Hitherto the Danish court, outwardly at any rate, had respected Sunday, and the King and Queen had been regular in attendance at public worship. Now, though the King and Queen went to church sometimes to keep up appearances, Sunday was purposely selected as a day of pleasure. For instance, one Sunday at Hirschholm there was a steeple-chase in the royal park, and the King gave prizes to the winners. The races attracted a large and disreputable crowd. Nor was it enough to slight religious convictions; they were openly mocked at and derided. On another Sunday Brandt was guilty of the folly and bad taste of delivering a mock sermon from the pulpit in the private chapel at Hirschholm before the King and an assembled court, who laughed and applauded. At this exhibition it is only fair to say the Queen was not present. Naturally these things were repeated at Copenhagen, and the “revels of Hirschholm” formed a favourite subject of conversation and reprobation. The clergy fanned the flame of indignation, and many a covert allusion to Jezebel was heard from the pulpits. Moreover, by abolishing the censorship of the press Struensee had put a sword into the hands of his enemies, and before long many scurrilous pamphlets were sold in the streets, containing the coarsest abuse of the Queen and her “minion”. Caricatures in which the Queen and Struensee were grossly depicted, and satires after the manner of Juvenal, purporting to describe the orgies of the court at Hirschholm, were circulated in Copenhagen, and not only posted on the walls of houses, but even in the passages of the royal palaces.
All this popular discontent played into the hands of the Queen-Dowager, Juliana Maria, who, with her son, Prince Frederick, lived in comparative retirement at Fredensborg, and sought, by the decorum of her household and by her regular attendance at public worship, to draw a contrast between her court and that of the reigning Queen. Juliana Maria had always been unpopular, but now, though she was not loved, she was respected, and became generally recognised as the representative of the old regime, which offered in so many ways a favourable contrast to the new. She took the place of the Queen-Mother, Sophia Magdalena, and her palace of Fredensborg became the rallying-place of those who were discontented with Struensee and his methods. It is quite possible that intrigues were set on foot at Fredensborg with the object of overthrowing the favourite, and it is probable that Struensee, who had spies everywhere, came to hear of them, and in revenge advised the reigning Queen to treat her brother-in-law and his mother with discourtesy, which was not only unworthy but unwise. Juliana Maria and her son were rarely invited to court, and when they attended they were often kept waiting for some time before the King and Queen received them, treated with little ceremony, and made to feel that their presence was unwelcome. Moreover, on the birthday of the Queen-Dowager, Juliana Maria held her usual court at Fredensborg, but neither the King nor the Queen attended or sent congratulations, an omission which, under the circumstances, was very marked. Prince Frederick had been in the habit of attending the riding-school at Christiansborg, and had had free access to the royal stables. One morning on presenting himself there he was curtly informed that no horses could be placed at his disposal in future, and the riding-school was closed to him, as the Queen had reserved it for her own use.
A great deal of this Juliana Maria had brought upon herself by the scant consideration she had shown to the young Queen when she seemed a person of no importance, and by the malignant and unjust rumours she had circulated against her when she first came to Denmark. But Matilda would have done well to be magnanimous, for these slights provoked a reaction in favour of the Queen-Dowager. Juliana Maria behaved with great circumspection. She did not publicly resent the affronts put upon herself and her son, though she lamented them in private, and she was careful always to say that she in no way censured the King, but laid all the blame on the Queen and her favourite. Her hatred of Matilda deepened, and the most injurious reports which were circulated concerning the Queen had their origin in the salons of Fredensborg. The invalid King was represented as living in a state of terror under the dominion of his Queen and her imperious favourite. He was treated, it was said, with positive disrespect, if not with cruelty, by the minions with whom he was surrounded, and Matilda forgot not only her duty as a Queen and wife but also as a mother.
This last indictment had reference to the treatment of the Crown Prince. So far the heir to the throne had come little before the public, but suddenly there spread throughout the kingdom alarming rumours of the treatment which he suffered at the hands of his mother and her adviser, and such was the universal prejudice that these rumours were generally credited. It was said that the Crown Prince was neglected in a scandalous manner; he was left to run about the gardens of Hirschholm in all weathers, insufficiently clothed, with no one to look after him, and no companions but a boy of low rank; and his education had not yet begun. He was frequently beaten by his mother and Struensee, and shut up in an iron cage for hours together as a harsh punishment; his food was of the coarsest kind, and served in a wooden bowl, which was placed on the ground. Altogether he was treated more like an animal than a human being, especially one who would some day be called upon to fill a high destiny. Even the foreign envoys heard of this treatment of the Crown Prince, and commented upon it in their despatches. Gunning, who considered the matter not only from a political but also from a domestic point of view (seeing that the King of England was the uncle of the Crown Prince), wrote home in bitter sarcasm:—
“As no step taken in the education of a prince is without its importance, his nursery may sometimes present a scene not unworthy of attention. The philosopher of Geneva would hail the dawn of more enlightened days could he behold (as he might here) the scene of a monarch left from his cradle to crawl unassisted upon his hands and knees (like the nursling of a Norwegian peasant) and condemned to lose his meals, most philosophically concealed, unless he could discover them by the sagacity of his nose. Such are the maxims which obtain in the royal nursery of Denmark. The latter instance is no doubt calculated to sharpen the talent of investigation, a talent very requisite where the labyrinth of intrigue requires some such guide.”[158]
[158] Gunning’s despatch, Copenhagen, October 6, 1770.
