The confirmation of the Crown Prince was followed, as a matter of course, by his admission to the Council of State, and this took place on April 14, 1784. As it was an occasion of some ceremony, the King himself occupied the presidential chair; the Crown Prince was seated on his right, and Prince Frederick, the King’s brother, on his left. The Queen-Dowager had taken the precaution of appointing two new members of the Council of State, her creatures, who were sworn to carry out her wishes, and outvote any proposals of the Crown Prince. The first business of the meeting, therefore, was the swearing in of these two new members, and of Count Rosencrone, another nominee. When the three men advanced to sign the oath and formally take their seats, the Crown Prince rose and begged the King to command them to wait until he made a proposition. The King bowed assent—he was in the habit of assenting to every proposal—and before any one could interpose, the Crown Prince produced a memorandum which he read from beginning to end. It proved to be a most revolutionary document: he requested his father to dissolve the present cabinet, to recall two of his own supporters—Rosenkrantz and Bernstorff—to the Council of State, and to appoint two others, also his supporters—Huth and Stampe—thus giving him a majority in the Council. The Crown Prince then laid the memorandum before the King for signature, and, dipping a pen in the ink, placed it in the King’s hand. At that moment Prince Frederick, who, with the other members of the Council, had been taken by surprise, recovered his self-possession, and attempted to snatch the paper away from the King, who was about to sign it, but the Crown Prince intervened and held it fast. One of the newly appointed members of the Council, Rosencrone, entered a protest, and said: “Your Royal Highness, you must know that His Majesty cannot sign such a paper without due consideration.” The Crown Prince turned to Rosencrone with an air of great dignity. “It is not your place, sir,” said he, “to advise the King, but mine—I am heir to the throne, and, as such, responsible only to the nation.” To the astonishment of all, Guldberg remained silent, and, taking advantage of the momentary hesitation, the Crown Prince obtained his father’s signature to the document, and further got him to write “approved” across the corner. He put the paper into his pocket.

The imbecile King, who was greatly frightened at this scene, took advantage of the pause to run out of the council chamber to his apartments. Prince Frederick, foiled in obtaining the paper, resolved at least to secure the King, and ran after him with all speed, bolting the door from the outside when he left the room.

The Crown Prince at once assumed the presidency of the council, and, turning to four Privy Councillors—Moltke, Guldberg, Stemen and Rosencrone—declared that the King no longer required their services. At the same time he announced the dismissal of three other members of the Government. He then broke up the meeting, and endeavoured to follow his father, but finding the door locked which led to the King’s apartments, he went round another way. Here, too, he found the door barred against him. He declared that he would have it broken down by force, and had given orders for this to be done when the door opened and Prince Frederick appeared, leading the King by the arm, with the intention of conducting him to the Queen-Dowager’s apartments. The Crown Prince sprang forward, and, seizing the King by the other arm, endeavoured to draw him back, assuring him that nothing would be done without his sanction, and that he only wished to secure the King’s honour and the welfare of the country. The feeble monarch seemed inclined to stay with his son rather than go with his brother, and this so incensed the Prince Frederick that he seized the Crown Prince by the collar, and endeavoured to drag him away from the King by force. But the younger man was the stronger, and clutching his father with his left hand, he used his right so energetically against his uncle that Prince Frederick was obliged to let go. At that moment the Crown Prince was reinforced by his page, and between them they drove Prince Frederick down the corridor, and shut the door on him. The King, who had been almost pulled asunder by the excited combatants, ran back to his apartments, whither he was followed a few minutes later by his son, who now had his father in his safe keeping.

Thus was effected the palace revolution of April 14, 1784—a revolution which overthrew not only the Government, but the Queen-Dowager and her son. Its success or its failure turned on the result of this undignified struggle for the possession of the King’s person, for if Prince Frederick had succeeded in carrying the King to the Queen-Dowager’s apartments, the recently signed ordinance would have been revoked, and steps would have been taken to prevent a repetition of the Crown Prince’s efforts to assert himself.

The Queen-Dowager’s rage when her son told her what had occurred in the Council of State, and that the King was now in the keeping of the Crown Prince, may be better imagined than described. She vowed and protested that she would never submit to the power being thus snatched from her hands; she wished to go to the King at once, but was told that the Crown Prince and his friends would surely not admit her. She threatened to summon the palace guard to take the King away by force, but she was told that the Crown Prince had taken the precaution to secure the good-will not only of the palace guard, but, through commander-in-chief, of the whole army, and she was, in fact, already a prisoner. Then at last Juliana Maria realised that she was outwitted, and her reign was over for ever. The bitterness of her defeat was intensified by the thought that it had been effected by the son of the woman whom she had imprisoned and driven into exile.

The Crown Prince was proclaimed Regent the same day amid scenes of the greatest enthusiasm. In the afternoon he walked alone through the principal streets of Copenhagen; there was no guard, and the crowds which filled the streets everywhere made room for him to pass, and welcomed him with shouts and acclamations. As he said, the Danish people were his guard, and when he returned three hours later to the Christiansborg Palace, he had firmly riveted his hold on the affections of his future subjects.

The Crown Prince behaved, as his mother would have done if she had been restored to the throne, with magnanimity: there was no bloodshed, and he treated even his bitterest enemies with great clemency. The rule of Juliana Maria was at an end, and henceforth neither she nor her son had the slightest influence in affairs of state. But the Crown Prince treated them both with every respect and courtesy: they were permitted to retain their apartments at the Christiansborg Palace,[116] and the palace of Fredensborg was made over for the use of Juliana Maria. She lived in retirement until her death, which took place in 1796, at the age of sixty-seven years. Until the last she was pursued by popular execration, and even after her death, until comparatively recent time, it was the habit of many of the Danish peasants to spit on her tomb at Röskilde as a mark of their undying hatred.

[116] In 1794 they were driven out by the great fire which destroyed the Christiansborg, but apartments were found for them in the Amalienborg.

Her son, Prince Frederick, who had neither his mother’s abilities nor her evil traits of character, had not the energy to meddle in affairs of state, and spent the rest of his days in promoting the arts and sciences. He died in 1805. He had married in 1774 Sophia Frederika, a princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.[117] His elder son succeeded to the throne of Denmark in 1839 as King Christian VIII.[118]

[117] The younger of these daughters was the grandmother of Queen Alexandra.