CHAPTER X.
THE QUEEN'S DEFENCE.
CAROLINE MATILDA'S FEELINGS—ADVOCATE ULDALL—THE DEFENCE—THE QUEEN'S INNOCENCE—A FAIR TRIAL DEMANDED—CHARACTER OF THE EVIDENCE—THE LAW OF ADULTERY—VALUE OF EVIDENCE—STRUENSEE'S FAVOUR—FRAULEIN VON EYBEN—TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR—THE QUEEN'S ATTENDANTS—A FLAW IN THE ARGUMENT—REVERDIL'S APPEAL—THE SENTENCE.
So soon as Advocate Bang had concluded his indictment, the queen's advocate, Uldall, requested an adjournment of the court for eight or ten days, so that he might have sufficient time to consult with his exalted client about the defence to be offered. This being granted, Uldall proceeded to Kronborg, where he had a long, important, and affecting consultation with the queen. The unfortunate princess was standing, at a tender age, and adorned with all the gifts which could have ensured permanent felicity, on the verge of an abyss, in which her honour, her dignity, her peace, would be swallowed up for ever. A single day might tear from her her husband, children, and throne: and she would survive this loss! what fearful reflections! The queen felt them in their full extent: her whole feeling was poured into the expressions in which she depicted to Uldall the terrible images that occupied her mind.
"I should be inconsolable," she said to him, "if the least of my actions could inflict injury on the king, or his monarchy. I was, perhaps, incautious, but never wicked: my sex, my age, the circumstances in which I was, must serve as my apology. I was ever too quiet against suspicion, and this tranquillity may have led me astray. The laws speak against me; I humbly honour their terrible meaning, and feel that they must speak against me from the lips of my judges. I trust that they will lose their sharpness in such mouths. The king, my consort, must confirm their sentence. Oh! then my whole hope springs into life again! He will not repulse me, he will not hurl me into endless misery."
The queen's tears and sighs frequently interrupted this affecting speech; and at last she found some rest, more in her own weakness than in any alleviation of the painfulness of her feelings. She addressed Uldall with greater calmness, and arranged with him the arguments he should employ in her defence.[77]
The second session of the Extraordinary Council was held on April 2, and the following defence was submitted:—
Uldall's Defence of Queen Caroline Matilda.[78]
With unfeigned emotion I proceed to the fulfilment of the duty which the welfare of the queen, and the will of the king, impose on me.