[63] Vide Public Advertiser, October 8, 1766.
It was known how unwilling she had been to go, and very general pity was felt for her. “The poor Queen of Denmark,” writes Mrs. Carter to Miss Talbot on October 4, 1766, “is gone out alone into the wide world: not a creature she knows to attend her any further than Altona. It is worse than dying; for die she must to all she has ever seen or known; but then it is only dying out of one bad world into another just like it, and where she is to have cares and fears and dangers and sorrows that will all yet be new to her. May it please God to protect and instruct and comfort her, poor child as she is! and make her as good, as beloved and as happy as I believe her Aunt Louisa was! They have just been telling me how bitterly she cried in the coach so far as anybody saw her.”[64]
[64] Mrs. Carter’s Letters, vol. iii.
The Queen had a very rough crossing, and did not arrive at Rotterdam until six days after she had embarked at Harwich. She landed under a discharge of cannon, and she was received with considerable ceremony by the Prince Stadtholder and other personages. From Rotterdam to Copenhagen is a distance of some six hundred miles. It had been arranged that the Queen should accomplish this by slow stages, and every resting-place on the line of route had already been decided upon.
KEW PALACE, WHERE QUEEN MATILDA PASSED MUCH OF HER GIRLHOOD.
From an Engraving, temp. 1751.
At Rotterdam she embarked on the Stadtholder’s yacht and proceeded by water to Utrecht, where she stayed the night at the house of a Dutch nobleman. From Utrecht she proceeded by coach, and passed in due course into her brother’s Hanoverian dominions. Her retinue was a large and splendid one, and everywhere on the route she attracted great attention, the people coming out to cheer and bless her. She lay for one night at Osnabrück, in the castle, and (tradition says) in the same room where her great-grandfather, George I., was born and was driven back to die. She was received there, as elsewhere, with great marks of distinction. At Lingen in Westphalia a cavalcade of students, arrayed in blue uniforms, came out of the town gate on horseback to meet her. They conducted her to the house where she was to rest, they serenaded her, and kept guard all night under her windows. The next morning they escorted her three leagues on the road to Bremen, where they took their leave. Her Majesty thanked them for their gallant conduct.
At Harburg on the Elbe Matilda embarked upon a richly decorated barge, which had been built by the city of Hamburg for her use. On this she sailed down the Elbe to Altona. The river was covered with boats and all kinds of craft, flying the British and Danish flags, and as the barge came in sight of Hamburg (a city adjacent to Altona) the Queen was saluted by a discharge of thirty guns. The quays of Hamburg were gaily decorated, and thronged with people anxious to catch sight of the youthful Queen.
A few minutes before Matilda’s landing at Altona the Stadtholder of Schleswig-Holstein went on board to pay his respects to the Queen of Denmark, and to present to her Madame de Plessen, her first lady-in-waiting, the maids of honour, and the men of her household, who had there assembled to meet her. At Altona the Queen first set foot in Danish dominions. She landed at six o’clock in the evening, and passed down a bridge covered with scarlet cloth, and between two lines of maidens dressed in white, who strewed flowers before her feet. The streets, through which she drove, were lined with burghers under arms, thronged with people, and decorated with flags, mottoes and triumphal arches. The Queen passed under one of these arches, beautifully illuminated, just in front of her house. That same evening the chief ladies of the city were presented to her, and she supped in public. The Queen rested at Altona over Sunday. In the morning she went to church, and on her return held a court. She also received a deputation of the magistrates of Altona, and one of them read the following address:—
“Your Majesty now gives us a mark of goodness, which we cannot sufficiently acknowledge, in graciously permitting us to testify the boundless veneration and joy which are excited in the hearts of the burgesses and the inhabitants on your happy arrival in this city. It is true that in every part of your journey your Majesty will receive from your faithful subjects transports of joy and most ardent vows, nevertheless, our fidelity is surpassed by none, and Altona at the same time enjoys this happy privilege, that she is the first of all the cities in the kingdom to admire in your Majesty’s person a Princess the most accomplished, and a Queen to whose protection we have the honour to recommend ourselves with all possible submission.”[65]