It is principally the favour which her Majesty showed to Count Struensee, that caused the suspicions of the witnesses and the conclusions derived from them. He was constantly about the queen, it is said, and in her company. But was he not also about the king, and must not the queen's confidence in him necessarily result from the confidence with which the king honoured him? In this respect the queen appeals in her justification to her consort's feelings, and what striking proofs of his Majesty's favour to Struensee are the offices which were entrusted to him, and the rank to which he was raised! He sought to acquire the queen's confidence in the same way as he had gained the king's. The fidelity which he always displayed toward the king, the attention he paid to the queen when she was unwell, and the devotedness he seemed to entertain, maintained an uninterrupted harmony between their Majesties, and more than all else the king's will, which was a law to the queen, made her believe that she could give Struensee her confidence without peril. His offices as cabinet secretary to the queen, and cabinet minister, required his constant presence, and hence it should not be surprising that he held a greater share of the queen's favour than any other man.
But, the counsel for the prosecution says, the queen is not solely accused on account of her intimacy with Count Struensee; the great point is, that it reached an extremity which dishonoured her consort, and, in order to prove this, he appeals to the evidence of the witnesses.
Before I go through the more material evidence, I must make the highly requisite remark, that a proof by witnesses, according to law, must be supported by not less than two persons on oath, whose statements agree, and who can with certainty give evidence in one and the same matter. In accordance with this, the proofs of the learned counsel must be placed in two general categories; some of them cannot, according to law, be accepted as evidence at all, while others do not prove what they are intended to prove.
To the first class belong especially the statements of Professor Berger, Count Brandt, and Fräulein von Eyben; those of the former, because they were not made on oath and before the judges; those of the latter, because they are only supported by one person, for in her answer to question 7 there is a complaint about the queen, that her Majesty appeared to regard her as a dangerous person; and lastly, because her Majesty declares that she never made such a "confidence" to the witness as her answers to questions 41 and 42 reveal, but all that the queen said to her was a remark perfectly natural for a lady who believes herself above all suspicion: "that it would be ridiculous to abandon Count Struensee on account of an unfounded report."[81] In this class must also be placed several other circumstances—for instance, that at Gottorp Castle there was a flight of stairs leading from the queen's room to Struensee's—that the 4th witness merely said that one night she heard the queen come out of Struensee's room, while witnesses 8 and 9 say "she came up the stairs," and they naturally could not know from whom the queen came, and whether she might not have been with one of her ladies—that Struensee one night at Frederiksberg put on a surtout and went in that state to the queen, for witnesses 18, 19, and 20, state they did not know where he went—that the queen was once seen in Struensee's room, which is only asserted by witness 20—that her Majesty remarked she did not care what people said, for the statements of witnesses 6 and 20 differ as to the time when the remark was made and the words used—that Struensee obtained a passe partout to the palace, for it was not done by the queen's orders—that the queen was once nursed by him, when she had a pain in her side, for one witness alone mentions this—that her Majesty went to the theatre because Struensee begged her to do so, of which, however, Fräulein Trolle, who was present, knows nothing—that her Majesty used scented powder—was once once out of sight of the maids of honour at a masquerade, and so on: for such trifles would never have been brought against her Majesty had not the witnesses been prejudiced.
In the proofs of the second class, we have in the first line the statements of the women Blechinberg and Schiötte, and of maid Petersen, about the opening of the door leading to the Hermitage (Mezzanine), and their experiments with wax on the key, and powder in the corridor, about the footsteps found here and in the bedroom, and the state of the bed at a time when the king had not been there, and his door was locked, on which the counsel bases his charge.
Even if all this evidence was trustworthy, it would not prove that her Majesty was guilty. But one of the facts alleged by the witnesses proves in itself how little ground for suspicion there is in all these charges. The second witness, Frau Blechinberg, says, that at the time when this occurred, the maids slept close to the queen's bedroom, and had free access to it. How incredible does it seem that her Majesty should have exposed herself so openly, as she would have done by committing any impropriety in such a situation? And if we examine the details more closely, it results that her Majesty possessed the key of the Mezzanine door since her first arrival here. Frau Schiötte is, therefore, in error when she states that the queen asked for it afterwards, and that she used it several times, though rarely; and hence it is very possible that the door remained unlocked. Although it is quite natural that the wax in the key, or keyhole, or the paper in the crack must fall out if the door was opened, the witnesses are quite unable to assert that the key was used, and the door opened, only in the night. Why could not this have happened equally well by day, before they went to look? The footsteps in the powder deserves equally slight attention; for lackey Torp declares that his post was in the Mezzanine, and lackey Hansen, according to maid Petersen, once showed her that the door leading to it was open, which proves that various men entered the corridor. It is not said, either, whence the footsteps came, or that they went to the door of the queen's bedroom, and just as little did any witnesses hear any one come to this door at night. It is the same with the footsteps alleged to have been seen on the stairs. The witnesses declare that they displayed traces of the powder, but Struensee would not have gone in such an "uncleanly" condition to the queen even at night. The marks are said to have been seen on the next morning. But are the witnesses fully convinced that these footsteps were not made on the previous day or evening, or that the king, whose servants had the key of the outer corridor, had not been there, although he might not have been seen in the queen's apartments? It is true, they state they always knew when the king was there; but on what is this knowledge based? Her Majesty declares that it was impossible for her chamber-people to be always cognisant of the circumstance, because the king did not wish them to know it; and hence she herself went in to the king after their Majesties had retired. That the door should be bolted was the usual case long before the time of the supposed intrigue; on some occasions it was caused by a trifling dispute between their Majesties; but most frequently because the queen was afraid lest the black boys or the dogs might come into her room unexpectedly, by which she had been startled several times. If there had been any mystery in it, the king would have been the first to notice the fact.
As this suspicion, which is the chief foundation of the charge, is thus removed, and the rest consists entirely of suppositions, I hope to be able to deal more shortly with the latter.
The arrangement of the apartments for Struensee in Christiansborg Palace was not done by the queen's commands, and the reason why the queen's apartment was converted into a sleeping cabinet was solely not to incommode the king at the period when the queen was suckling the prince herself. Her Majesty declares that she requested the king's permission to do so at Frederiksberg.
What incorrect conclusions witnesses 4 and 7 draw from the queen's anger with them is proved by the evidence of Frau Schiötte, who states that this happened in the summer before they warned the queen, consequently in the year 1769, and hence long before the epoch we are now discussing.
The statement of witnesses 4 and 6, that the queen passed off Struensee for the king is equally incorrect, for the king might have been present without their observing him.