It was a pity that Brandt’s knowledge of law did not prevent him from committing an act which the law of Denmark punished with death, and which, in any case, was cowardly and brutal. Allusion has been made to the fact that the King and Brandt frequently quarrelled, and, though, since the arrival of Reverdil, Brandt was relieved of some of his more onerous duties, he was still on bad terms with the King. One morning at the Queen’s déjeuner, the King, who rarely joined in the conversation, suddenly, without provocation, shouted across the table to Brandt: “You deserve a good thrashing, and I will give you one. I am speaking to you, Count. Do you hear?” The incident created an unpleasant sensation among the company, but Brandt, with his usual presence of mind, ignored the affront, and turned the conversation to other channels. After breakfast Struensee and the Queen took the King aside, and rebuked him sharply, but the King only said: “Brandt is a coward if he refuses to fight with me.” He also told Brandt he was a cur, and afraid to accept his challenge. It had always been one of the King’s manias, even in his comparatively sane years, to try his strength with his attendants. He had frequently fought with Holck and Warnstedt, and also with Moranti, the negro boy, and they had consented to act on the defensive at his request, with the result that he was always permitted to come off conqueror. The game was a perilous one for the other combatant, for the King sometimes hit hard; on the other hand, the law of Denmark made it an offence punishable with death for any man to strike the King’s sacred person.
Brandt had never yet fought with the King, for he had a love of a whole skin, and shirked this disagreeable pastime; but now, goaded by the King’s insults, he determined to give him a lesson in manners. Apart from his dislike of the King, his self-esteem was wounded by having been insulted before the Queen, Countess Holstein and the other ladies, and he resolved to be avenged. That he acted on a set plan is shown by the fact that he hid a whip in a piano in the ante-chamber of the King’s room the day before he carried his design into execution. In the evening of the following day, when Reverdil was absent, Brandt took the whip from the piano, hid it under his coat, and went into the King’s apartment, where he found the semi-imbecile monarch playing with the two boys who were his constant companions. Having turned Moranti and the other boy out, Brandt locked the door, and then told the King, who by this time was somewhat frightened, that he had come to fight with him according to his wish, and asked him to take his choice of pistols or swords. The King, who had not contemplated a duel, but a scramble, said he would fight with his fists. Brandt agreed, and the struggle began; but the King soon found that this particular adversary had not come to act on the defensive, but the offensive. Brandt, who was much the stronger of the two, for the King was weak and ailing, made use of his strength without stint, and, rage urging him on, he first beat his royal master unmercifully with his fists, and then thrashed him with the whip until Christian cried for quarter. Brandt, when he had beaten him until he could beat no longer, granted the request, and then left the room, leaving the King much bruised and frightened.
After he had put his dress in order, Brandt proceeded to the Queen’s apartments, and joined the company at the card tables as if nothing had happened. When the game was over, he told Struensee what he had done. The Minister said he was glad to hear it; it would give them peace from the King in future; but he cautioned Brandt to say nothing about it. But the next day rumours of what had taken place were all over the palace. The King’s valet had found his master bruised and weeping, and Moranti and the other boy had heard sounds of the scuffle. Reports of the affray travelled to Copenhagen, and aroused general indignation. Apart from the cowardly brutality of the attack, it was deemed a monstrous thing that a man should raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed. Juliana Maria affected to find in it a confirmation of her worst fears, and colour was given to the reports that the King was systematically ill-treated, and his life was in danger. It was said that the Queen and Struensee not only approved, but encouraged this attack upon the King, and Brandt’s appointment shortly after as master of the wardrobe to the King, conferring on him the title of “Excellency,” was regarded as a proof of this. Without doubt, Brandt’s promotion was ill-timed, but the Queen had nothing to do with it. Struensee granted these favours to Brandt in order to bind him more closely to the court which he desired to leave.
