I desired to know if there was the shadow of reason to suspect poison or any unnatural means.
"Sir," said he, "God only knows, but I think not. The inhabitants of Zell are all as firmly persuaded of her having been poisoned, as if they had seen her swallow it. They accuse an Italian of it, though the man had not been near the queen's person for near or quite a year before. He had been in the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and being recommended as an Intendant, was brought here from Vienna. He was a profligate, unprincipled man. He brought with him a very pretty young woman whom he called his daughter, but was in reality his mistress. While he stayed here, he contracted a number of debts, and being unable to discharge them, went off with his mistress to Brunswick and Berlin. He has not been heard of since. The prejudiced people accuse him of having been gained by the Danish court, and of having administered a slow poison to the queen before his departure, but I am really not inclined to believe this suspicion."
To this statement Mr. Wraxall adds: "Among the many princes and crowned heads whom the ignorant and misjudging multitude have supposed to be dispatched by poison, none seems to have less foundation for such an apprehension than the Queen of Denmark. She was exactly a subject for an inflammatory or malignant distemper. She had already had repeated attacks of the same nature, though not so violent as the last. It was in the beginning of May, and the weather remarkably hot. The queen was accustomed to use great exercise, and probably overheated herself. She was young, large, and of a plethoric habit of body. When all these circumstances are considered, who can wonder at the nature of her disorder and death? Nothing so likely or natural."
Owing to the mortification that at once set in, it was found absolutely necessary to deposit the body in the vault of the Dukes of Celle until the King of England had arranged the funeral ceremonies. This was done at midnight, on May 13, with great order and decorum by Grand Maréchal von Lichtenstein. At the sermons in the church, the whole congregation, from the highest to the lowest, burst into tears. The queen's affability and gentleness had gained her the hearts of even the lowest people, who offered up heart-felt prayers for their lieben und guten Königinn. Her Majesty's remains, accompanied by sixteen captains, were carried in a hearse, drawn by six horses, and attended by a double guard of soldiers, to the royal vault. The burial expenses, amounting to £3,000, though the funeral was quite private, were defrayed, by order, out of George III.'s privy purse.[58]
A general mourning was appointed in England, and on May 24 a committee of the Lords, with staves, and also a committee of the House of Commons, who were of the privy council, waited on his Majesty at St. James's, with their address of condolence on the Queen of Denmark's death. To which George III. replied: that "he returned his thanks to that House for the concern they have expressed for the great loss which has happened to his family by the death of his sister, the Queen of Denmark." The king also recommended the succession of the late queen, for the advantage of her children, to the care of the Regency of Hanover, and Baron von Seckendorf was consequently entrusted with its administration.
The British court sent a formal notification of the death of Queen Caroline Matilda to Copenhagen. It arrived on a day when a court ball was appointed, and the vengeance of old Juliana Maria went so far, that, careless of decency, she did not even order the ball to be put off. The usual ceremonial, however, had to be observed—for instance, the ordinary court mourning of four weeks—as for foreign reigning princes and princesses, and the children of the deceased were placed in deep mourning. It is nevertheless certain that this foolhardy behaviour on the part of the Danish usurpers proved most offensive at the court of St. James's, and heightened the aversion George III. felt for the Danes.
The unfortunate queen, however, was all the more regretted in the land of her exile, and in the widest circles. The two Chambers of the principality of Lüneburg, immediately after the death of this consoler of all the poor and suffering in Celle, applied to her brother with a request that they might be allowed to erect a monument to the deceased queen, in that Jardin François of which she had been so fond, so that there might be at this spot a memorial of the universal devotion with which the great and noble qualities of the late Queen of Denmark were revered among them, and to give remotest posterity an opportunity of honouring, with silent emotion, the memory and reputation of the best and most amiable of queens.
George III. expressed his thanks for this offer, and we can easily understand how welcome to him was this public proof of the veneration and love which were felt for his sister, who had been so cruelly hurled from her throne.