count has been arrested,” cried the woman upon her return. “I am betrayed—lost!” Matilda moaned. “But let them in—traitors! I am ready for anything they may do.”81
Count Rantzau, followed by several officers, entered Matilda’s antechamber, took out Christian’s letter, and read it aloud. Matilda grabbed it to see for herself and threw it on the floor, crying that the king had had nothing to do with the letter.
Count Rantzau sat down and stretched his legs. “I must beg your majesty to obey the king’s orders,” he said. “His orders!” she cried, laughing bitterly. “He can know nothing of them— your villainy has made use of his madness. No, a queen does not obey such a command!”
The count motioned the soldiers to grab her. The soldiers held back. “Where is Count Struensee?” the queen asked. “There is no longer any such person,” came the reply.
Seeing a path clear to the door, Matilda raced past the soldiers and out of the room, running for her life down to Christian’s apartments, and banged on the door. But the doors had been locked by Juliana an hour before, and Christian was nowhere to be found. Five officers were close on her heels and seized her, but she flung them off with such violence that her dress was ripped from top to bottom, leaving her half naked. Count Rantzau appeared and, looking her up and down, said sarcastically, “Your Majesty must excuse me, but my duty forces me to resist your charms. Pray dress yourself.”82
The count agreed to allow the six-month-old Princess Louise Augusta to accompany her mother to prison. The child was still nursing and, after all, was not related to the royal Danish family in any way. But Matilda’s son, Frederick, the heir to the throne, was the property of the crown of Denmark and this child she would never see again.
And so Matilda, holding her infant, accompanied only by a nurse and a maid, entered the carriage that would take her to prison. She sat facing a guard with his sword drawn. Thirty soldiers rode around the coach. Her destination, the royal castle of Kronborg, also called Elsinore, was the gloomy fortress of mists and ghosts that Shakespeare had used as the setting for Hamlet. The trip lasted three hours, during which the coach passed the island palace of Hirscholm, the romantic idyll where she had romped with Struensee, where he had held her hand as she gave birth to his daughter. She sat silently, in shock.
She entered the fortress expecting to use the royal apartments, but spiteful Juliana had assigned her to a small octagonal turret room, its foundations beaten by icy waves. It had no fireplace and no shutters to keep the January winds from penetrating the thin glass. It was furnished only with a low bed, two stools, and a prie-dieu for her devotions. Matilda sat on the bed and wept.
Her thoughts flew to Struensee. “Is he in chains?” she asked her attendant, tears sliding down her face. “Has he food to eat? Does he know that I am imprisone
d here?”83 The woman answered that she did not know, secretly made notes of Matilda’s interest in her lover, and sent them to Juliana.
Fearing the retribution of the British Empire, Juliana moved Matilda to the state apartments of Kronborg, gave her better meals, and allowed her to walk in the palace gardens. But the rumblings from Britain came from its outraged people, not from its king. George III, well aware of his sister’s adultery, did not step up to fight for her. George saw no reason to interfere with the punishment his sister so richly deserved for her behavior. He ignored all her impassioned pleas and later burned her correspondence. Queen Charlotte went into retirement out of pure shame, she said, for her sister-in-law. After hearing the news of her daughter’s arrest and disgrace, Matilda’s mother, the princess dowager, who had been ill for some time, stated that she never wanted to hear Matilda’s name spoken again. “I have nothing to say,” she said, “nothing to do, nothing to leave,” and died.84
Chained to the wall, Struensee tried to commit suicide by bashing his head against the stones. Unwilling to lose such a valuable prisoner who had yet to confess to his adultery with the queen, Juliana put him under a suicide watch, forced him to wear an iron cap, and had his meat cut by a man who fed it to him one piece at a time.
During two days of interrogation, Struensee denied an illicit relationship with the queen even under threat of torture. The third day he was told of Matilda’s arrest and imprisonment and her confession of adultery. This last was, in fact, a lie. But hearing of her confession, Struensee lost his cool manner, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry. Through his hands, mingled with sobs, the commissioners heard him mumble, “The person I loved best in the world…. What have I done… disgrace… shame.”85
When Struensee composed himself, he said he did not believe that the queen had confessed, that it was a trick. Then they showed him a counterfeit confession, apparently signed by the queen, which thoroughly betrayed him. He read it and said sadly, “It is true. Our intimacy began in the spring of 1770, and has continued ever since.”86 He then began to supply details of the relationship and said that they had first had sex in the queen’s cabinet, a small room in her apartments.
“I plead guilty to the charge,” he said, “and I would gladly suffer any agony as long as the Queen and my friends could be spared.”87
Holding Struensee’s confession, the commissioners converged upon Kronborg and sat down in the guardroom with paper and quills at the ready to interrogate the queen. Their hopes of finding a weepy pliable girl were dashed when Matilda walked in arrayed in royal robes and crowned with regal composure. When she refused to answer questions, she was told that if she did not do so, they would take her infant daughter from her. But still she sat imperturbable and said nothing.
One of her inquisitors said, “Your majesty having refused to acknowledge your guilt, it is my duty to inform you that Count Struensee has confessed to your having committed adultery.”88
“Impossible!” cried the queen. “And if he has, I deny it!” They read her the confession, and she stated that it was a forgery. But when she examined it, she recognized the signature of her lover and found herself horribly betrayed. She sank back and covered her face with her hands. Her interrogator continued, “Madam, if this confession be true, no death can be cruel enough for such a monster.” When he told her that Struensee had already been condemned to die, the queen fainted. Her ladies revived her, and she tried to rise but found she lacked the strength. At length she whispered, “If I were to confess, would the King spare Struensee? Could I save his life?”
