Summing up all this testimony, Uhldahl said: “If we now ask if there are any facts in the evidence of the witnesses to prove that an extreme and improper intimacy existed between the Queen and Struensee, the answer must be: ‘There are none.’ That the Queen showed the Count marks of favour and confidence cannot be denied, but no one ever saw or heard that these went beyond the limits of honour. No witness is able to say positively that the Queen has broken the vows she made to her consort, nor can any adduce a single fact which would prove the certainty of her guilt. Indeed, one of the witnesses on whom the prosecution most relies, the maid Bruhn, is constrained to admit ‘that she never witnessed any impropriety on the part of the Queen’. Regarded generally, all the witnesses appeal to their own suppositions. They say they thought that Struensee was a long time with the Queen, because they were not summoned: they imagined that the Queen and Struensee were guilty because they were on familiar terms. But these conjectures had their origin in rumour, and in the power which rumour possesses to stimulate the imagination. It is chiefly the favour shown by her Majesty to Count Struensee that roused the suspicions of witnesses, and caused them to draw such conclusions. It is said that he was constantly about the Queen, and in her company. But was he not also about the King? And must not the Queen’s confidence in him necessarily result from the confidence with which the King honoured him? As her justification of this, the Queen appeals to her consort’s action, and points to the striking proofs of the King’s favour to Struensee—the offices with which the King entrusted him, and the rank to which the King raised him. There can be no doubt that he sought to acquire the Queen’s confidence in the same way as he had gained the King’s. The loyalty which he always showed to the King, the attention he paid to the Queen when she was ill, the devotion which he seemed to entertain for them both, maintained an uninterrupted harmony between their Majesties. Above all else, the King’s will was law to the Queen, and this above all else made her believe that she could freely give Struensee her confidence without danger. His offices as Secretary to the Queen, and Privy Cabinet Minister to the King, required his constant presence. Hence it is not surprising that he acquired a greater share of the Queen’s favour than any other man....
“I pass over all the rest of the evidence as things which are partly unimportant, partly irrelevant, or too improper to be answered. It is sufficient to say that no proof that her Majesty has broken her marriage vow can be derived from any of these witnesses, if we examine their evidence singly. The law requires the truthful evidence of witnesses, not all kinds of self-invented conclusions. If it were otherwise, her Majesty’s rank and dignity, which ought to shield her from such danger, would be the very things to cause her ruin.
“I hope that I have now proved the innocence of the Queen. Her Majesty assumes that her consort only desires her justification, and she feels assured of the discretion and impartiality of her judges. Therefore she awaits confidently the decision demanded by her honour, the King’s dignity, and the welfare of the land. I venture in her Majesty’s name to submit—
“That her Majesty Queen Caroline Matilda be acquitted from his Majesty the King’s accusation in this matter.”
Uhldahl’s defence was clever and ingenious, but it lacked the stamp of sincerity which carries conviction. His omission to cross-examine the witnesses, though he ascribes this to the wish of the Queen (who could have had no voice in the matter, and was entirely in the hands of her counsel), was the course probably dictated by her enemies. If these witnesses had been taken singly, and subjected to a searching cross-examination, they would probably have contradicted each other, and broken down one by one. Moreover, Uhldahl was fighting for the Queen with one arm tied behind his back. In any divorce court, if a husband petitions against his wife, his conduct, as well as hers, is liable to investigation, and if it can be shown that he is as guilty, or guiltier, than she, or that he has connived at her indiscretion, his petition falls to the ground. But this line of defence was forbidden to Uhldahl: he dared not say a word against the King, though he could have shown that the King had from the first been guilty of the grossest infidelity and cruelty towards his Queen—that he had outraged her every sentiment of religion and virtue, that he had often told her to do as she pleased, that he had repeatedly thrust temptation in her way, and when at last she yielded, or seemed to yield, to it, he had not only acquiesced in this condition of things, but at first, at any rate, actively encouraged and abetted it. These facts—and they were all of them notorious, and perfectly well known to the Queen’s judges and accusers—were not allowed to be pleaded in her favour.
