On June 4, 1781, a royal cabinet order was sent to Bailiff von Bielcke, Bürgomaster Wulf, and Regimental Quartermaster Schiött, all of Nestved, to seize Chamberlain von Beringskjold, on whom a strong suspicion rested of carrying on a very treasonable correspondence, and sequestrate his papers. These gentlemen enticed the chamberlain, by a business pretext, to the town, read him the king's order, and the bürgomaster at once conveyed him under escort to Copenhagen, where he was handed over to the commandant of the citadel, who locked him up, and informed him that a dollar a day was allowed for his maintenance. In the meanwhile, the two other commissioners went to the prisoner's estate, packed up all the papers they found there in a trunk, sealed it up, and the quartermaster immediately started with it for Fredensborg, where the court was residing at the time. Simultaneously with the order of arrest, the postmasters of Nestved and Ringstedt received instructions, during the next eight days, to stop all letters addressed to Rönnebeksholm, and send them to the royal cabinet. A similar order was sent to Bürgomaster thor Straten and the postmaster of Flensburg, concerning all letters arriving for, or despatched by, a certain Comptroller Wildgaard.
On June 9, Bailiff von Bielcke and his fellow-commissioners were instructed to restore to Frau von Beringskjold all the papers not retained from the trunk which had been examined at Fredensborg, and to give her and her sons, in the king's name, the assurance of his Majesty's lasting favour. Frau von Beringskjold was allowed to remain on her estate, and was only advised, in all future affairs, to consult with her son, Conferenz-rath von Beringskjold.
After a survey of the sequestrated papers had proved the "continued bad designs of this man"—such were the royal words about Beringskjold—a commission of inquiry was appointed on November 13, 1781. In order that this affair which, owing to its nature, demanded the greatest secrecy, should be discussed with all due justice, the king selected those men as judges of whose insight and integrity he and the whole country were convinced, namely, the Justiciary of the Supreme Court, Privy Councillor of Conferences von Rosenörn, the Director and Attorney-General of the General Chancery, Privy Councillor Carstens, the Minister of Finances, Privy Councillor von Stemann, and the Professor of Law, Etats-rath Colbjörnsen.
The commissioners were ordered to assemble, after giving a solemn pledge of secrecy, and, in accordance with the royal instructions, form an opinion, from the papers laid before them, whether Chamberlain von Beringskjold had not proved himself one of those restless subjects who ought to spend the rest of their lives in imprisonment.
The choice of the commission in itself proved what weight was attached to Beringskjold's detected conspiracy. It was a peculiar circumstance, too, that secret instructions were given to the Hamburg post-office, which led to the tolerably correct supposition, that the person related to the royal house was no other than the king's brother-in-law. As early as 1773, Juliana Maria had felt alarm about Christian VII.'s sister, and was very glad at that time that the latter consented to accompany her husband, when appointed generalissimo of Norway, to that distant country.[61] At the period when the conspiracy was detected, Prince Charles was a highly esteemed volunteer in the Prussian army, so that he must naturally have been consulted by letters which must go viâ Flensburg, after passing through Schleswig and Louisenlund. The result of the investigation was, however, carefully kept private, and it is, up to the present day, one of the state secrets of the Danish archives.
In the Beringskjold affair, a great number of witnesses was examined who had been connected with the prisoner of state, and even persons who had dined with him were asked what their host had said about the government at dinner. After the witnesses had all been examined, the prisoner's turn arrived, and his crimes, among which a conspiracy against the government was the chief, were brought before him, and he learned for the first time that his own son had denounced him. Beringskjold handed in his counter-declaration, and requested, during the trial, the assistance of Advocate Colbjörnsen, brother of the commissioner.
Finally, when all the regulations of the law, so far as the peculiar nature of the affair allowed it, had been exhausted in the examination, the commission sent in, on December 31, 1781, their opinion upon the point laid before them by the king, which was to the effect, that Chamberlain von Beringskjold was proved to be a restless man, and dangerous to the general welfare and public order, and, as such, ought to be imprisoned for life under a strict guard, according to the law.
When the king was on the point of confirming the sentence or opinion of the commissioners, but at the same time of granting the accused a considerable sum for his maintenance, the discovery was made that the prisoner, in spite of his strict arrest, had carried on a secret correspondence, and undertaken "another attempt at his old wickedness." After such "mad disobedience of all royal orders,"—so says the royal re-script of February 20, 1782,—all the proofs against the prisoner were to be gathered, and laid before the commission for a final judicial sentence.