Struensee, under panic from recent disturbances, had shown himself more conciliatory, and promised to consider the possibility of re-appointing the Council of State. He had also been induced, by Falckenskjold’s advice, to make the court pay more civility to the Queen-Dowager and Prince Frederick, and occasionally the King and Queen invited them to Hirschholm. But when the threatened danger seemed to pass away, and nothing more happened, he regained his confidence, and became as unyielding and overbearing as before. The Queen-Dowager and Prince Frederick received fresh affronts; the idea of reviving the council was dropped, and the dictator already considered the advisability of new and more aggressive measures. Several more officials of high rank were dismissed, and Struensee’s favourites put in their places. He learned nothing from the past; although he was told that the Queen-Dowager and Prince Frederick would put themselves at the head of a party with a view of overthrowing him, he took no heed, and merely replied: “The purity of my views is my protection.”[13] The man was drunk with self-conceit.
[13] Mémoires de Falckenskjold.
Meanwhile alarming rumours reached the Court of St. James’s of the state of affairs in Denmark, and grave fears were entertained for the safety of the King’s sister, who seemed blindly rushing to her ruin. Keith’s despatches with reference to the late disturbances were laid before the King, who took serious counsel with his mother as to what could be done to save Matilda from the peril that threatened her, and to preserve the honour of his house. George III. had remonstrated with his sister in vain; of late he had heard nothing from her, and the last communication he received from her was to the effect that, if he wrote again, his letters must be sent through Struensee, which, under the circumstances, was little short of an insult. The King, at least, so regarded it, and for some time could not bring himself to write to his sister, if his letters were delivered through such a medium. In the meantime Lord Suffolk was commanded to send Keith the following despatch:—
“Your own delicacy and sentiment must have suggested the wish that the critical state of things at the court where you reside may affect the Queen of Denmark as little as possible. Your desire, therefore, to mark your regard for her Majesty will be gratified by the instructions I now give you, to endeavour most assiduously to prevent the disagreeable incidents, which, if I am rightly informed, her Majesty is exposed to in the present moment. You are already directed upon large public considerations to promote upon all proper occasions of interference the return of Mr Bernstorff to lead in the administration, and I am happy to understand that, at the same time, no minister is more inclined to support the united interests of Great Britain and Russia, and there is none more likely than Mr Bernstorff to preserve that respect for the King’s sister, which, amidst the revenge and violence of party rage, might, on a change of ministers, be too little attended to, or perhaps even violated. If, therefore, Mr Bernstorff should meet with success, and owe it, as probably would be the case, in great measure to your good offices and interposition, he cannot but be gratefully disposed to acknowledge so important a service, and he cannot acknowledge it more essentially than by giving full scope to his well-known attachment to the King’s (George III.’s) person and family, and by providing for the honour and security of his royal mistress, in case they are liable to danger from the unhappy condition of the country.”[14]
[14] Lord Suffolk’s despatch to Keith, London, November 1, 1771.
But the return of Bernstorff was of all things the most difficult to effect at that juncture. He was living in exile, he was not in the secret councils of the Queen-Dowager, who alone could head, with any hope of success, a revolution against Struensee, and he had already refused Rantzau’s overtures. All this, of course, was unknown to the court of St. James’s, though most of it was known to Keith. The King of England had not realised that his envoy had absolutely no influence in the affairs of Denmark. All this, and much more, Keith strove to explain in a despatch which he wrote in reply to Lord Suffolk’s. He reviewed the situation in much the same way as Gunning had done before him:—
“I found, upon my arrival in this country,” he wrote, “that the whole weight of government had, with the King’s consent, devolved upon his Royal Consort. Mr Struensee was already (I must add, unhappily) in possession of that unlimited confidence on the part of her Danish Majesty which has given him a dictatorial sway in every department of government.... The genius of Count Struensee, though active, enterprising and extensive, appears to be deficient in point of judgment and resolution. His temper is fiery, suspicious and unfeeling; his cunning and address have been conspicuous in the attainment of power; his discernment and fairness in the exercise of it have fallen short of the expectation of those who were least partial to him. His morals are founded upon this single principle—that a man’s duties begin and end with himself, and in this life. The wickedness of avowing openly a tenet so profligate and dangerous can only be equalled by the ingratitude with which he has acted up to it, in his haughty and imperious behaviour to the Person (the Queen) who, with unwearied perseverance, continues to heap upon him all possible obligations. It is almost unnecessary to add that he is arrogant in prosperity and timid in danger.”