[118] He died in 1848, and was succeeded by his son Frederick VII., who, dying in 1863 without issue, was succeeded by the present King of Denmark, Christian IX.
Of Queen Matilda’s two children little remains to be said. Her daughter, Louise Augusta, grew up a very beautiful and accomplished princess, who in wit and affability strongly recalled her mother, and between her and her brother there existed the fondest ties of attachment. She married the Duke of Augustenburg, and died in 1843, at the age of seventy-two. The daughter of this Princess, Caroline Amalie, married, as her second husband, Prince Christian Frederick, son of the Hereditary Prince Frederick (who, on the death of his cousin, Frederick VI., without male issue, became Christian VIII.), and thus the rival races of Juliana Maria and Matilda were united. Queen Caroline Amalie survived her husband for many years, and died in 1881, aged eighty-five years.
FREDERICK, CROWN PRINCE OF DENMARK (AFTERWARDS KING FREDERICK VI.), SON OF QUEEN MATILDA.
Queen Matilda’s son, who, after a long regency, became, in 1808 (on the death of his father, Christian VII., at the age of fifty-nine), Frederick VI., was a liberal and enlightened prince; yet neither his regency nor his reign was very successful. When Regent he made repeated efforts to obtain the hand of an English princess in marriage, one of the many daughters of George III.; but the King of England, who had taken a violent dislike to Denmark after its cruel treatment of his unfortunate sister, would not listen to the proposal. The heir to the Danish monarchy, thus repulsed, married Marie Sophie Frederika, a princess of Hesse-Cassel, who bore him two daughters, Caroline, who married the Hereditary Prince Ferdinand, and Vilhelmine Marie, who married Prince Frederick Carl Christian. His self-love was deeply wounded by the way in which his overtures had been spurned by his uncle, George III., and henceforth his foreign policy became anti-English, and he threw in his lot with France. To this may be traced directly, or indirectly, many of the disasters that overcame Denmark during the reign of Frederick VI.—the naval engagement of 1801, wherein the English attacked Copenhagen and forced the Danes to abandon it, the second attack by the British on Copenhagen, and its bombardment in 1807, which resulted in the surrender of the whole of the Danish and Norwegian fleets, and, in 1814, through the alliance of Denmark and France against Great Britain and Sweden, the loss of Norway to Denmark.
These disasters naturally engendered a feeling of bitterness on the part of the brave Danes towards the English for a time, but this feeling has long since passed away, and the two nations, whose history is intimately connected, and who are akin in race and sympathy, are now united in the bond of friendship—a bond which has been immeasurably strengthened by the auspicious union which has given to us the most beautiful Queen and the most beloved Queen-Consort that England has ever known.
THE END.