THE EXECUTION.
CONFIRMATION OF THE SENTENCE--STRUENSEE'S CORRESPONDENCE--RANTZAU'S
TREACHERY--AN UNFEELING COURT--STRUENSEE'S PENITENCE--THE
SCAFFOLD--APRIL 28--EXECUTION OF BRANDT--HORRIBLE DETAILS--DEATH OF
STRUENSEE--HIS CHARACTER--ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM--THE FIRST SERVANT OF
THE STATE--THE QUEEN DOWAGER.
On the same day that the sentences were signed by the Commissioners,
Uldall, the counsel, went to Struensee, in order to inform him of the
termination of the trial.
When the advocate entered the cell, he said to the unhappy victim of a
conspiracy:
"Good count, I bring you bad news."
And with these scant words he drew a copy of the approved sentence out of
his pocket.
Calmly and silently the man condemned to such a cruel death perused the
sentence, but not the slightest alteration took place in his countenance.
Then, he handed the ominous paper to Dr. Münter, who happened to be with
him at the time.
While the latter was trembling as he read the sentence, Struensee began
to talk with composure with his counsel, and asked if all the points of
his accusation had been regarded in passing his sentence, especially that
about the education of the crown prince; to which Uldall answered in the
affirmative. Struensee added, that he must confess that, if he had had
children of his own, he would not have reared them in any other way.
"And what will Brandt's fate be?" he exclaimed.
"His sentence is exactly the same as yours," Uldall replied.
"And could his counsel do nothing to save him?" Struensee went on to ask.
"He said everything that could be urged in his favour, but Count Brandt
has too much laid to his charge."
This information caused Struensee greater emotion than the news of his
own fate. But he soon regained his composure, and added a few words about
a petition to the king for mercy, although he at the same time expressed
his conviction, that even this last step would meet with no success.
When Struensee and Münter were left alone again, the man who was now
Death's own assured his friend that his impending punishment did not
terrify him. He had thought that he might be broken on the wheel, and
was already considering whether he could suffer this kind of death with
patience.
"If I have deserved such a death," he then added, "my infamy would not
be removed, though those disgraceful circumstances were not annexed to
it. And if I had not deserved it, which I cannot assert, sensible people
would do me justice, and I should gain in point of honour. And upon the
whole, what is honour or infamy in this world to me? My judges had the
law before them, and therefore they could not decide otherwise. I confess
my crime is great: I have violated the majesty of the king. Many things
I might not have done if I had been sufficiently acquainted with the
law,--But why did I neglect it?"
These words, uttered by Struensee so shortly before his death, seemed
to reveal a doubt of his perfect innocence. Perhaps, however, this
uncertainty was rather produced by his conversion to the Christian
religion, by the recollection of past errors, and by the effect of a long
and painful imprisonment; while the imminent and awful close of his life
might also have produced impressions on him which made him fancy himself
guiltier than he really was. Or was it the voice of his conscience at the
remembrance of the ruin which he had brought on his young queen, which
spoke out of his soul, though he dared not clothe it in language?
My readers will remember how much this unhappy man was affected by a
letter which he received from his father, at the time when he still
maintained his irreligious principles. He now delivered to Dr. Münter a
letter for his parents, leaving him the option whether he would send it
at once, or after the execution. Münter chose the latter course, as he
knew Struensee's death was very near at hand, and he wished to save them
the anxiety of expecting the melancholy news of it. The letter was to the
following effect:--
Your letters have increased my pain; but I have found in them that
love which you always expressed for me. The memory of all the sorrow
I have caused you, by living contrary to your good advice, and the
great affliction my imprisonment and death must give you, grieve me
the more, since, enlightened by truth, I see clearly the injury I
have done. With the most sincere repentance I implore your pardon and
forgiveness. I owe my present situation to my belief in the doctrine
and redemption of Christ. Your prayers and your good example have
contributed much toward it. Be assured that your son has found the
great good, which you believe to be the only true one. Look upon his
misfortune as the means which made him obtain it. All impressions
which my fate could make or give will be weakened by this, as it has
effaced them with me. I recommend myself to your further intercession
before God. I pray incessantly to Christ, my Redeemer, that he may
enable you to bear your present calamities. I owe the same to His
assistance. My love to my brothers and sisters.
