Struensee took off his fur pelisse and his hat. He would fain have undressed himself alone, but his trembling hands refused to do the work, and he was obliged to let the executioner help him. When his coat and waistcoat had been taken off, he produced a handkerchief to bind his eyes; but the executioner assured him that it would not be necessary, and took it away. He further removed his shirt, so that nothing might hinder the fall of the axe. Struensee then, with half his body bare, went with faltering steps to the block, which still reeked with the blood of Brandt. Here he reeled and would have fallen, but the headsman assisted him to kneel, and, with some difficulty, placed his head and hand in the right position. As the executioner raised his axe in the air to cut off the right hand, Münter recited: “Remember Christ crucified, who died, but is risen again.” The blow fell before the words were finished, and the right hand lay severed on the scaffold. But the victim was seized with violent convulsions, with the result that the executioner’s second blow, which was intended to behead him, failed. The wretched man sprang up spasmodically, but the assistants seized him by the hair, and held him down to the block by force. The executioner struck again, and this time with deadly effect; but even then it was not a clean blow, and a part of the neck had to be severed.
The same revolting indignities were committed on Struensee’s corpse as on that of Brandt; it is unnecessary to repeat them. When all was over, the mangled remains of both men were thrown into a cart and were conveyed through the city to the gallows-hill outside the western gate. The heads were stuck on poles, the quarters were exposed on the wheels, and the hands nailed on a piece of board. Thus was left all that was mortal of Struensee and Brandt—an awful warning that all might see.[60]
[60] Archdeacon Coxe, who visited Copenhagen in 1775, states in his Travels that he saw Struensee’s and Brandt’s skulls still exposed on the gallows-hill. There they remained for some years. Wraxall says that Struensee’s skull was eventually stolen by four English sailors belonging to a Russian man-of-war.
From her watch-tower afar off, the Queen-Dowager witnessed the execution of the men whom she deemed her greatest enemies. Early in the morning Juliana Maria mounted to a tower on the eastern side of the Christiansborg Palace, and there through a strong telescope gloated over this judicial murder. The keen interest she took in every revolting detail revealed the depth of her vindictiveness. When Brandt’s execution was over, and Struensee mounted the steps to the scaffold, she clapped her hands triumphantly and exclaimed: “Now comes the fat one!” So great was her satisfaction that, it is said, she momentarily forgot her caution, and declared the only thing that marred her joy was the thought that Matilda’s corpse was not thrown into the cart with those of her accomplices. When the cart moved away, the Queen-Dowager, fearful lest she should lose any detail of the tragedy, ran down from the tower to the apartments which she occupied on the upper floor of the palace, and from the windows, which commanded a view of the gallows-hill to the west, she saw the last ignominy wrought on the remains of her victims. In after years the Queen-Dowager always lived in these unpretending rooms of the Christiansborg, though at Frederiksberg and the other palaces she took possession of Matilda’s apartments. Suhm, the historian, says that he once expressed surprise that she should still live in little rooms up many stairs, when all the palace was at her disposal, and Juliana Maria replied: “These rooms are dearer to me than my most splendid apartments elsewhere, for from the windows I saw the remains of my bitterest foes exposed on the wheel.” From her windows, too, for many years after, she could see the skulls of Struensee and Brandt withering on the poles.[61]
[61] The statement that the Queen-Dowager witnessed the execution from a tower of the Christiansborg Palace is controverted by some on the ground that it would not be possible for her to see it from this point. Certainly it would not be possible to-day, owing to the growth of Copenhagen, and the many houses and other buildings which have been erected, but in 1772 there were comparatively few buildings between the Christiansborg Palace and the scene of the execution, so it was quite possible for the Queen-Dowager to view the gallows through a telescope.
Against this statement of Suhm’s is to be set one of Münter’s. It does not necessarily conflict, but it shows how capable the Queen-Dowager was of acting a part. If she forgot herself for a moment on the tower of the Christiansborg, she quickly recovered her self-command, and behaved with her usual decorum. She sent for Münter, ostensibly to thank him for having effected Struensee’s conversion, in reality to extract from him all the mental agonies of her victims’ last moments, and thus further gratify her lust for vengeance. Münter expatiated on Struensee’s conversion, and gave her full particulars of his terror and sufferings at the last. The Queen-Dowager affected to be moved to tears, and said: “I feel sorry for the unhappy man. I have examined myself whether in all I have done against him I have been animated by any feeling of personal enmity, and my conscience acquits me.” She gave Münter a valuable snuff-box of rock-crystal, as a small token of her appreciation of his labours on behalf of Struensee’s soul. To Hee she also sent a snuff-box, but it was only of porcelain. Whether this was to mark her sense of the greater thoroughness of Struensee’s conversion, or whether it showed that she was not so much interested in Brandt as Struensee, it is impossible to say. Nor did her rewards end here. That both she and the ministers looked upon these clergymen as accomplices in bringing Struensee and Brandt to their death is shown from the fact that, when a commission of inquiry was appointed to consider “in what manner the persons employed in convicting the prisoners of state should be rewarded,” this commission allotted to Münter and Hee three hundred dollars each. But Juliana Maria was of a different opinion, and judged it more proper to make them presents.[62]
[62] Münter afterwards was appointed Bishop of Zealand.
The executions of Struensee and Brandt brought about a revulsion in public feeling. It was felt that the national honour was satisfied, and the time had come to temper justice with mercy. The Queen-Dowager’s party were quick to note the change. Fearful of the least breath of popular displeasure, they now swung round from barbarity to leniency. Those placed under “house arrest” were set free, and the ten prisoners of state imprisoned in the citadel, were treated, for the most part, with leniency. Madame Gahler, Colonel Hesselberg, Admiral Hansel, Councillor Stürtz, Lieutenant Aböe, and Councillor Willebrandt, since no evidence could be produced against them, were released after an imprisonment of four and a half months, and were all banished from the capital. Professor Berger, the physician, who had been accused of poisoning, or drugging, the King, was also set free, and banished to Aalborg, in northern Jutland. It was found, after a searching examination, that the medicines he had given the King were quite innocuous.
Three state prisoners still remained—General Gahler, Colonel Falckenskjold and Justice Struensee. Gahler was dismissed from the King’s service, and all his appointments, and was banished from Copenhagen. But on the understanding that the ruined soldier would neither speak nor write of public affairs, the King, by an act of special clemency, granted him a pension of five hundred dollars, and the same to his wife. Justice Struensee was also released, but ordered to quit the country immediately. This clemency, so different from what had been shown to his brother, was due to the interposition of the King of Prussia, who had kept Struensee’s position as professor of medicine at Liegnitz open for him, and with whom he was a favourite. Justice Struensee eventually became a Minister of State in Prussia.
Falckenskjold, who was considered the worst of all the offenders after Struensee and Brandt, was stripped of all his employments and honours, and condemned to be imprisoned for life in the fortress of Munkholm. Falckenskjold remained at Munkholm for four years, where he suffered many hardships; but in 1776, through the intercession of Prince Frederick, he was set at liberty, on the condition that he would never return to Danish territory. After the revolution of 1784, when Queen Matilda’s son assumed the regency, the penalties against him were repealed; he was allowed to return to Copenhagen for a time to look after his affairs, and later was promoted to the rank of major-general. He never again took active part in Danish politics, but retired to Lausanne, where he found such friends as Gibbon and Reverdil. There he wrote his Memoirs, which were largely directed to proving the innocence of Queen Matilda, and there he died in 1820 at the age of eighty-two years.