The twofold treachery explained by this passage hardly requires comment. To overthrow Struensee was not sufficient, as the queen might have regained her authority over her husband. Hence, Caroline Matilda must be destroyed, and though the Lex Regia expressly prohibited the judges from trying matters of high treason, the new authorities did not care for that.
Immediately after the return of the commissioners from their successful expedition, a General Commission, consisting of no less than thirty-four members, was appointed as a Supreme Court to pass sentence in the cause of the king against the queen. The court was composed of—the Bishop of Seeland and four other clerical councillors: the four ministers, Counts von Thott and Osten, Baron von Schack Rathlau and Admiral Römeling: the members of the commission, to whom the trial of the other prisoners had up to the present been entrusted: the other members of the Supreme Court not belonging to the commission: two officers of the army and two of the navy: several councillors of state and one of the civic authorities.
The court opened its session on March 16, in the audience hall of the Exchequer. A royal order appointed Bang, lawyer in the Court of Exchequer, to undertake the king's cause, and Uldall, of the Supreme Court, that of the queen. Both the judges and the lawyers were released from their oath of allegiance during the trial.
In his indictment of March 24, Bang demanded that her Majesty Queen Caroline Matilda, by virtue of par. v. of the xvi. cap. of section 3 of the code of Christian V. should be condemned as guilty of having broken her marriage vows with his Majesty King Christian VII., and that the latter might be at liberty to form another alliance.[70]
Bang's Indictment of Queen Caroline Matilda.
After a short introduction, the accuser proceeds in the following terms:—
The command of my king alone could induce me to write against her Majesty the Queen, and it is with a feeling of the deepest submission, with horror and grief, that I here investigate the conduct of Queen Caroline Matilda, and the proof that she has broken her marriage vow.
I am emboldened to indict her Majesty, because the king's marriage bed must be kept pure and unsullied before that of all others. This the king can demand as a husband, and he must assert it for the honour of his house and the welfare of his nation.
As husband, he has the right of the compact on his side; as the first of his house, he is bound to guard the antiquity, supremacy, respect, honour, and purity of the Danish royal family. Who is there that is ignorant of the virtues of this exalted royal family! But, if a foreign race were grafted on the royal stem, and the descendants of lackeys were to bear the name and supremacy of the king, would not its antiquity cease, its supremacy disappear, its respect be lost, its honour be insulted, and its purity sullied?[71]