Reverdil, who had an intimate knowledge of the facts, who had been with the King when Matilda first came to Denmark, who had been dismissed from court because he protested against the insults heaped upon her, who had been recalled three years later, when the intimacy between the Queen and Struensee was at its height, and who, much though he pitied her, believed her to be guilty, has supplied the arguments in her favour which were omitted by Uhldahl. He thus arraigns the King:—
“Is it not true, Sir, that from the very day of your marriage up to the moment when the faction, now dominant, seized on you and your ministers some weeks ago, you had not the slightest regard for the marriage tie, and all this time you had declared to the Queen that you dispensed with her fidelity? Have you not invited all your successive favourites to tempt her? [a lui faire la cour]. Have you not said and proved in a thousand ways that her affection was wearisome to you, and that your greatest misery was to perform your duties to her? Your commissioners have had the effrontery to ask the Queen and Struensee who were their accomplices. In prison and in irons the accused have had the generosity to be silent for your sake; but what they have not done your conscience itself must do, and proclaim to you that you have been her real seducer.
“Do you remember, Sir, the moment when this Princess, whom they wish to make you condemn to-day, was confided to your love and generosity? The English sent her without any adviser, without a single companion to your shores. Little more than a child, she had all the grace, the innocence and the naïveté of childhood, while her mind was more enlightened and mature than you could have expected; you were astonished at it. All hearts went out to meet her; her affability and kindness captivated all classes of the nation. When you were wicked enough to give yourself up to a frivolous and reckless favourite [Holck], and to vile companions who led you into libertinism, she found herself neglected, and you showed yourself more than indifferent to her. She loved you; she was silent, and maintained her serenity in public; she only wept in private with her chief lady [Madame de Plessen], whom you, yourself, had appointed as her confidante. Before long you grudged her even this poor consolation, and the lady, whose only crime was that her conduct and principles were too correct for your taste, was dismissed with the most signal marks of disgrace. Madame von der Lühe, who took her place, was the sister of your favourite. No doubt you supposed that this lady would show as much levity, and have as few principles, as her brother; but she disappointed your expectations. Therefore, without actually disgracing her, you replaced her by ladies whose reputation was the most equivocal in the kingdom. What more could the most consummate corrupter have done? This very man, with whom the Queen is accused for having shown weakness, you, yourself, forced upon her after she had first repulsed him. It was in the hope of avoiding the tracasseries with which your favourites annoyed her that she was at last induced to lier herself with the man who offered his services to bring you nearer her. It was you who broke down all the barriers which separated her from him, who diminished the distance between them, who desired to bring about what to-day is called your ‘dishonour,’ who excused, nay, tolerated, this liaison, and who, up to January 17 last, even talked of it as a good joke.
“Your cause is inseparable from that of your wife, and even though the whole world should condemn her, you ought, if not from natural equity, at least from self-respect, to revoke that condemnation.”[54]
[54] Mémoires de Reverdil, pp. 403-406.
Uhldahl made his defence on April 2. The court then adjourned, and after taking four days to consider the verdict, delivered judgment. The verdict was to the effect that Queen Matilda had been found guilty of having broken her marriage vow, and the marriage between her and King Christian VII. was therefore dissolved, and the King was free to make another alliance, if it should seem good to him. The Queen’s sentence would depend upon the King’s pleasure. The court at the same time declared that the Princess Louise Augusta was legitimate, and was entitled to all the honours due to the daughter of the King. Thus the verdict was contradictory, for if the Queen were guilty with Struensee, it followed almost surely (though not necessarily for certain) that the Princess was not legitimate, for the intimacy between the Queen and Struensee was declared by the evidence, upon which the judges pretended to found their verdict, to have begun more than a year before the birth of the Princess, and to have gone on continuously ever since.
The exact reasons which led to this extraordinary verdict being promulgated will probably never be known, but during the four days that elapsed between Uhldahl’s defence and the judgment, violent disputes and intrigues were being waged at the Christiansborg Palace. According to some, the Queen-Dowager not only fiercely insisted upon the divorce, but also the bastardising of both the Queen’s children (though why the Crown Prince it is difficult to say), and so making way for the succession of her son to the throne, but was prevented from having her way by the remonstrances of Guldberg. According to others, it was Rantzau and Osten who wished these drastic measures, and Juliana Maria who interposed on behalf of the Queen’s children. Be this as it may, it is certain that Matilda’s enemies were divided in their opinions; and even at this early hour there seems to have been a slight reaction in favour of the young Queen. The situation was also complicated by the interference of Keith, who, though he had received no instructions to prevent the divorce of the Queen, yet, now that the trial was over, and had shown itself to be manifestly unfair, entered vigorous protests on behalf of the King of England’s sister—protests which he backed by menaces. Several of the Queen-Dowager’s advisers took fright; perhaps, too, they had some secret pity for the young Queen, for they urged that it was not wise to enrage the King of England too far. The result was a compromise: the Queen was declared to be guilty, but her daughter was declared to be legitimate.