Brandt also received from his defender, Bang, a copy of the sentence
passed on him, and, like Struensee, sent in a petition for mercy. It
was reported that he would be pardoned. For Owe Guldberg, the most
influential of the judges at Christiansborg Palace, had thrown himself
at the feet of Queen Juliana Maria, who now held the authority in her
hands, and implored a mitigation of the punishment. But the queen dowager
absolutely refused to listen to him, not even when Guldberg earnestly
implored that at least Brandt's life might be saved. Crushed by such
harshness, and bitterly undeceived as to the extent of his influence, he
returned to his apartments, threw himself on the bed, refused to take
food, and passed several days in apathetic reflection.
Brandt's mother and brother asked permission to come to court to implore
the king's clemency, and, being unable to obtain it, they wrote to
the queen dowager and to Prince Frederick. The answers they received
were full of compliments, but gave them no hope. It was said, however,
that in the council, when the question of confirming the sentence was
discussed, there were voices for mercy; but that Counts von Rantzau and
Von der Osten absolutely opposed any being shown. The honour of the king
should have demanded that Brandt's life should be spared, in order to
conceal from the world what had passed between them, but the king had
an extreme repugnance to this; the mere name of the ex-favourite made
him tremble and turn pale. He positively declared that he would not save
Brandt unless Struensee were also spared, and the ministry considered
it necessary to immolate one of the victims, so as not to let the other
escape. The two sentences were consequently confirmed without the
slightest display of clemency.
Count von Rantzau more particularly displayed a sustained hardness and
fearful blackness of soul. He, doubtless, believed that by closing all
access to clemency, by forcing to the scaffold two intimate friends, one
of whom had been his benefactor, he should purge himself of the suspicion
of complicity, and that by sheer hypocrisy he should cause his connection
with the condemned men to be forgotten. At any other time, instead of
sitting in the council and determining the fate of the culprits, he would
have himself been the object of a severe sentence; instead of being
spared for having betrayed the favourites, there would have been an
additional charge against him, that of anticipating the royal commands to
arrest them; hence, being well aware that, in spite of his dignities, he
was marked, both as a restless and unbelieving man, he was more assiduous
than any one in his attendance at the court chapel, and joined in singing
hymns, which must have possessed all the charm of novelty for him.[17]
How little feeling that most miserable of monarchs, Christian, really had
in the whole matter, is seen by a perusal of the Danish journals at the
time. The amusements of the court offer a most revolting exhibition of
apathy and want of sympathy.
On April 23, there was a masked ball, _en domino_, at which the king,
the queen dowager, and their suite were present; on the 24th, instead of
the play, a concert at the Danish theatre, where the royal family were
present; on the 25th, the sentence on Counts Struensee and Brandt was
pronounced in open court; in the evening, the opera of _Adrien en Syrie_
was performed. The small-pox continuing its ravages, on the 26th, Sunday,
profane amusements were interdicted by the new government. On the 27th,
the king dined with his court at Charlottenlund, and returned to town at
7 P.M.; he signed the sentences, and proceeded to the Italian Opera. On
the 28th, the day of the execution, there was a grand concert at court.
Well may a writer in the _Annales Belgiques_ for May, 1772, remark:--
"If the king has unfortunately reached such a stage of unfeelingness,
what praise does not Caroline Matilda deserve for having succeeded
in captivating him so greatly that up to the present it was not even
suspected that he possessed such a disposition?"
In the meanwhile, Dr. Münter had informed Struensee, on April 26th, of
the promulgation of the sentences, and that they would be carried into
effect two days after. Struensee listened to him patiently, and then
remarked, as to the circumstances which were to throw infamy upon his
death--
"I am far above all this, and I hope my friend Brandt may be the same.
Here in this world--since I am on the point of leaving it--neither honour
nor infamy can affect me any more. It is equally the same to me after
death, whether my body putrifies under ground or in the open air; whether
it serves to feed the worms or the birds. God will know very well how to
preserve those particles of my body which, on the day of resurrection,
are to constitute my future glorified body. It is not my all which is to
be laid on the wheel. Thank God! I know now very well that this dust is
not my whole being."
