According to this worthy, the Earl of Bute advised the war with Denmark, and Lord Sandwich seconded him in the hope of increasing his income at the Admiralty. Lord North, "perplexed lest he may on the one hand be deserted by a perfidious master in the midst of the tempest, or, on the other hand, lose the favourite's influence, therefore, temporises, flatters, and procrastinates."
After defending the queen dowager from the charges brought against her and alleging the notorious intimacy of the queen and Struensee, Atticus draws the following inference:—
"I will refer the conclusion (of the intimacy) to those best acquainted with women, whether it ever so happens that they surrender power, confer honours, and resign up all reputation to any man who had not made a deep impression? I am a married man, have a very good kind of dame at my table, and am not at present disturbed with jealousy: but were I to see my wife fond of another man's company, solicitous to do him partial honours, and impatient for his increasing glory, happiness, and renown, and prefer his interest to mine, it would to me be a more certain proof of her criminality than is commonly produced in cases of divorce."
After a lengthened account of Struensee's elevation and fall, not more incorrect than the majority of the fables current at the time, Atticus takes up the common but generally successful radical trick of imputing motives to political opponents.
"The day was fixed, a favourite fell. Methinks I hear the Earl of Bute whisper to his poor affrighted soul, and every corner of his hiding-places murmur with these expressions: God bless us! a known and established favourite ruined in a single night, by a near neighbour—the frenzy may reach this country and I am undone. Englishmen, too, are haters of favourites and Scotchmen; these old, rascally, Whig families, whose power and virtue seem almost lost, may reunite. In the meantime I must do something—a lucky thought occurs to me: I'll fill the minds of the people with prejudices against those haughty Danes. Bradshaw and Dyson shall bribe the printers to suppress any contradictory reports; Englishmen are always ready to vindicate injured virtue at any expense. Therefore, nothing shall be heard but the honour of the king's sister. I know the queen-mother was ignorant of the matter till the deed was done; but I will have her represented as an intriguing old Brimstone. It will go down, because the late dowager here must have prejudiced them against all queen-mothers. By the ghost of Charles, I'll make war against those rascally burghers, which will completely answer my purpose. I will divert the ministers of the two people, weaken the two Protestant states, make room for my namesake, and restore favouritism."
Such were the arguments of a member of the peace-at-any-price-party in 1772. They certainly display a coarse cleverness befitting a demagogue, and doubtless represented the feelings of a considerable section of deluded Englishmen at the time. Let us hope that none of his readers, however, shared the sentiments expressed in the following odious passage:—
"Be assured, my dear countrymen, the queen's supposed inconstancy was in no part the cause of the late revolution in Denmark. Had she committed adultery in the streets, but preserved decency in matters of state, she might now be at liberty, and in that round of amusements. The patriots of Denmark do not make adultery an article of grievances; and if they did, she has been the betrothed of a sovereign prince; she is his lawful wife, subject to the laws of that country. Her brother made no settlement of exclusive power—either for her as a wife or a queen; at least, his pious nature must have forbidden the declared right of ——dom. I wish George III. had entertained the same ideas as did his grandfather, with respect to the slippery tricks of his family; who, in his letter to the Prince Ferdinand, near the close of the late war, concludes with these words: 'Let me advise you to be more careful of your person—your reputation is established, for though our family has produced many ----s, it never produced a poltroon.'"[60]
An anonymous writer in the Gentleman's Magazine stepped forward at once to meet the doughty Atticus in the field, and it is to be regretted that his armour was not stronger. He pleads in misericordiam for Caroline Matilda, appealing to her birth, education, and former behaviour, and concludes with the opinion that a squadron will be the best way of cutting the legal knot. Atticus speedily returned to the charge, but without his former vigour, except, perhaps, when he argues that persons who accept crowns must put up with the inconveniences connected with them. When George III. gave his sister to Christian VII. in marriage, both were aware that Caroline Matilda was to become obedient to the will of an almost unlimited monarch. "The event should teach them both the superior excellency of a limited monarchy and the inestimable value of its laws." Atticus winds up by saying, that if the vengeance and power of England were to be exerted against any prince who married into the British royal family, no matter what his wife's conduct might be, the princesses would soon go begging for husbands.
Such were the arguments employed by our grandfathers when they talked over the fate of the Queen of Denmark. I fear, though, that the tide gradually turned against her, and that this was, in a great measure, owing to the mystery kept up about the affair. Lord North, when pressed in his parliamentary intrenchments, contented himself with answering, "with his natural air of frankness," says Reverdil, who was in London at the time, "that unless expressly ordered to do so by the House, he would not reveal so delicate an affair; that time would discover everything and justify the ministry." Ninety years have since elapsed, but the justification has not been published. All we know for certain is, that an innocent woman's character was blackened by the unwise conduct of those to whom she had a natural right to look for protection. We know, too, that she was allowed to remain in prison for upwards of four months, awaiting the result of a trial which ought never to have taken place.
These considerations, however, should be deferred until I have given all the details connected with this extraordinary trial. In doing so, I shall, fortunately, be enabled to produce documents which have not hitherto been laid before the English public. Whether I shall be able to prove the perfect innocence of Caroline Matilda by their aid, it does not become me to say; that I must leave to the verdict of my readers. But one thing I can with certainty affirm: the treatment of the unfortunate Queen of Denmark was equally fiendish, cruel, and, in every respect, revolting, whether she were guilty or not. Not the slightest evidence could be brought against her: all the statements of the witnesses, which extend to matters rarely produced in a court of law (except, perhaps, in the case of Caroline of Brunswick), will prove themselves to be supposititious, or simple calumnies. It is for this reason that I attach such value to the evidence which has so recently been obtained from the secret archives of Denmark, and which enables me to lay the whole affair, for the first time in full, before the impartial judgment of the English reader.