In a short time Queen Matilda became more composed, and even recovered sufficiently to dress herself with the aid of her women. When Osten entered her chamber, he found her sitting at the side of the bed, weeping. All defiance had faded away; she only felt herself a betrayed and cruelly injured woman. Osten came to her in the guise of a friend. He had been a colleague of Struensee’s, and had never outwardly broken with him, and the Queen had confidence in his skill and judgment. She therefore listened to him, when he persuaded her that more would be gained by complying with the King’s orders, at this time, than by resisting them. He hinted that her sojourn at Kronborg would only be for a time, and by-and-by the King’s humour would change. Moreover, the people were in a state of revolt against the Queen’s authority, and it was necessary for Matilda’s safety that she should be removed from Copenhagen to the shelter of Kronborg. “What have I done to the people?” the Queen asked. “I know that a good many changes have taken place, but I have done my utmost to further the welfare of the King and country according to my conscience.” Osten merely replied with quiet insistence that she had herself contemplated flight to Kronborg at the time of the tumult of the Norwegian sailors at Hirschholm. Believing the man to be her friend, the Queen yielded to his advice. “I have done nothing; the King will be just,” she said. She signified her willingness to go, provided that her children accompanied her. Here again difficulties were raised, but the Queen was firm, and said she would not budge a step unless her children went with her. Finally, a compromise was arrived at; Osten made her understand that the Crown Prince must not be removed, but she might take the little Princess, whom she was herself nursing. This being settled, the Queen’s preparations for departure were hurriedly made, and Fräulein Mösting, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, was ordered to go with her, and one of her bed-chamber women.
The bleak January morning was still dark when Matilda, dressed for the journey, carrying her child in her arms and followed by two of her women, came out of her bedroom, and signified her readiness to start. Rantzau, who was still sitting in the ante-chamber, waiting, rose, and pointing to his gouty foot, said with covert insolence: “You see, Madam, that my feet fail me; but my arms are free, and I offer one to your Majesty to conduct you to your coach.” But she repulsed him with scorn, and exclaimed: “Away with you, traitor! I loathe you!” She walked alone down the stairs to the coaches, which were waiting in the back-yard of the palace. She entered one, but refused to part with the little Princess, whom she placed upon her knees. Fräulein Mösting sat by the Queen’s side, and the opposite seat was occupied by an officer with his sword drawn. In the second coach followed the bed-chamber woman, the nurse of the Princess Louise Augusta, and some absolutely necessary luggage. The coaches were guarded by an escort of thirty dragoons, and the cavalcade clattered at a sharp trot through the streets of the still sleeping city, and was soon outside the gates of Copenhagen.
The first part of the journey was in darkness, but, as the day broke, the Queen looked out on the frost-bound roads and the dreary country over which she was hurrying. She had ample time for reflection, and bitter her reflections must have been. A few hours before she had been Queen, vested, it seemed, with unlimited power, and the centre of a brilliant court; now she was a prisoner, stripped of all her power, and nearly all the semblance of her rank—a fugitive, she believed herself to be, fleeing from the vengeance of her people. Yet even now, in this supreme moment of her desolation, her thoughts were not of herself, but of the man who had brought her to such a pass. The road passed by the grounds of Hirschholm, the scene of many happy days, and the memory of them must have deepened the Queen’s dejection; but she said nothing, and throughout the long and tedious journey uttered no word, but sat motionless, the image of despair.
Kronborg, whither the royal prisoner was being hurried, was a gloomy fortress erected by Frederick II. in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and restored, after a fire, by Christian IV., nearly eighty years later. It had changed little with the flight of centuries, and remains much the same to-day. Built strongly of rough-hewn stone, which has taken on itself the colour of the rocks around, the massive and imposing castle springs directly from the sea, on the extreme point of land between the Cattegat and the narrowest part of the Sound, which separates Denmark from Sweden. Its massive walls, turrets and gables frown down upon the little town of Helsingor at its base.[22] Tradition says that deep down in its casemates slumbers Holgar Danske (“the Dane”), who will rise and come forth when his country is in peril.[23] He might have come forth in 1772, for Denmark was never in greater peril than on the eve of the palace revolution.
[22] Helsingor, or Elsinore, now a busy town, is the scene of Shakespeare’s play, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” and, on “the platform before the castle of Elsinore”—in other words, the flagged battlements of Kronborg—the ghost of “Hamlet” appeared. Local tradition also points out “the grave of Hamlet” and “the spring of Ophelia,” both, of course, legendary. Hamlet, in fact, never visited Elsinore, but was born and lived in Jutland. But Shakespeare shows a curious knowledge of Elsinore and Kronborg, and some light has been thrown on this subject by the discovery among the archives of Elsinore of a manuscript, which shows that in 1585 a wooden theatre, in which a troop of English comedians had been acting, was burned down. The names of the actors are given. Nearly all of them have been proved to belong to Shakespeare’s company, though the name of the poet is not among them. A monument is now being erected to Shakespeare at Kronborg, to which Queen Alexandra has contributed.
[23] A well-known character in Hans Andersen’s fairy-tales. Two fragments of stone in the dungeons beneath Kronborg are still shown; one is said to serve as Holgar Danske’s pillow, and the other as his table.
Kronborg was distant some twenty-four miles from Copenhagen, and the journey was covered in less than three hours. The day had broken when the melancholy cavalcade clattered through the street of Helsingor, and pulled up under the storm-beaten walls of Kronborg. At the outermost gate the officer in command of the Queen’s escort produced the King’s letter to the commandant, which gave his consort into his charge, and ordered her to be kept a strict prisoner. The commandant of Kronborg must have been much surprised at this communication, but he was a stern soldier, not given to questioning, and he obeyed his instructions to the letter. The outer gate was thrown open, and the little procession passed over the drawbridge, which spanned the green water of the moat, to the guard-house, where the escort from Copenhagen remained. The soldiers of the fortress then took charge of the two coaches, and they wound their way up the incline under the castle walls. They crossed another drawbridge, spanning a deep, dry ditch, and passed through the rough-hewn, tunnel-like entrance of stone, and out into the gloomy courtyard of the castle—a place where it would seem the sun never shines. Here the Queen, still carrying her child in her arms, alighted, and was hurried to a doorway on the left of the courtyard, up the winding stone stairs, and through a large room into the chamber set apart for her. This was a low, circular apartment in a tower, not more than ten feet high, and very small, with four windows, iron-barred, looking out upon the sea. The grey waves broke directly beneath the windows, and were separated from the walls only by a strip of rampart, on which cannon were placed.[24]
[24] The traveller De Flaux, who visited Kronborg about 1850, thus wrote of the room: “In a tower is a small oval room, the windows of which are still lined with iron bars. It was here that the Queen was confined. I was shown the prie-dieu used by this unfortunate princess. It was on the faded velvet that covered it that she rested her beautiful head. Who knows whether the spots on it were not produced by the tears of despair she shed?” [Du Danemark.]
I was at Kronborg in 1902. The Queen’s room is now destitute of any furniture, but the iron bars guarding the windows are still there. I looked through them at the sea beneath. It was a grey, windy day; the waves were lead-coloured and flecked with white, and overhead were drifting masses of cloud. On such a scene Queen Matilda must have often gazed during the five months of her captivity.