After this they conversed quietly about various matters concerning
Struensee's administration. The decision whether his government had
been politically bad he left to posterity, and many times repeated his
assurance that he was not conscious of any wrong intentions. When Dr.
Münter left him, Struensee handed him the following letter for Frau von
Berkentin at Pinneberg. This was the patroness who, as chief gouvernante
to the prince royal, had recommended Struensee as physician in ordinary
for the king's foreign tour:--
I make use of the first moments which permit me to write to you.
Business, duties, and my late connexions have perhaps lessened in me
the remembrance of my former friends, but they have been not able
to obliterate their memory entirely. My present leisure has revived
it. If my silence has aroused suspicion as to my former sentiments,
I beg pardon of all those who are entitled to my gratitude, and
of you, gracious lady, in particular. This however, is not the
only advantage which the change of my fate has produced. I owe my
knowledge of truth to it; it has procured me a happiness of which
I had no further expectation, as I had already lost sight of it. I
entreat you to consider my misfortunes in no other light but that of
religion. I gain more by them than I can ever lose; and I feel and
assure you of this with conviction, ease, and joy of heart. I beg you
to repeat what I now write in the house of Count Ahlefeldt and at
Rantzau. I am under great obligations to these two families, and it
has grieved me far more to have drawn with me into misfortune persons
who are related to them.
On the following day, April 27, Struensee also referred to his
administration, and assured Münter again, most sacredly, that he had not
falsified the accounts about the presents made by the king to him and
Brandt. Münter's remarks on this subject are worthy quotation:--
"It is difficult to dismiss every suspicion on this head against
Struensee; and if he were guilty, of how little value would be his
conversion! It has made me uneasy, frequently, and even now, still,
after his death. All manner of appearances, his own confession that he
could not free himself from all suspicion, and many other evidences,
are against him. However, on the other side, it makes me easy that he
confessed greater and more punishable crimes without constraint, but
denied this with a firmness, calmness of mind and confidence, which,
inexplicable as the matter remains, makes it difficult to believe him
guilty."
Struensee then handed to Münter the following letter to Chamberlain
Christian Brandt, which he desired him to get delivered:--
Permit me to bewail with you and with the gracious lady your mother,
the fate of our dear Enevold. Do not think me unworthy of sharing
your grief with you, though, accidentally, I have been the cause of
it. You know how much I love him. He was the man of all the world
who possessed the largest share of my friendship. His misfortunes
cause me the greatest anxiety, and my own have been on his account
most painful to me. He has shared my prosperity with me, and I trust
that we shall now together enjoy that happiness which our Redeemer
has promised us. I do not know anything wherewith I could comfort
you. You are acquainted with religion. In that I found a refuge to
comfort me on account of my misfortune. I pray to God that he may at
this very moment let you feel all its power. I shall not cease to
entertain a most lively sense of gratitude toward all those persons
who are dear to me at Rantzau. I am wholly yours, &c.
April 27, 1772.
P.S.--I have been in hopes, and still flatter myself, that the
sentence of my friend will be mitigated.
To Münter, Struensee declared that Brandt's sentence of death could not
be signed with a good conscience; for, he said, he could not regard
the action for which his friend's life was forfeited as a crime, and
he, Struensee, did not repent having taken part in it. On the other
hand, he reproached Brandt, because in his intercourse with the king he
neglected the reverence he owed him, which had also been the reason why
he attracted the king's displeasure on himself.
