Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/152

 Caroline was provided with a mistress; nor was any change in the situation brought about by the birth of an heir to the crown (afterwards Frederick VI), 28 Jan. 1768. Hoick succeeded in ousting from office Frau von Plessen, the queen's mistress of the robes, who had gained her confidence and whose old-fashioned severity might have kept her from the path of error (, 73-4). From 6 May 1768 to 14 Jan. 1769 the king was on his travels in England, Paris, and elsewhere, while the queen remained at Frederiksberg, gaining the good-will of her neighbours by her kindliness and her attention to her maternal duties (, i. 184). Christian VII's suite on his journey included John Frederick Struensee, a physician of Altona, who had been appointed surgeon-in-ordinary to the king for the occasion, and who on the return to Copenhagen was appointed to the post in permanency. From this point forward the ambitious adventurer's political rise began. His plan was at first by no means based upon any connivance with the queen; on the contrary, he relied upon the aid of a new royal mistress, who however died in the following August ( private journal ap., i. 216; cf. , 147). Both this person and Struensee had been odious to the queen; and when about this time she consulted the latter on a supposed attack of the dropsy, it was the king who had obliged her to do so (ib, 148). Struensee advised amusement and exercise as the best cure, and these remedies answering, she naturally gained confidence in her physician. Struensee was beyond all doubt a man of unusual intelligence, and, as his confessions to Münter suffice to prove (Conversion, &c, 41-2), a convinced lady-killer. While the king encouraged an intimacy which kept the queen amused, Struensee seems to have exerted himself to bring about a better understanding between the royal pair, and by his efforts to have gained the approval of both. In January 1770 he was assigned rooms in the Christiansberg palace (, i. 221); and his successful inoculation of the crown prince early in the year raised him higher than ever in the royal favour (Authentische Aufklärungen, 40; the process was of quite recent introduction). He was now named councillor of conference and reader to the king and queen; and from this time the intimacy between the latter and Struensee must have rapidly reached its climax. Indeed, if certain evidence brought against the Queen after her catastrophe is to be believed, the familiarity between her and Struensee had attracted the suspicions of her attendants as early as the winter of 1769-70 (see Bang's indictment, ap., 281 seq.) After this they had imposed restraint upon themselves, but only for a time; soon their intimacy was paraded before the capital (see the anecdote of the queen passing in her riding-habit on Struensee's arm by the corpse of the dowager Sophia Magdalena when it lay in state. May 1770, ap. , 51 note), and revealed itself in the provinces, to which the court paid a visit in June (see the testimony of Prince Charles of Hesse ap. , L 232).

During this visit, perhaps while the court sojourned at Travendahl, Struensee perfected his ambitious projects in company with Enevold von Brandt, a former royal page who had returned to the court, and with Shack Charles, count von Rantzau-Ascheberg, to whom Struensee owed his admission to the royal service and whose high official career had been arrested largely by Russian influence. Their intrigues resulted by the end of July in the dismissal of Hoick and others, among whom were his sister Madame von der Lühe, the mistress of the robes, and other ladies attached to the person of the queen. Shortly before this Caroline Matilda's mother, the dowager Princess of Wales, paid a visit to the continent, where for many reasons she wished to meet her daughter. The proposed meeting at Brunswick was, however, postponed; nor was it till August that mother and daughter met—for the last time—at Lüneburg. Struensee was in the queen's company, and the princess found no opportunity of doing more than requesting Woodford, the British minister to the Lower Saxon Circle, to make representations to the queen concerning her conduct; nor was the Duke of Gloucester, who shortly afterwards paid a visit to Copenhagen on the same errand, more successful (, 159-60). At Hirschholm, near Copenhagen, where the court spent the rest of the summer, the fall of Bernstorff, the chief minister of Denmark, was brought about. This change of government may be briefly described as disagreeable to the Russian and therefore agreeable to the Swedish, agreeable to the French and therefore disagreeable to the British, interest at Copenhagen. Hereupon, in defiance alike of national traditions and public feeling, the reforms of Struensee in court, state, and social life ran their course; and though 'there might be something "rotten" in the state of Denmark, there was nothing rusty' since the new brooms had been set to work (, i. 229). He was appointed master of requests December 1770; in the same month the council was suppressed by