Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/94

358 an illumination. The people were taught that the queen was not only an adulteress, but had attempted to poison her husband; and while the churches were filled with thanksgiving for the preservation of such a valuable sovereign, it was easy for the senate, without waiting the ceremony of trial, to declare her guilty of both charges.

It was now the season for Colonel Keith to despise etiquette, and dare the utmost. Hitherto he had seen and lamented the situation of his sovereign's sister; but the jealousy with which the proceedings of the court were guarded had prevented his interference, and the astounding explosion had taken him, as it did every one else but the queen-mother and her agents, at unawares. Alone, amidst an excited and infuriated capital, he forced his way into the council where the fate of the queen was at issue, and denounced war against Denmark if a single hair of her head was touched. The British fleet was to be immediately summoned to Copenhagen, and the bombardment of the capital commenced. It was an act worthy of the proudest days of Rome, when her ambassador drew a line upon the sand, and commanded the king of Egypt not to cross it until he had decided whether he would have peace or war. After having delivered this stern declaration before the council, upon whom it fell like a thunderbolt, Keith despatched a messenger to his own court with an account of the proceedings, and a request for further orders, and till these should arrive, he locked up himself and his household, and remained for four weeks in a state of quarantine, or rather of siege and defiance. At the end of that time the expected packet arrived, and on eagerly opening it, the insignia of the Order of the Bath fell at his feet. It had been inclosed by the king's own hands, to mark his sense of Sir Robert's heroic conduct, and was accompanied with a command to invest himself forthwith, and appear at the Danish court. It was thus seen that the ambassador's menace was no idle threat, but would be made good, if need were, by a British armament. Brandt and his patron, Struensee, were, indeed, tried as traitors, and executed with revolting cruelty, having first their right hands cut off, and afterwards their heads. But against Matilda they dared not proceed to the extremities they intended. After being confined two months in a fortress, she was sent to the castle of Zell, in Hanover, where she died before her day, the broken-hearted victim of infamous accusations.

After this tragic event, Sir Robert was weary of Copenhagen. During nearly a twelvemonth that he had resided there he had never experienced anything like kindness, and this reserve would soon, in all likelihood, have been changed into downright rudeness. For was Danish pride likely to forget how he had braved it at its height? Fortunately he was not subjected to the experiment; for in November, 1772, he was appointed to hold at Vienna the situation of British ambassador, the same office which his father had held nearly twenty years before, at the court of Maria Theresa. Vienna appears to have been more to Sir Robert's taste than Copenhagen, but it was only because it was the least of two evils, for, in other respects, the Austrian capital appears to have been a huge compound of frivolity and dullness. The following is his sketch of it: "The ephemeral fly, which is born in the morning to die at night, might hold up the conversation of one half of our most brilliant aides. The play, the dance, your horse, my coach, a pretty embroidery, or a well-fancied lining, these are the favourite topics; upon every one of which I am a numskull of the first water. I never play at cards; ergo, I am not only a stupid fellow, but an useless one." Cards, indeed, he held in utter detestation, and could not be