Of all the letters written by Struensee, the one he addressed to Count
von Rantzau is assuredly the most remarkable. Instead of the reproaches
with which he might have justly overwhelmed him, he wrote in the
following forgiving spirit:[18]--
This, Sir (Dr. Münter), is what I have begged you to say in my behalf
to Count von Rantzau. I never entertained any feeling contrary to
what his friendship had a right to expect. Though convinced long
ago that he was acting against me, I did not venture to remove
him from Copenhagen. The facilities I possessed for doing so,
the solicitations addressed to me, and very powerful reasons not
affecting me personally, could not induce me to do so. The Russian
affairs will inform him of the measures taken against him, of which
he is probably ignorant, as I never spoke to him about them in
detail. I had conceived that his attachment to his master caused him
to find the conduct of his friend blamable, but it did not enter my
mind that he was capable of engaging any one to render his friend
as unfortunate as possible. Still, convinced by experience, I have
understood that the vivacity of zeal, circumstances, the persuasion
of the peril with which the king was believed to be menaced, might
stifle every other feeling. I have retained no bitterness against the
count. Having been since enlightened by religion, I have preserved
all the feelings of a personal attachment for him which, through
various signs, his memory will, doubtless, bring before his eyes.
I offer up vows for his prosperity. It is not in my power to give
him stronger proofs than by ardently wishing that he may find the
happiness which the truth of religion has taught me to know. I
would desire the count, on this point, to remember, by analogy, his
prejudices against medicine, and how he removed them by reading
"Zimmermann," and by experiencing the good effects of the medicines
I administered to him at Glückstadt. May these few words efface
everything that the count nourishes against me in his mind! You
will deliver this note to him, Sir, when no further motives are in
existence which may make him attribute this step of mine to any other
object.
STRUENSEE.
P.S. Having altered my mind, I have the honour to address this note
directly to the count, instead of entrusting it to Dr. Münter.
This 27th April, 1722.
S.
Struensee did not wish to take a personal farewell of his brother,
Justiz-rath Struensee, because he was afraid that this might produce a
scene which would be too affecting for both of them. He therefore begged
Münter to do so for him. He entreated his brother's pardon for drawing
him into his misfortunes, but hoped and was certain that his affairs
would turn out well. He also assured him that he was leaving the world
with true brotherly affection for him. He also wished his brother to
be told of the sentiments in which he died. This commission Dr. Münter
discharged on the same evening, and carried back the answer of the much
afflicted brother.
Brandt also received on April 27, from his chaplain, Dean Hee, the news
of the confirmation of his sentence and the day of execution, which he
heard unconcerned, and said that he readily submitted to the will of God.
A report had been spread that Brandt had spoken recklessly while in
prison, and sung merry songs. Hence the dean made a proposition to him,
which he left to him to accept or not, that he should make a declaration
of what his real sentiments were, in the presence of witnesses. He
readily complied with the proposal, and Hee went to the commandant, who
came with four officers, in whose presence Brandt declared that he was
ready to die, and was not afraid of it; he likewise confessed before the
omniscient God, that he had without hypocrisy sought for God's mercy;
he likewise confessed, as he had done before, that he had acted very
inconsiderately, that his levity had been very great, and that he, on
this account, acknowledged God's mercy in suffering him to die, lest he
should be drawn away again from religion. He said, he knew very well
that the same levity of temper had induced him, in the beginning of his
imprisonment, to talk in a manner he was now ashamed of, though he was
sure in his conscience that many untruths were invented, and propagated
among the people, but he forgave those who had been guilty of such a
thing. Now, he wished that the gentlemen present would bear testimony to
what he should say. He acknowledged himself a great sinner before God:
a sinner who had gone astray, but was brought back by Christ. He then
begged the commandant and the other officers to forgive him, if, by his
levity, he had offended any one of them, and wished that God's mercy in
Christ might always attend them as the greatest blessing. He said all
this with such a readiness, and in such moving terms, that all who were
present were affected by it, and every one of them wished that God would
preserve him in this situation of mind to the last.
In the meanwhile, the town council, the police, and military
authorities, were making preparations for the execution. Copenhagen is
surrounded on the land side, next the three suburbs, by three large
fields bordered by neat _allées_, which are used as exercising grounds
for the garrison, and for public festivities. On the easternmost of these
fields, situated on the Sound, a scaffold, 8 yards long and broad, and
27 feet in height, was erected; and on the gallows hill, a mile distant,
and situated in the western suburb, two poles were planted, both of which
were surrounded by four wheel-posts. It took some trouble to complete
this job, because no artisans consented to undertake it. It was not until
other workmen were persuaded that a pleasure-house was to be built on the
field that the scaffold was completed. No wheelwright was willing either
to supply the wheels; so that the eight carriage wheels required had to
be begged from friends of the court party.