Notwithstanding Gunning’s authority, these rumours were shamefully exaggerated, and if they may be taken as a sample of the others circulated about the Queen, it is very difficult to say of any of them where fact ends and imagination begins. In this case they were not only untrue but cruel, for the maternal instinct was always strong in Queen Matilda, and she was never so happy as when with her child. Moreover, it was in her interest that the Crown Prince should have his health guarded in every way, for her position would be seriously affected if she were no longer the mother of the heir to the throne. The Spartan treatment, therefore, which the Crown Prince undoubtedly underwent, was sanctioned by his mother from the highest motives, for Struensee had persuaded her that it was the training of all others most conducive to the child’s well-being. From his birth the young Prince had been of a weakly constitution, and had shown a tendency to consumption; he had been pampered and spoiled by his attendants, with the result that he would not take the slightest exercise; he was fractious and peevish, and wanted always to be petted and amused.
Struensee, who was a believer in the famous treatment of Emile, changed all this, and urged the Queen to bring up her son as simply as possible, so that he would grow up to be a strong and a self-reliant man. The Crown Prince’s former attendants were sent away, and he was given the simplest fare, consisting of vegetables, rice boiled in water, bread and water, and milk and potatoes; no meat was allowed him. He wore light silk clothes, and went about bare-footed. He was bathed twice a day in cold water, and soon became so fond of it that he would go into the bath of his own accord. He was forced to take exercise, kept as much as possible in the open air, and made to run about the gardens in all weathers. His room at Hirschholm was a large one on the ground floor, some forty feet in length, and on the garden side it was closed in by an iron trellis-work, which accounted for the story that the heir to the throne was shut up in a cage. The little Prince had only one playmate, a boy who was the natural son of one of the court surgeons, and known as “little Karl”. These boys were always together, and no difference was made between them. They played, quarrelled and fought as they would, and no one was allowed to interfere with them, nor were any of the servants about the court suffered to speak to, or play with, the Crown Prince. This rule was kept very strictly. For instance, one day, when the little Prince fell in the garden and hurt himself, Struensee’s valet, who was passing, picked him up and tried to comfort him. For this breach of rule the servant was sent to the Blue Tower in Copenhagen and imprisoned for some time. The boy was not allowed on any pretext to take advantage on the ground of his rank. One day when he and his companion had some quarrel, Frederick asked Karl how he dared to strike a prince. “I am as much a prince as you,” the other boy answered. “Yes, but I am a Crown Prince,” Frederick retorted. Thereupon the two boys fought till Frederick won the victory. Struensee heard of this battle royal, and told the Queen, who, when she knew the cause, insisted on the Crown Prince begging the other boy’s pardon. As Frederick refused to do so, the Queen gave him a whipping. From this arose the rumour that he was frequently severely beaten. The charge that he was neglected rests on more foundation. One day during the autumn of 1770, at Hirschholm, the King and Queen and all the court went out hunting, and on their return very late the Crown Prince could nowhere be found. A search was made for him, and he was at last found lying insensible in the garden half-dead with cold. He was put to bed with a nurse, who took him in her arms and gradually restored him. The negligence in this case was due to the servants who had been left in charge of him, but the blame was laid upon the Queen.
The incident became known, and so loud and insistent was the popular clamour that the court physician, Berger, became frightened, and insisted on some modification of the Crown Prince’s treatment. Henceforth the boy was allowed to wear shoes and stockings, given warmer clothing, and his room was slightly heated in the winter. His diet was also made a little fuller; his rice was boiled in mutton-broth, and he was given meat-soup for dinner. His education, however, was still left severely alone, and at the age of four he could not speak any language properly, but only a jargon of Danish and German, which he had learnt from his playmate. The excuse put forward for this retarded education was that the boy was far from strong, and it was the Queen’s object to see his health thoroughly established before she burdened his strength with studies.
The Queen, as a rule, was indifferent to public criticism, but she was much hurt at the strictures passed on her for her treatment of her son, especially those made by foreign courts. It is possible that some remonstrance may have reached her from England, either from her mother or her brother, for she had drawings made of the Crown Prince, showing him with his little rake and spade and watering-can, playing in the garden, or leaning against his mother, all designed to show how healthy and happy he was. These were given to the foreign envoys for transmission to their respective courts.[159]