Lichtenstein told Wraxall that it was the King’s pleasure that he should first go to Celle to deliver the letter to the Queen, and show her the articles signed by Lichtenstein; then, after he had seen the Queen, he was to proceed to her Danish adherents at Hamburg. Accordingly, Wraxall left London on February 3, 1775, and after a long and troublesome journey arrived at Celle a fortnight later, on February 17.[101] He entered the town as before under an assumed name, and went to an obscure inn. The next morning he received a visit from Seckendorf, who received him with pleasure, and told him that the Queen was most impatient to see him, and would give him an audience that afternoon. “When you hear the palace clock strike four,” Seckendorf said, “set out from the inn on foot for the castle. Mantel, the Queen’s valet, will wait to receive you, and conduct you to her.” Accordingly, Wraxall gave Seckendorf his despatches, and went to the castle at the hour named. Mantel was waiting for him, and admitted him through a side door, probably in the western wing. He was led through a great number of rooms to a small apartment, and there left alone; at the end of it were stairs leading to the Queen’s chamber.[102] A minute later the Queen came into the room, and welcomed Wraxall most graciously. Their interview is best told in his own words:—
“We conversed till about ten minutes past six entirely alone, and in the most unreservedly undisguised manner. Her Majesty made me the recital of her reign—of the revolution—of her own conduct on that fatal night when she lost her crown. I listened in silence and astonishment. What a recapitulation did she not make me! Her words are for ever engraven on my heart; I could repeat her story almost verbatim. I know what scarce any other man on earth can know. I must own her unreserve, her goodness, her minute detail of circumstances the most concealed in their nature, my situation quite alone with her, superadded to some consciousness still more affecting, made me more than once forget I was talking to a queen. She was dressed in a brown silk polonaise, trimmed with green silk, her hair powdered, a locket on her bosom. Her under-lip is too large, but her teeth are fine, and that family violence in speaking becomes her; her nose is finely shaped, and her eyes are eloquent; she is thinner in the face than she was last October. She showed me his Majesty’s letters to her, and permitted me to carry an extract from one away with me. She was obliged to leave me soon after six, which otherwise she seemed in no way inclined to do. Her talents are very good, and in mimicry she excels; her specimen of Prince Frederick of Denmark was excellent.”
[101] In his private journal Wraxall gives a long account of the hardships of this journey, but, as they concern himself rather than the Queen of Denmark, I omit them here.
[102] I have seen this room—a small, dark apartment. It was the garde-robe (or dressing-room), and is on the way from the Queen’s bedroom and the chapel.
After another interview with Seckendorf Wraxall was conducted out of the castle as secretly as he came. The next day he went to Hamburg, where, after an inclement journey, he arrived on February 21. At Hamburg he remained three weeks, and saw a good deal of Baron Bülow, to whom he communicated the result of his visit to England and many messages from Queen Matilda. The articles drawn up and signed by Lichtenstein on behalf of George III., which Wraxall had first submitted to Matilda, he now handed to Bülow, who received them with mingled feelings. The first two articles he wholly approved, but he regretted that George III. would not advance any pecuniary assistance and still more he lamented the fourth article, which promised that the English envoy at Copenhagen would only support and avow the revolution after it had been effected, instead of avowing it while it was actually in progress.
Bülow forwarded the articles to his confederates in Copenhagen, and also had many consultations with his friends at Altona. It was not until March 14 that he received an answer from Copenhagen, which was much as Bülow had anticipated: all the conspirators objected to the fourth article, and all agreed that it would be well to get the King of England to reconsider his decision on that point. What they asked was that the British envoy should come forward at the time they were effecting the counter-revolution, and publicly avow it on behalf of the King, his master. Bülow therefore resolved that a letter to the King of England should be drawn up to this effect, and Wraxall should convey it to London.
On March 20 Bülow gave Wraxall the letter to the King. His instructions were that he should take this document first to Celle, submit it to the Queen, and ask her to enclose it in a letter written by herself to the King of England, in which she would urge their plea by every means in her power. Wraxall was also to acquaint the Queen with the plan of the revolution, which was now settled, and was as follows: On the day fixed certain of the conspirators would repair to the palace, obtain access to the King (Christian VII.), and induce, or compel, him to affix his name to documents already drawn up. These documents would include an order to the Queen-Dowager to retire to her own apartment until the King’s further pleasure were known, and to Prince Frederick to remove to one of the country palaces—probably that of Frederiksborg. At the same time, by virtue of a similar order, the ministers would be dismissed, or arrested, and a messenger sent off to Celle to invite the Queen to return to Denmark to resume her proper rank and authority. That their measures would be so well concerted and so rapidly executed as to produce the counter-revolution in a space of a few hours. That they trusted, therefore, Queen Matilda on her part would repair with all possible expedition to Copenhagen. A proper escort, becoming her dignity, would be formed to accompany her from Altona through the Danish territories, and her adherents calculated that she might, with despatch, reach Copenhagen in four days from the time of her quitting Celle, if no extraordinary impediment arose in her crossing the two Belts. Her presence in the capital of Denmark would animate the courage of her friends, cover her enemies with consternation, and complete the counter-revolution.
Wraxall arrived at Celle on March 22 with the same secrecy as on former occasions. As the Princess of Brunswick was at the castle he was unable to see the Queen for two days, and then he was taken to the Queen secretly on the night of Friday, March 24, and had an audience with her after the Princess of Brunswick had retired to rest. It was a dark and stormy night when Wraxall set out from his lodgings, and he waited for some little time at the entrance of the drawbridge over the moat, sheltering himself as well as he could from the wind and rain. At last Mantel came, and led him in silence over the drawbridge, under the portico, and into the courtyard of the castle, and thence by a side door up a private staircase and along a corridor into the Queen’s library or boudoir. “Two candles were burning,” says Wraxall, “and the book-cases were thrown open, as it was uncertain at what hour the Queen would come to me.” He waited some time alone, and then Mantel brought him a note from Seckendorf, saying that the Queen was in the Princess of Brunswick’s apartments, and would come directly she had retired. As this was his last interview, it had better be told in his own words:—
“I had scarcely perused the note when I heard the Queen’s footstep on the staircase; a moment afterwards she entered the room. She was charmingly dressed, though without diamonds; she had on a crimson satin sacque and her hair dressed. I drew a chair, and entreated her to allow me to stand and receive her commands while she was seated, but she declined it, and we both stood the whole time. Our interview lasted about two hours. It was a quarter past eleven when I asked her Majesty if I should retire, and she signified her pleasure that I should. She approved of the letter drawn up by the Danish nobility to the King of Great Britain, as well as the request contained in it, which she confessed to be natural and just, though she doubted his Britannic Majesty’s consent to it. ‘I will, however,’ she added, ‘write to my brother the letter requested before I go to bed to-night, enforcing as far as I am able the petition of the nobility. You shall receive it from Baron Seckendorf to-morrow morning, and at the same time that of the Danish nobility shall be returned to you.’
“Her Majesty ordered me to assure Baron von Bülow by letter that she was satisfied with all I communicated to her on his part, and that she should be ready on the shortest notice to mount on horseback in men’s clothes, in order more expeditiously to reach Copenhagen, there to encounter every difficulty with her friends.”
The Queen thanked Wraxall very warmly for his zeal in her service, and said she would commend him to the King her brother, who, she doubted not, would recompense him properly. She told him to write to her freely from England, and then bade him adieu. “When the Queen was about to withdraw,” says Wraxall, “she opened the door, but held it a few minutes in her hand as if she had something to say; she then retired.” He was conducted from the castle as secretly as he had entered it, and the next morning left Celle on his way to England.