When dawn broke on the 28th of April, 1772, a day which inflicted an
eternal stain on the history of Denmark, the troops, consisting of 4,400
sailors belonging to the vessels in ordinary, and armed with pikes,
1,200 infantry, 300 dragoons, and, strange to say, the corps of military
cadets, marched through the gates, in order to form a large circle round
the stage of blood on the Osterfeld, keep back the eager countless
mob, and be ready for any eventualities. General von Eickstedt, town
commandant, had the supreme command of all the troops.
The two gates of the citadel were also kept shut till the departure of
the criminals; and the posts had been doubled in order to keep off the
pressure of the crowd, who also congregated eagerly here.
The two clergymen went at an early hour to the condemned men, and found
them both calm and easy in mind. When Münter entered, Struensee was
fully dressed, and lying on a couch. He was reading Schlegel's sermons
on Christ's Passion, and a religious conversation began between the two,
during which Münter looked very often toward the cell door with a fearful
expectation; but the count not once.
At length the officer on duty came in and requested Münter to step into
the coach, and precede Struensee to the place of execution. Münter was
greatly moved, but Struensee, as if it did not concern himself the least,
comforted him by saying:--
"Make yourself easy, my dear friend, by considering the happiness I am
going to enter into, and with the consciousness that God has made you a
means for procuring it for me."
Soon after, the two delinquents were requested to get into their coaches,
Brandt going on first. The latter, after praying fervently, had had
his chains, which were fixed in the wall, taken off, and he put on the
clothes in which he intended to appear on the scaffold. He then drank a
dish of coffee and ate something, walking up and down the room, which
he had not been able to do before. As often as Dr. Hee asked him how he
found himself, he said that he was not afraid of dying. He afterwards
asked Hee whether he had seen anybody executed before, and how far he was
to lay his body bare for the execution.
Struensee was dressed in a blue cut velvet coat with silver buttons;
Brandt in a green court dress richly embroidered with gold, and both had
costly fur pelisses thrown over them, but, as if in mockery, still had
a chain on their hand and foot. This gay attire had been given them in
order to remind the populace that the dizzy fall from the greatest power
to the scaffold was the just punishment of their unparalleled crimes. By
the side of each of the prisoners sat an officer, and opposite to them
two sergeants. The two coaches were surrounded by 200 infantry soldiers
with fixed bayonets, and an equal number of dragoons with drawn sabres.
The procession was opened by a third coach, in which the Fiscal General
and the king's bailiff were seated, and, facing them, the latter's
deputy, holding two tin shields, on which the arms of the two counts were
painted.
Half-past eight was striking from the tower of the citadel when the three
coaches began their progress to the scaffold, where they were expected by
upwards of 30,000 persons.
When the procession reached the spot, the Fiscal General and the king's
bailiff with his assistant first mounted the scaffold, on which the
executioner and his aids were awaiting their victims. They were followed
by Brandt; his features were so unchanged, and his bearing was so
perfectly calm, that it was generally supposed that a hope of mercy was
aroused in his mind at this supreme moment. Dean Hee mounted the scaffold
stairs immediately after him, and it was not till they reached the top
that the prisoner's fetters were removed. Even here he assured Hee that
his mind was composed, and that he was not afraid of death. The dean,
however, continued to encourage him, and concluded with the words:--
"Son, be of good cheer, for thy sins are forgiven thee."
To which Brandt replied:--
"Yes; they are all cast into the depths of the sea."
The king's bailiff, Etats-rath Ortwed, now read the sentence; and when
he had finished, the executioner advanced to receive the count's coat of
arms. He asked Brandt whether it was his escutcheon, to which the other
replied by a nod; he then swung it in the air, and broke it with the
words:--
"This is not done in vain, but as a just punishment."
