Wraxall arrived in London on April 5, and at once went to Lichtenstein’s lodgings, but to his dismay found that the Baron had gone to Hanover ten days previously. He had, however, left him a letter, directing him to wait upon Herr von Hinuber, the Hanoverian Chargé d’Affaires. Accordingly Wraxall went to Hinuber, who told him he had “the King’s directions to take from Mr. Wraxall any letters he might have, and send them immediately to the King at the ‘Queen’s House’”. Wraxall therefore gave him two packets addressed to the King, one from Queen Matilda, and the other from her Danish adherents. He also added a letter from himself, in which he again prayed the King to give him a private audience.
To these letters George III. returned no reply, and Wraxall, after waiting a fortnight in London, wrote to Baron Bülow telling him how matters stood, and asking for instructions; he also wrote to the Queen at Celle. Then followed another interval of silence. It was not until May 10 that Wraxall received a letter from Bülow, in which he informed him that the state of affairs at Copenhagen was extremely critical, and he could not give him further directions until the return of Baron Schimmelmann the younger, who had gone to Copenhagen. In the meantime he besought him not to leave London, either for Celle or Hamburg, unless he received instructions from George III.
But no word came from the King, and, while Wraxall was waiting, the London journals announced the death of the Queen of Denmark, which had taken place on May 11 at Celle.
This was the first intimation Wraxall received of the melancholy event, and he was quite overcome, for it meant not only the loss of the Queen, for whom he felt a chivalrous devotion, but the death-blow to all his hopes of reward and promotion. On May 25 Wraxall received a letter from Seckendorf, in which he lamented the loss of a kind and gracious mistress at a moment when they had hoped her troubles were nearing an end. The letter also informed him of an important fact, namely, that George III. had written to Queen Matilda an answer to the letter in which she urged the request of the Danish nobility that the English envoy at Copenhagen should avow the revolution while it was in progress. Whether the King refused her prayer, or granted it, will never be known, for the letter arrived at Celle when Matilda was either dying or dead, and it was returned to the King unopened. The probability is that he refused, and preferred to send his refusal to her direct rather than through the agency of Wraxall. The fact that he declined to see Wraxall, or recognise him in any way, goes to show that he regarded the plot with very dubious approval. Of the existence of the plot there is no doubt, but Wraxall’s version of it, and especially of the part he played, needs some corroborative evidence. This is afforded by a confidential letter which George III. wrote some years later to Lord North, in answer to Wraxall’s repeated demands that some reward should be given him for the services he had rendered to the King’s sister. The letter (dated February 9, 1781) ran as follows:—
“You may settle with Mr. Wraxall, member for Hinton, in any just demands he may have. Undoubtedly he was sent over by the discontented nobility of Denmark previous to the death of the late Queen, my sister, with a plan for getting her back to Copenhagen, which was introduced to me with a letter from her. Her death and my delicate situation, having consented to her retiring to my German dominions, prevented me from entering eagerly into this proposal.”[103]
[103] Stanhope’s History of England, 3rd edition, 1853, vol. vii., Appendix xxxii. Further corroborative evidence has been furnished by the publication of some letters of Bülow, in which he mentions that he employed Wraxall as his agent in the plot to restore the Queen.
Wraxall considered himself very shabbily treated by George III., who turned a deaf ear to his demands for years. It was not until 1781, when Wraxall had won a seat in the House of Commons, and with it a useful vote to the Government, that the Prime Minister, Lord North, gave him, on behalf of the King, a thousand guineas for his services to the Queen of Denmark, together with the promise of a seat at the Board of Green Cloth. Wraxall’s support was purchased for a time, but two years later, when he gave a vote against the Government, he forfeited all chance of further favours from the King, and the promised appointment vanished for ever. But a thousand guineas was surely a sufficient reward for a young and unknown man, admittedly in quest of adventure, who did little but carry a few letters between Hamburg, Celle and London, and it was rather for Baron Bülow and the Queen’s adherents, whose agent he was, to reward him than for George III.
Shortly after the Queen’s death Wraxall states that he received a letter from Bülow, who said that the revolution was on the point of fruition when the ill news from Celle came to scatter consternation among Matilda’s adherents. It would seem, therefore, that Bülow and his friends would have proceeded with their plan whether George III. had granted their request or not. It is idle to speculate whether they would have succeeded in their undertaking. All things were possible in Denmark at that time to those who could seize the person of the King. But it must be remembered that Christian VII. was closely guarded. Moreover, there is no evidence to show that the conspirators had the army on their side, and, without the help of the army, though they might have effected a revolution, they would have been unable to maintain it.