Arrived at the Mansion House an address was read to the King by the City Recorder. Curiously no direct mention was made of Queen Matilda, but we take from it one passage to show the gross and servile flattery which characterised the whole effusion. “The many endearing ties which happily connect you, Sir, with our most gracious Sovereign, justly entitle you to the respect and veneration of all his Majesty’s faithful subjects; but your affability and other princely virtues, so eminently displayed during the whole course of your residence among us, have in a particular manner charmed the citizens of London, who reflect with admiration on your early and uncommon thirst for knowledge, and your indefatigable pursuit of it by travel and observation, the happy fruits of which they doubt not will be long employed and acknowledged within the whole extent of your influence and command.” Christian returned a suitable reply in Danish, and, “upon notice that the dinner was served, his Majesty was conducted into the Egyptian Hall, where his Majesty condescended to proceed quite round, that the ladies (who made a most brilliant appearance in the galleries) might have a full view of his royal person”. The banquet was a Gargantuan one, and took four hours to work through. Several toasts were drunk to the sound of a trumpet, but, at the King’s request, without speeches. In addition to the usual loyal toasts, were added those of the King of Denmark and Norway and his Consort, Queen Matilda. The King himself proposed two toasts, “Prosperity to the British Nation,” and “Prosperity to the City of London”.[105]
[105] The Annual Register.
At eight o’clock his Majesty took his leave, the City Fathers going before him to his coach bearing wax lights. The King returned to St. James’s Palace through crowded streets, brilliantly illuminated in his honour. The whole visit was a remarkable tribute to his undeserved popularity. Truly there must be some strange glamour around the name of king, when a prince like this, who had never said or done anything worth recording, and a great deal which was quite unfit to be recorded, received from the greatest city in the world an ovation which could not be surpassed if he had been one of the world’s greatest heroes.
Moreover, the King of Denmark was pursuing in London the same scandalous amusements as those which had revolted his subjects in Copenhagen. Incredible though it may seem, night after night he and his favourite, Holck, disguised as sailors, would pass hours drinking and frolicking in the stews and pot-houses of St. Giles’. These adventures generally began after midnight. Christian would leave some splendid entertainment given in his honour by the proudest of the English nobility, and hurrying back to St. James’s would change his clothes, and start out again to seek distraction in the lowest forms of dissipation. These extraordinary predilections were perfectly well known to many people of rank and fashion, and the knowledge filtered down to the mob, who cheered the Danish King whithersoever he went. Perhaps they lent, such was the depravity of the age, an additional zest to the cheers. Even Queen Matilda, left behind in far-off Denmark, heard from London of her husband’s transgressions. It is said that she wrote to her aunt, the Princess Amelia: “I wish the King’s travels had the same laudable object as those of Cyrus, but I hear that his Majesty’s chief companions are musicians, fiddlers, and persons designed for inglorious employments. What a wretched levee! And his evening amusements are said to be still more disgraceful. His delicacy and sentiment cannot be supposed to dignify these fleeting gratifications. If I had not experienced his fickleness and levity at home, I could not have heard, without emotion and disquietude, of his infidelities abroad.”[106]
[106] Memoirs of an Unfortunate Queen.
Having said this much in condemnation of Christian VII. in England, it is only fair to turn the other side of the shield, and record one or two anecdotes of him which may have accounted, to some extent, for his undoubted popularity. One day he saw a poor tradesman seized in his shop by two bailiffs, who thrust him into a hackney coach, despite the lamentations of his weeping wife and family, and drove off to the Marshalsea. The King commanded Count Moltke to follow the coach and find out all particulars. Moltke reported that the unlucky man had contracted a debt in the course of his business, and had been charged exorbitant interest. The King paid the debt, set the man free from prison, and gave him five hundred dollars to start anew. This was only one instance of several exhibitions of generosity, for he gave away considerable sums to liberate poor debtors from the Marshalsea and Fleet. Christian had also a habit of scattering money among the crowd, which would account for many cheers—though money was scarce in Denmark its King had always plenty to throw away on his travels.
One day when Christian stepped out of his coach to enter St. James’s Palace, a fine buxom girl, who formed one of the little crowd that always assembled to witness the King’s goings out and comings in, burst through the line, caught the King in her arms, and, fairly lifting him off the ground, kissed him heartily. “Now,” said she, “kill me if you like, I shall die happy, for I have kissed the prettiest fellow in the world.” Christian, far from being offended, was delighted with this tribute to his charms. He gave the girl a crown and ran laughing up the stairs. But after this incident it was necessary to have a double line of attendants, as other maidens might have been tempted to repeat the experiment, for the King, though so small, was much admired by the ladies of all classes. He was fond of dining in public at St. James’s, that is to say, he sat at a table in the middle of the room, and the general public, chiefly women, were admitted to a space at one end, shut off by a rail, whence they could see “the Northern Scamp” eat his dinner. Powdered, painted, patched, perfumed, richly dressed in silk, velvet and lace, and besprinkled with jewels, Christian looked like a Dresden china figure. The men said he resembled a girl dressed in a man’s clothes, but the women adored him.
Six weeks had passed since the King of Denmark’s arrival in England, yet he showed no inclination to depart. But the King of England, who had to bear the cost of his maintenance, thought that it was high time for him to return to his Queen and country. Other hints proving vain, George III. invited his royal guest to what he pointedly called a “farewell entertainment” at Richmond Lodge, on September 26. “A most elegant structure,” we read, “was erected, in the centre of which was a large triumphal arch, about forty feet high, of the Grecian order, decorated with figures, trophies and other embellishments.” The entertainment was equal to the magnificence of the structure, and the fireworks were the finest ever exhibited in England. The road from St. James’s Palace to Richmond Lodge, along which Christian passed, was illuminated by upwards of fifteen thousand Italian lamps.
The Danish King accepted this “farewell entertainment,” but still showed no signs of saying farewell. The Princess-Dowager of Wales, therefore, by way of speeding the parting guest, gave a supper party on October 1, to bid him good-bye. It consisted of three tables, one for their Majesties and the Princess-Dowager, a second for the King of Denmark and fifty of the nobility, and a third for the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV., then a boy of six years old) and his attendants. The supper party accomplished the object for which it was given, and Christian VII. named the much-wished-for day of his departure, which, however, was not for another fortnight.
On October 10 the King of Denmark gave a masquerade ball to his English friends, who had entertained him so lavishly. The ball took place at the Opera House in the Haymarket, and two thousand five hundred guests responded to the “royal Dane’s” invitation. Queen Charlotte did not appear, she did not approve of masquerades; her virtuous husband also did not approve of them, but could not resist the temptation of being present, though he compromised with his conscience by peeping at the gay scene from a private box, behind transparent shutters. The Princess Amelia, who was old and infirm, witnessed the revels from another box, where she sat the whole evening masked. The scene was one of great brilliancy, and the value of the jewels worn on this occasion was estimated at upwards of £2,000,000. The company must have been rather mixed, and a good many people lost articles of jewellery, which they never recovered. The following account of the ball is taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine:—