After the clergyman had read Brandt those things from the ritual which
are usual on such occasions, Hee asked him whether, in addition to his
other sins, he repented of his great crime of high treason? Brandt
answered in the affirmative, and then added:--
"I pray God, the king, and the country, for forgiveness, and only wish
that God may bless the king and the whole land for the sake of Christ's
blood."
After these words the clergyman gave him the benediction, and, taking
him by the hand, delivered him over to justice. When the executioner
approached to assist Brandt in undressing, the latter said to him with
firmness, though not without mildness, "Stand off, and do not presume
to touch me!" He quickly let his pelisse fall, took off his hat, and
himself removed his coat and waistcoat. After previously feeling in all
the pockets, which he doubtless did out of habit, he also began to bare
the right arm, from which the hand was to be cut off, but the executioner
now advanced, and helped him to bare the whole arm as well as his
neck.[19] After this, Brandt knelt down, and laid his head on one block
and his hand on another. When the victim had thus offered himself for the
execution of the sentence, the clergyman reminded him of the posture of
the Saviour in the garden of Gethsemane, with his face on the ground, to
which Brandt, lying on the block, replied in a loud voice:--
"The blood of Christ intercedeth for me."
Hee stepped back, and while he was saying, "O Christ, in Thee I live, in
Thee I die! Oh! thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world,
be merciful!" the execution was over. Brandt did not die as a hypocrite,
but at the same time displayed no defiance.
Immediately after, the executioner's aids advanced, stripped the body,
and then divided it into four quarters with an axe. Each quarter was let
down separately by a rope into a cart standing below, and the vessels
with the entrails were also placed in it. Lastly, the head was held
up, shown to the spectators, and then let down into the cart, together
with the hand. After which the scaffold was strown with fresh sand, in
readiness for Struensee.[20]
During this awful tragedy Struensee sat in his coach, which was standing
near the scaffold. When Brandt went up, Münter ordered the coach to be
turned in such a way that they might not witness Brandt's execution. But
Struensee's eyes had already found his unfortunate friend, and hence he
said:--
"I have seen him already."
After some further exhortation, Münter said to the prisoner:--
"Christ prayed for his murderers even on the cross. May I rely upon your
leaving the world with the same sentiments of love toward those whom you
might have reason to think your enemies?"
"In the first place," Struensee replied, "I hope that there is no one who
has a personal hatred against me; but that those who have promoted my
misfortunes, have done it with the intention of doing good. Secondly, I
look upon myself already as a citizen of another world, and consider that
I am obliged to entertain sentiments conformable with this dignity; and
I am sure that if I were to see those who might perhaps be my enemies
here in the bliss of that world which I hope to enter into, it would give
me the highest satisfaction. I pray to God that if my enemies hereafter
repent of their behaviour toward me, this repentance may induce them to
look out for that salvation which I confidently promise myself through
the mercy of God."
Struensee, during this conversation, suffered no other change than that
he appeared very pale, and thinking and speaking evidently cost him more
trouble than they had done earlier in the morning. Still he retained
perfect composure, and saluted some of those around the coach by raising
his hat, or by friendly glances. From the motion of the spectators, Dr.
Münter, though he could not see the scaffold, guessed that Struensee's
turn to ascend it had arrived, and that, with Brandt's death, all hope of
a pardon had disappeared.
When summoned by name, Struensee stepped out of the coach, and went, led
by Münter, with dignity though humbly, through the ranks of favoured
spectators, and bowed to them also. With difficulty he ascended the
fifteen steps leading to the scaffold. When they reached the top, Münter
spoke very concisely, and in a low voice, upon the words, "He that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." After this the
sentence of the Commission of Inquiry and the royal confirmation were
read to Struensee, and the king's own signature was shown him. Then came
the breaking of the coat of arms, after which Struensee's chains were
taken off. The clergyman once again went up to Struensee, and asked him
various questions.
"Are you very truly sorry for all those actions by which you have
offended God and man?"
"You know my late sentiments on this point," Struensee replied, "and I
assure you they are this very moment just the same."
"Do you trust in the redemption of Christ as the only ground of your
being pardoned before God?"
"I know no other means of receiving God's mercy, and I trust in this
alone."
