The Queen had no one to remonstrate with her, or guard her from the consequences of her imprudence. It was thought by some that the first use Matilda would make of her new-found power would be to recall Madame de Plessen, whose dismissal against her will she had bitterly lamented. It would have been well for her if she had done so, for Madame de Plessen would have saved her from herself. But if the idea crossed her mind, Struensee would not permit it, for he well knew that the presence of this strict duenna would be fatal to his plans. Madame von der Lühe, Madame de Plessen’s successor, though she shook her head in private, did not venture to remonstrate with her mistress; her position, she felt, was insecure, and she thought to strengthen it by compliance with the Queen’s whims. The maid of honour, Fräulein von Eyben, and some of the inferior women of the Queen’s household, secretly spied on their mistress, set traps for her, and generally sought occasion to harm her. But their opportunity was not yet, for the Queen was all-powerful. Matilda had always found the stiff etiquette of the Danish court wearisome; at Struensee’s advice she abolished it altogether in private, and dispensed with the attendance of her ladies, except in public. This enabled her to see the doctor for hours alone—not that she made any secret of these interviews. On the contrary, she talked quite freely to her ladies about her friendship with Struensee, and accounted for her preference by declaring that she owed him a debt of gratitude for all he had done, and was doing, for her. He always took her part; she said, “he had much sense and a good heart”. And it must be admitted he had apparently rendered her service; her health was re-established, and her life was fuller and happier. No longer was she slighted and set aside; she reigned supreme at her court, and all, even her former enemies, sought to win her smiles.
The Queen’s relations with the King were now uniformly friendly, and he seemed quite content to leave authority in her hands. In return she strove to humour him, and even stooped to gratify some of his most absurd whims. It has already been stated that the imbecile Christian had a weakness for seeing women in men’s attire; “Catherine of the Gaiters” captivated him most when she donned the uniform of an officer in his service, and the complaisance of the former mistress on this point was at least explicable. But Matilda was his wife and not his mistress, his Queen and not his fancy of an hour, yet she did not hesitate to array herself in male attire to please her husband, at the suggestion of her lover. It may be, too, that she wished to imitate in this, as in other things, the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, who frequently wore uniforms and rode en homme. However this may be, Matilda adopted a riding-habit made like that of a man, and rode astride. The Queen often went out hunting with Struensee, or rode by his side through the city, in this extraordinary attire. She wore a dove-colour beaver hat with a deep gold band and tassels, a long scarlet coat, faced with gold, a buff, gold-laced waistcoat, a frilled shirt with a lace kerchief, buckskin small-clothes and spurs. She had other riding-habits of different designs, but this was the one in which she most frequently appeared in public. She was always splendidly mounted and rode fearlessly. On horseback she looked a Diana, but when she dismounted she did not appear to the same advantage, for the riding-habit made her seem shorter than she really was, and she already showed a tendency to stoutness, which the small-clothes did not minimise. The Queen, however, was so enamoured of her male attire that she frequently walked about the palace all day in it, to the offence of many and the derision of others.[122]
[122] The Queen set the fashion to ride in male attire, and it soon became the custom among the ladies of Copenhagen. Keith wrote a year later: “An abominable riding-habit, with black slouched hat, has been almost universally introduced here, which gives every woman an air of an awkward postilion, and all the time I have been in Denmark I have never seen the Queen out in any other garb”.—Memoirs.
The adoption of this riding-habit greatly tended to lessen the Queen’s popularity, while her intimacy with Struensee before long caused it to disappear altogether. The staider and more respectable portion of the community were ready to believe any evil of a woman who went out riding like a man, and the clergy in particular were horrified; but acting on Struensee’s advice, the Queen never troubled to conciliate the clergy. This was a great mistake in a puritanical country like Denmark, where the Church had great power, if not in the immediate circle of the court, at least among the upper and middle classes. Even the semi-barbarous Danish nobility were disgusted. That the young and beautiful Queen should have a favourite was perhaps, under the circumstances, only to be expected; if he had been one of their own order, the weakness would have been excused. But that she should stoop to a man of bourgeois origin, a mere doctor, who was regarded by the haughty nobles as little above the level of a menial, was a thing which admitted of no palliation.[123] But the Queen, blinded by her passion, was indifferent to praise or blame, and Struensee took a delight in demonstrating his power over her under their very eyes. It was the favourite’s mean revenge for the insults he had suffered from these nobles.
[123] Even Frederick the Great (who was very broad-minded) wrote: “L’acces que le médecin eut à la cour lui fit gagner imperceptiblement plus d’ascendant sur l’esprit de la reine qu’il n’etoit convenable à un homme de cette extraction”.
QUEEN SOPHIA MAGDALENA, GRANDMOTHER OF CHRISTIAN VII.
At the end of May, 1770, the old Queen Sophia Magdalena died at the palace of Christiansborg. For the last few years of her life she had lived in strict retirement, and had long ceased to exercise any influence over her grandson, the King, in political affairs. The aged widow of Christian VI. was much reverenced by the conservative party in Denmark, and they complained that the court treated her memory with disrespect. One incident in particular moved them to deep indignation, and, if true, it showed how greatly Matilda had deteriorated under the influence of her favourite. The body of Sophia Magdalena was embalmed, and lay in state for some days in the palace of Christiansborg. The public was admitted, and a great number of people of all classes and ages, clad in mourning, availed themselves of this opportunity of paying honour to the dead Queen. It was stated in Copenhagen by Matilda’s enemies that she showed her lack of good-feeling by passing through the mourners in the room where the Queen-Mother lay in state, leaning on the arm of Struensee, and clad in the riding-habit which had excited the reprobation of Sophia Magdalena’s adherents. This story was probably a malicious invention,[124] but it is certain that the court mourning for the venerable Queen-Mother was limited to the shortest possible period, and the King and Queen a few days after her death removed to Frederiksborg, where they lived in the same manner as before. Neither the King nor the Queen attended the public funeral at Röskilde, where the kings and queens of Denmark were buried, and Prince Frederick went as chief mourner. Rightly or wrongly, the reigning Queen was blamed for all this.
[124] It rests on the authority of Wittich (Struensee, by K. Wittich, 1879), who is bitterly hostile to Queen Matilda.