The commissioner replied, “Surely, Madam, that would be adduced in his favor, and thereby alter the situation. You have but to sign this,” and he pushed a confession in front of her. She hesitated but a moment, wondering if this were some trick, then suddenly resolved, she signed. The queen had to be carried back to her bed as the commissioners, their work done, collected their quills and papers, pushed their chairs back, and strode satisfied from the hall.
And so both Matilda and Struensee were convinced of each other’s treachery. Perhaps this blow was crueler than the loss of their exalted positions or the sorrows of prison. Betrayed by the one each loved best, that was the greatest agony.
At her trial, Matilda was given an experienced lawyer but was not permitted to testify in her own defense. Nor was she allowed to mention the king’s insanity or his apparent acquiescence in the affair. Her lawyer vociferously denied her guilt and claimed that her confession of adultery had been signed under duress. But for ten days the king’s witnesses rattled off their stories of stained handkerchiefs, rumpled sheets, and footsteps in sprinkled powder. Matilda brought not a single witness.
Matilda was found guilty and divorced from Christian. Oddly, the decree which proclaimed her adultery also asserted the legitimacy of both her children. Declaring one child a bastard would cast doubts on the legitimacy of the other. Although Louise Augusta grew up the spitting image of Struensee, with a face of elegant angles and a feminine version of his bird-of-prey nose, in the eyes of the law she was the legitimate daughter of King Christian VII.
When Matilda’s lawyer returned to Kronborg to give her the sad tidings, she sighed and said, “I expected as much—but what will become of Struensee?” When the lawyer told her that Struensee was fated for execution, she trembled and began to cry. “Tell him,” she said, weeping, “that I forgive him for the wrong he has done me.”89
Christian, chafing under the tutelage of the wicked stepmother whom he had always hated, grew restive and rebellious. She had taken away his dog, for one thing. And for another, she had done something with his wife. Christian kept asking her where Matilda was. The more irritated Juliana became at this question, the more often he peppered her with it. To pacify the people who were concerned that Christian had merely traded in one keeper for another, Juliana had him stand on the palace balcony. But his expression was blank as if he did not know where he was. He neither bowed nor waved but stood stiffly until he was pulled in.
One day, asked to sign a paper, the king had a moment of clarity. “Christian VII, by the Grace of God King of Denmark,” he wrote, “in company with Juliana Maria by the Grace of the Devil.”90
Despite his persistent questions, no one would tell the king the whereabouts of Matilda. One day, overhearing that she was imprisoned in Kronborg, Christian escaped from his apartments, ran to the royal stables, and called for a carriage. But just as he was stepping inside, he was captured and taken back to his rooms. His shrieks could be heard throughout the palace, and in between them he asked for Struensee.
Struensee was preparing himself for execution. He would not face death alone. Another prisoner, Count Enevold Brandt, was found guilty of treason. Brandt had been the king’s reluctant keeper and had once grown so exasperated with his lunatic charge that he had thrashed him soundly. Now he was to pay the price for raising his hand against his king, though his greatest offense was his friendship and support of Struensee. The executions of Struensee and Brandt were set for April 28, 1772. To show her joy at the executions, the night before, Juliana made Christian and the entire court attend a gala opera performance and a palace feast.
The scaffold was twenty-seven feet high so that with the aid of a telescope Juliana could see the executions and grisly dismemberments from her window in the tower of Christiansborg Palace. Years later, when Juliana insisted on staying in that tiny room instead of the state apartments, she explained, “These rooms are dearer to me than my most splendid apartments, for from the windows I saw the remains of my bitterest foes exposed upon the wheel.”91
Dressed in the rose-colored breeches and blue velvet coat he had worn at that last masked ball, Struensee mounted the scaffold and waded through Brandt’s blood. Brandt’s hand had been chopped off before his beheading, the very hand that had dared strike a king. “Now for the fat one!” Juliana shrieked from her tower with glee.92 Kneeling in the gore, Struensee placed his right hand—the hand that h
ad dared defile a queen—on a small block. When the executioner struck off his hand, Struensee popped up and writhed in convulsions, blood spurting from the stump. The executioner’s assistant had to push his head onto the block for the fatal blow. And when it struck, the virtuous old queen yelped for joy.
Juliana’s only regret, she told her friends, was that Matilda had not joined the others on the scaffold. She could not see Matilda’s hand and head struck off, her body split from throat to groin, her intestines pulled out and nailed to a wheel, her limbs severed and nailed next to her intestines, her head jammed on a pike and left to rot in a field beyond the city. That would have made for a perfect day indeed.
Aside from Juliana, there was no cheering from the fifty thousand spectators as Struensee’s head was lopped off. Suddenly Struensee was the martyr, the folk hero, the visionary who had led Denmark into the modern world. Dowager Queen Juliana was the despised dictator. In the weeks following the execution, the Danish people resented her wholesale dissolution of Struensee’s laws, and riots broke out in the streets of Copenhagen. To quell the tumult, Juliana was forced to reinstate some of his edicts.
Unaware of the execution, Christian wailed for Matilda and Struensee. When the king was told firmly that Struensee was dead—as a result of his own signature on the death warrant—and Matilda had been divorced for adultery, Christian began to cry and asked for them again. He sobbed that Matilda was still his wife and could not be kept from him.
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