Nearly a hundred years after Matilda’s death (in 1864) one of her many apologists, Sir Lascelles Wraxall, grandson of the Nathaniel Wraxall who had acted as agent in the plot for her restoration, published a letter which he said had been given him by her daughter the Duchess of Augustenburg, who had been allowed to take a copy of it by the King of Hanover from the original document preserved in the Hanoverian archives.[107] This letter purported to be written by the Queen when she was on her deathbed to her brother George III., and proclaimed her innocence. The Duchess of Augustenburg was the Princess Louise Augusta of Denmark, the infant daughter taken from Matilda’s arms at Kronborg, the Princess whose birth occasioned so much scandalous rumour. She, therefore (though formally recognised as the daughter of Christian VII.), was interested in the question of her mother’s innocence, and, coming from such hands, the genuineness of the letter at first sight would seem to be, as Wraxall says, “incontestable”. The letter ran as follows:—

[107] Wraxall was apparently unaware that this letter had already appeared in print—in the Times of January 27, 1852.

“Sire,

“In the most solemn hour of my life I turn to you, my royal brother, to express my heart’s thanks for all the kindness you have shown me during my whole life, and especially in my misfortune.

“I die willingly, for nothing holds me back—neither my youth, nor the pleasures which might await me, near or remote. How could life possess any charms for me, who am separated from all those I love—my husband, my children and my relatives? I, who am myself a queen and of royal blood, have lived the most wretched life, and stand before the world an example that neither crown nor sceptre affords any protection against misfortune!

“But I die innocent—I write this with a trembling hand and feeling death imminent—I am innocent. Oh, that it might please the Almighty to convince the world after my death that I did not deserve any of the frightful accusations by which the calumnies of my enemies stained my character, wounded my heart, traduced my honour and trampled on my dignity.

“Sire, believe your dying sister, a queen and even more, a Christian, who would gaze with terror on the other world if her last confession were a falsehood. I die willingly, for the unhappy bless the tomb. But more than all else, and even than death, it pains me that not one of all those I loved in life is standing by my dying bed to grant me a last consolation by a pressure of the hand, or a glance of compassion, to close my eyes in death.

“Still, I am not alone. God, the sole witness of my innocence, is looking down on my bed of agony; my guardian angel is hovering over me, and will soon guide me to the spot where I shall be able to pray for my friends, and also for my persecutors.

“Farewell, then, my royal brother! May Heaven bless you—my husband—my children—England—Denmark—and the whole world. Permit my corpse to rest in the vault of my parents, and now the last, unspeakably sad farewell from your unfortunate

“Caroline Matilda.”

THE CHURCH AT CELLE, WHERE QUEEN MATILDA IS BURIED.
From a Photograph.

If this document were genuine, it would go far to prove the innocence of the Queen, for it must be remembered that the evidence against her, even at its worst, was presumptive only, and it is unlikely, from all we know of the genuine piety of her later years that she would have faced death with a lie on her lips. But after patient inquiry nothing can be found to prove its genuineness. The most convincing proof, of course, would be the existence of the original letter in the Queen’s well-known handwriting; but no such letter exists in the Hanoverian archives; nor does it exist among the Guelph domestic papers, which the King of Hanover took with him into exile after the war of 1866. While there was still a king in Hanover the late Mr. Heneage Jesse[108] applied to the Hanoverian officials for information concerning this letter, and received the following reply from Baron von Malortie, minister and chamberlain to the King: “In the royal Hanoverian archives there is not the letter alluded to of the late Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark. Solely the royal museum contains a printed copy of a letter pretending to be written by the said late Queen on her deathbed to her royal brother, George III. of Great Britain, and it is presumed that the Duchess of Augustenburg was permitted by the late King, Ernest Augustus’ Majesty, to take a copy of this printed copy, now in the family museum.” He then went on to say that all the officials of the Hanoverian archives were strongly of the opinion that the Queen “never did write, nor could write, on her deathbed such a letter, and that the pretended letter of her Majesty is nothing but the work of one of her friends in England, written after her death and then translated. The history of her Majesty’s last illness and of her death is here well known, and excludes almost the possibility of her writing and forwarding such a letter to her royal brother.”[109]

[108] Author of the Memoirs of the Life and Reign of King George III.

[109] Jesse’s Memoirs and Life of George III., 1867, vol. ii.

There still remains the theory put forward by some—that the Queen, in writing this letter, protested her innocence only in general terms, and she may have been referring to the charges made against her of plotting with Struensee to poison or depose her husband, of which she certainly was innocent. But this theory is untenable from another plea put forward by the Queen’s defenders, and which perhaps deserves more respectful consideration than the letter. Some years after the Queen’s death Falckenskjold published his Memoirs, and in them we find the following statement:—