The trial of the Queen began on March 14, in the great hall of the Court of Exchequer at Copenhagen. The whole of the commissioners were present, and the proceedings were vested with every possible solemnity. The court was opened by prayer, offered by the aged Bishop of Zealand, who had officiated at the Queen’s marriage five and a half years before. The judges who formed part of the commission were formally released from their oath of allegiance to the King during the trial, that they might judge of the matter between Christian and his consort in the same way as they would that between any ordinary man and wife.
Bang, a lawyer of the Court of Exchequer, undertook the King’s cause, and Uhldahl, an eloquent advocate of the Supreme Court, was appointed to defend the Queen. He was not chosen by Matilda, but by her enemies, with the object of throwing dust in the eyes of the world. A demand had been made that the Queen should receive a fair trial, and as a proof of its fairness Juliana Maria was able to point to the fact that the most eloquent advocate in Denmark had been retained for the Queen’s defence. The device was clever, but transparent. Though the trial was that of the King against the Queen, neither of these exalted personages put in an appearance: the King was probably ignorant of what was going on; the Queen, who might reasonably have expected to be present at her own trial, was not given the option of attending. Nothing would have induced the Queen-Dowager to permit Matilda to return to Copenhagen, even as a prisoner. Her youth, her beauty, her misfortunes, might have hastened a reaction in her favour, and, moreover, it was even possible that she might by some means have effected a meeting with the King, and such a meeting would have been fatal to all the plans. The King would probably have forgiven her straight away, and taken her back as his reigning Queen. Therefore, the Queen-Dowager determined to keep Matilda safely shut up at Kronborg until she could remove her to a more distant fortress—that of Aalborg in Jutland, a most desolate spot. The fact that, so early as February 8, or more than a month before the trial opened, commissioners had been sent to Aalborg to inspect the castle with a view to its occupation by the young Queen, is sufficient to prove that the whole trial was a farce, since her sentence and punishment had been determined before it began.
RÖSKILDE CATHEDRAL, WHERE THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF DENMARK ARE BURIED.
The first week of the trial was occupied in preliminaries, such as taking the depositions of witnesses. These witnesses were many in number. The most prominent of them was Fräulein von Eyben, who had been maid of honour to the Queen. This woman, whose virtue was by no means above suspicion, had been thrust upon the Queen by Holck after the dismissal of Madame Plessen. The Queen had never liked von Eyben, and when she became mistress of her own household, she dismissed her. That she was wise in doing so was shown by the fact that this woman now came forward with detailed accounts of the traps she had set to convict the Queen of a guilty intimacy with Struensee. Her evidence was categorical, but it was given with so much animus that it would have been regarded as prejudiced by any unbiassed judges. The other witnesses were all of the kind common in divorce courts—servants, maids, footmen, and the like—all of whom a few dollars would buy to swear anything. Such evidence is tainted at the source, and no judge ought to be influenced by it. Matilda was always the most generous and indulgent of mistresses; yet these menials, who had been treated with every kindness, now turned and gave evidence against her—the usual kind of evidence, such as listening at doors, peeping through keyholes, strewing sand on the floor, turning out lamps or lighting them, and other details of a more particular nature, unfit to be related here. Suffice it to say that the dear secrets of the Queen’s unhappy love were profaned by the coarse lips of these hirelings.
The depositions of these witnesses are still preserved in a small iron box in the secret archives of Copenhagen. For many years they were missing, but about twenty years ago the box was found, and opened in the presence of the chief of the archives, the Prussian minister then at Copenhagen, and Prince Hans of Glucksburg, a brother of the present King of Denmark, Christian IX. The papers were examined and sorted, put back in the box again, and passed into the safe keeping of the secret archives, where they have since remained. The papers include not only the depositions of witnesses, but also some letters of the Queen. Yet, curiously enough, a few of these depositions were published in a pamphlet by Jenssen-Tusch[50] some years before the existence of the box was known to the authorities. Wittich afterwards repeated these quotations with great force against the Queen.[51] The great bulk of these papers have never been published, and it may be hoped never will be, for their publication would only gratify prurient curiosity. If such evidence be admitted, then all possibility of the Queen’s innocence is at an end; but the question will always remain how far these witnesses, mostly drawn from the lowest class, were suborned to testify against their mistress.
[50] G. F. von Jenssen-Tusch, Die Verschwörung gegen die Königin Caroline Mathilde und die Grafen Struensee und Brandt (Leipzig, 1864).
[51] K. Wittich, Struensee (Leipzig, 1879).
On March 24, before the whole assembly of the commissioners, Bang, the King’s advocate, submitted his indictment of Queen Matilda. It was a lengthy document, prepared with great care. The beginning sounds the keynote of the whole:—