Conrad, Count Holck, despite his wildness and extravagancies, was the best of Christian VII.’s favourites (and bad was the best). Unlike Sperling and Brandt, he was neither an intriguer nor a self-seeker. He was a dare-devil youth, wealthy, handsome, and brimming over with boisterous good-humour and animal spirits. Christian VII. found Holck an excellent foil for the dark moods and the morbid humours that occasionally beset him, and the pair soon became fast friends.
Brandt and Holck were always at the King’s evening gatherings, and sought to outvie one another in their master’s favour by proposing fresh extravagancies. There were many others; among them a young Englishman named Osborne, who held a commission in the Danish service, Count Danneskjold-Laurvig, and some older men, including Saldern the Russian envoy. By way of variety the King resumed his nocturnal expeditions, which he had abandoned since his marriage. Accompanied by his wild companions he roamed the streets of Copenhagen in disguise, visiting taverns and houses of ill-repute, molesting peaceable citizens, fighting with the watchmen, and breaking lamps and windows. Of course these freaks got abroad and set a fashion, and bands of disorderly youths prowled about the city at night in imitation of the King and his companions, thereby causing great difficulty to the superintendent of the police, for they pretended often to be the King’s party, and for fear of mistake he hardly dared to make an arrest. Things came to such a pass at last that the watchmen lost patience, and determined not to let the rioters off easily, whether they belonged to the King’s party or not. On one occasion, pretending not to know, they caught the King and belaboured him so unmercifully that he had to retire to bed for some days, and pretend that he was ill of the fever.[81] On another night, however, he achieved a triumph, and brought home a club as a trophy, which he had wrested from one of the watchmen.
[81] The Saxon minister at Copenhagen in his despatch of April 12, 1768, states that the King’s indisposition was due to a wound he received in one of these combats with the watchmen.
Details of these extravagancies came to the young Queen’s ears from time to time, through the medium of Sperling, who, now that he was superseded in the King’s favour, attached himself to the Queen’s entourage, and, with his uncle, Reventlow, who was the Queen’s chamberlain, was often to be seen in the apartments of Madame de Plessen. Prejudiced by Sperling the Queen took a violent dislike to Holck, whose evil influence over the King she believed to be the cause of all her troubles. Holck ascribed the Queen’s dislike of him to Madame de Plessen, whom he regarded as his enemy, and he retaliated after the manner of his kind. Not only did he treat the Queen with scant respect, but he declared that she was piqued because he did not make love to her. He also behaved to Madame de Plessen with great rudeness, and instigated the coarse and mischievous jokes whereby the King sought to make the chief lady’s position intolerable at court and so force her to resign. But these tactics proved unavailing, for the more rudely Madame de Plessen was treated by the King the more closely did she cling to her post. She determined to protect the Queen come what might, and Matilda, in return, identified herself with Madame de Plessen’s friends, and regarded her chief lady’s enemies as her own. On July 22, 1767, the Queen attained her sixteenth birthday, but to punish her the King would not celebrate it.
In August, 1767, Christian VII. determined to make a tour through Holstein. The Queen, who was fond of travel, eagerly desired to accompany the King, and the royal tour was made the subject of many entreaties and negotiations on her part and the part of her household. But to further mark his displeasure the King refused to take her, and a serious quarrel took place between them. The Queen was to be pitied, because the indifference she had shown towards her husband had in great part been assumed at the suggestion of Madame de Plessen. She was now likely to become a mother, and, by a natural instinct, she had grown into an inclination for the father of her child. But she attributed the King’s refusal not to Madame de Plessen but to Holck (who, it is very possible, had something to do with it), and insisted that if the King would not take her he should not take Holck either. After much difficulty she carried the point, but her victory only enraged the King, and gave her no satisfaction.
Reverdil, who was the Queen’s friend, did his best to patch up the quarrel. He accompanied the King on his tour through Holstein, and urged him to write affectionate letters to his wife. He pointed out that, considering the state of the Queen’s health, there was need to indulge her in her whims and fancies. Christian, who was still smarting from the interference of Madame de Plessen, consented with an ill grace, and only on condition that Reverdil composed the letters and he merely copied them. These letters pacified Matilda; she was ignorant of their real authorship, and replied with affection. The King did not distinguish himself during his tour or increase the loyalty of the duchy. He offended, by his frivolity and recklessness, the old Holstein nobility, who, if somewhat barbarous, were very strict in their ideas of what a King should be.
EDWARD, DUKE OF YORK, BROTHER OF QUEEN MATILDA.
From the Painting by G. H. Every.
While Christian VII. was absent in Holstein Matilda heard of the death of her favourite brother, Edward Duke of York, a gallant, high-spirited youth. The Duke chose the navy as a profession, and if his promotion in it was rapid (he was promoted to be a rear-admiral at the age of twenty-three), he showed himself to be a brave sailor, and distinguished himself under Howe at the bombardment of Cherbourg. After the capture of the town the Duke gave the French ladies a ball. “He told them he was too young to know what was good breeding in France, and therefore he should behave as if meaning to please in England, and he kissed them all.”[82] The young Prince was a great favourite with the ladies. His first love was the beautiful and witty Charlotte, Countess of Essex. He then transferred his affections to the even more beautiful Duchess of Richmond, sister-in-law of Lady Sarah Lennox. But the most serious of all his love affairs was his passion for Lady Mary Coke, a young widow, who found herself at an early age “the envy of her sex; in the possession of youth, health, wealth, wit, beauty and liberty”. The young and ardent Duke seems to have given her a promise of marriage, for during his lifetime she always spoke of him to her friends as her betrothed, and after his death displayed immoderate grief. The Duke’s numerous love affairs and his constant pursuit of pleasure naturally involved him in money difficulties. The Princess-Dowager of Wales declined to supplement her second son’s allowance, and often lamented his extravagance, but George III. was fond of his volatile brother, and occasionally helped him, though it was against his strict principles to do so. One day the Duke went to St. James’s in a state of the greatest dejection, and, when he saw the King, sighed heavily. The King asked him why he was so low-spirited. “How can I be otherwise,” said the Duke, “pressed as I am by creditors and without a penny to pay them?” The King, much affected, pressed a thousand pound note into his brother’s hand. The Duke gravely read every word of it aloud, then marched out of the room singing, “God save great George our King!”
[82] The Georgian Era, vol. i.