"Do you leave this world without hatred or malice against any person
whatever?"
"I hope nobody hates me personally; and as for the rest, you know my
sentiments on this head; they are the same as I told you before."
Doctor Münter then laid his hand upon Struensee's head, and said with
deep emotion, before he delivered him up to justice:--
"Then go in peace whither God calls you! His grace be with you!"
Struensee then took off his fur pelisse, removed his hat, and tried to
undress himself, but his strength failed him in doing so, and he was
obliged to ask the executioner's help. After this he produced a white
handkerchief to bind his eyes with, but the executioner said that it was
not necessary, and then assisted him in removing his shirt.
Struensee then walked with hesitating steps the few yards leading to
the block, which still reeked with the blood of his dearest friend; a
stronger mind than Struensee ever possessed might have been unhinged
by the dreadful scene before his eyes. He knelt down, but had great
difficulty in placing himself in the proper position. As the executioner
raised the axe to cut off his right hand, Münter began slowly pronouncing
the words:--
"Remember Jesus Christ crucified, who died, but is risen again."
The first blow fell, and with it, Struensee was attacked by violent
convulsions, the result of which was, that the second blow intended
to behead the poor wretch, failed. He sprang up convulsively, but the
assistant seized him by the hair, and pulled him down on the block by
force; even when the head was removed, a portion of the chin was left
behind.
The same horrors were committed on his poor corpse as on Brandt's, but
I have no heart to dwell on them: let us rather agree with the poet in
saying,
"Excidat illa dies ævo: nec postera credant
Sæcula: nos certé taceamus et obruta multa
Nocte tegi nostræ patiamur crimina gentis."
The mangled remains, after they had been thrown into the cart, were
conveyed all through the city to the field at the other extremity, where
they were to be left to moulder or be devoured by the fowls of the
air. For each, four stout balks were, at equal distances, driven into
the earth; a taller pole was fixed in the centre; the entrails, &c.,
were buried in a hole dug at the foot of the central pole; on the top
the head was fixed, the pole being forced up inside the skull, through
which a spike was driven to make it fast; the hand was nailed on a piece
of board, placed transversely below the head; a cart wheel was fixed
horizontally on the top of each of the four posts or pillars, on which a
quarter of the body was exposed, made fast to the wheel by iron chains.
The countless crowd, whose curiosity was now fully satisfied, returned
to the city, shaken by the scenes they had witnessed, and the deep
impression produced by the awful drama could be noticed for a long time.
Convicts had to be employed on the next day in removing the scaffold, as
no honest man would have a hand in it; but Gallows Hill preserved its
decorations for some years, and even in 1775, Mr. Coxe saw Struensee's
and Brandt's skulls and bones there.[21] All this was done to satiate
the vengeance of the queen dowager. With a telescope in her hand,
Juliana Maria had witnessed the whole execution from the tower of the
Christiansborg, and when the turn arrived for the special object of her
hatred, Struensee, she rubbed her hands joyously, and exclaimed, "Now
comes the fat one."[22]
But the queen did not neglect to observe decorum even in this affair, and
hence, soon after the execution, sent for Dr. Münter, in order to hear
all the details of the judicial murder from this immediate witness of the
fearful scene. When he had ended his report, the queen burst into tears;
but, as our Danish authority remarks, "it is notorious that a crocodile
can weep." Then she said to Münter--
"I feel sorry for the unhappy man. I have examined myself whether in all
I have done against him I have acted through any feeling of personal
enmity; but my conscience acquits me of it."
After this, the queen dowager gave Dr. Münter a snuff-box of rock
crystal, while a similar gift in porcelain was forwarded to Dean Hee.[23]
But the historian, Suhm, who was attached to the court, and was one of
the most zealous enemies of Struensee, tells us how far we are justified
in believing the queen dowager's statement. As the queen occupied the
upper floor of Christiansborg Palace, whence a view of the Gallows Hill
was obtained, Chamberlain Suhm asked her some years later, why her
Majesty, who had so many splendid palaces at her service, inhabited these
unpretending rooms, and received the answer:--
"And yet these rooms are dearer to me than all my most splendid
apartments; for from these windows I saw my bitterest foe exposed on the
wheel."
