A VIEW OF ELSINORE, SHOWING THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG.
From the Drawing by C. F. Christensen.
The Queen received Captain Macbride very graciously, and conversed with him a few minutes. When he asked her when it would please her to sail, she exclaimed: “Ah, my dear children!” and, putting her hands to her face, abruptly quitted the room. Later she sent Captain Macbride a message, asking him to forgive her emotion, and appointing two days later, May 30, as the date of her departure.
When it was known that the British squadron was anchored off Elsinore, great excitement prevailed at the Danish court. By way of speeding the parting guest, perhaps also to spy upon her, a deputation of noblemen was sent from Copenhagen by the Queen-Dowager to formally wait upon Matilda and wish her a pleasant voyage. Queen Matilda received the deputation with quiet dignity, and said the day would come when the King would know that he had been betrayed and deceived, but, for herself, she henceforth lived only for her children.
On the day appointed by the Queen for her departure, a lady from the Danish court arrived at Kronborg in one of the royal coaches, with an escort, to take charge of the Princess Louise Augusta. The Queen was agonised at parting from the infant, who had been her sole consolation in the dreary months of her captivity, and whom she had nursed at the breast. She even thought her liberty purchased at too dear a price. The hope that this child would be allowed to remain with her had been one of the inducements which led her to sign the damning paper called her confession. It must have been a bitter thought to her that she had signed away her honour in vain, and the babe for whom she made this supreme sacrifice was to be torn from her arms. For a long time the Queen held her child to her breast, and wept over it, showering on it caresses and endearing words. The lady who had come to take charge of the infant, and all who witnessed the parting, were hardly less affected; but the scene could not be prolonged for ever. Pleadings and remonstrances were unavailing, and the women had almost to use force to take the little princess from her mother’s arms. At last the heart-broken Queen yielded her infant, and cried wildly, “Let me away, for I now possess nothing here!”
By this time it was six o’clock in the evening. Everything was ready for the Queen’s departure, and Captain Macbride and Sir Robert Keith had been waiting at the castle all the afternoon to escort the Queen on board. At last she was ready to leave. It was arranged that the Queen should be attended as far as Stade by Count and Countess Holstein, Fräulein Mösting and a page. Of her other Danish attendants the Queen now took farewell, and many of them were moved to tears. She also bade adieu to the commandant of Kronborg and his wife, and exonerated them from all blame for the deprivations she had suffered. She thanked the commandant for what he had done directly he was allowed to ameliorate the rigours of her captivity; to his wife she gave a gold snuff-box as a souvenir. Nor did she forget the poor prisoners, for whom she left a sum of money. Though she came to Kronborg a prisoner she left it as a Queen, and a Queen to whom full honours were paid. The guard presented arms and an escort was drawn up in the courtyard; the Queen descended the stone stairs up which she had been hurried five months before, and entered her coach. The commandant accompanied her to the outermost gate of the fortress, where he took his leave. Thence it was only a few yards to the harbour, where a Danish royal barge was waiting to row the Queen out to the English squadron.
Immediately the Queen and her suite stepped on board H.M.S. Southampton the royal standard of England was unfurled, and the cannon of Kronborg and of the Danish guardship in the Sound fired a salute of twenty-one guns. The anchors were weighed immediately, and the little English squadron set sail up the Cattegat, for it was decided to go round Jutland, and so avoid Copenhagen. It was a fine summer’s night, and the Queen remained on deck, her eyes fixed on the vanishing fortress (her child was to remain there until the morrow, when she was to be taken to Copenhagen); nor could she be persuaded to go below until darkness intercepted her view. As there was little wind during the night the vessels made small headway. At the first break of dawn the Queen was on deck again, and to her satisfaction found that she could still catch a glimpse of the towers of Kronborg, which she watched until they faded from her view.
Owing to contrary winds the voyage to Stade took several days. The Queen is said to have beguiled her voyage by writing a long poem beginning:—
At length from sceptred care and deadly state,
From galling censure and ill-omened hate,