Such was the end of a man whose miserable story is indubitably one
of the most romantic episodes of his century; and it only required a
Danish Walter Scott, in order to make of it an historical romance of
the first class. For such a work the matter is fully sufficient. But
for the same reason all efforts must fail to convert Struensee into the
hero of a tragedy. Many poets, some of them in the first flight, have
undertaken this ungrateful task, but have not attained any success worth
mentioning. The reason can easily be found. Struensee was no hero; not
even an original: he possessed no distinct character, but was merely
a type of his age, and in spite of his undeniable talents, he was an
ordinary adventurer after all. Fortune is as much the touchstone of
minds as misfortune is. It subjected this man to a trial, and he came
out of it badly. Arrogant and unbridled in fortune, he proved himself in
misfortune despondent, cowardly, and even worthless. The fortune which
he at first did not turn to a bad use, brought a king's sceptre into
his hand, and he allowed it to be shamefully torn from him by people
far inferior to him in intellect. A queen, young and beautiful as a May
morning, supported him, and he betrayed her. He had felt a pride in being
an avowed free-thinker, and he died with wailing and gnashing of teeth,
as a penitent sinner. No, he was not a tragic hero. Even the genius of a
Shakspere would have failed in rendering him one.
It is a fact worthy of attention that Struensee possessed none of the
qualities which generally presuppose success at court. He was not an
amiable man, in the conventional sense of the term. The English envoy,
Gunning, who was not ill-disposed toward him, expressly stated, in a
despatch of April, 1770, that Struensee did not at all display in his
conversation the liveliness and pleasantry by which other men pave the
way to fortune. "His mode of behaving and expressing himself is dry and
even unpleasant, so that it was a subject of general surprise how he
contrived to acquire such unbounded influence over the king and queen."
Further, the envoy allows the favourite "no inconsiderable acquirements,"
but denies him all statesman-like ability and political tact. At the same
time he was deficient in sufficient insight into Danish affairs. He was
tolerably free from vanity, but not from an immoderate self-confidence,
which not unfrequently degenerated into "impudence." The envoy, however,
supplies us with the key to the enigma of Struensee's sudden elevation,
when he mentions that he was "bold and enterprising," and such a man is
sure to make his way among women.[24]
Still, in spite of Struensee's deficiency and all his mistakes, so
much justice must be done him as to allow that he desired the welfare
of the state. He originally possessed a not ignoble mind, which was
lowered and degraded by his fabulous elevation and sudden fall. Being
formed of much softer and more worthless stuff than the metal out of
which great, or even second-rate statesmen are composed, he could not
endure either fortune or misfortune. An idealist, trained in the school
of enlightened despotism, he did not understand that a nation must be
raised from the bottom to the top. This was the mistake of the age.
The reasons of state of a Frederick the Great or a Joseph II. were,
after all, only an improvement of the breed. We have all due respect
for those enlightened despots who have so far freed themselves from the
swaddling-clothes of the Byzantine ideas about the divine right of kings,
as to wish themselves to be merely regarded as the first servants of the
state; but, at the same time, we are inclined to say with old Wieland,
"May Heaven protect us from the luck of being obliged to live under the
sceptre or stick of such first servants of the state." Struensee acted on
the principle that, in order to make nations progress, nothing further
was required than to realise by edicts the principles of the French
philosophers and German illuminati. After the fashion of many other
world-betterers of the age, he did not know or reflect that it is far
more difficult to lead the unjudging masses to what is good, than to what
is bad; that the most absurd prejudices of the plebs must be humoured
far more than the noblest human privileges; that the coarse diplomacy of
pot-house demagogues is sufficient to make the ignorant mob throw away
the diamonds of truth and eagerly clutch at the _strass_ of falsehood and
absurdity; and that, lastly, the people in all times are most willing, at
the desire of their enemies, to hate, persecute, stone, and crucify their
friends.
It is possible, even probable, that, if Struensee had held the power
longer, he would have passed from the experimentalising stage to really
beneficial results. The beginning of his display of power was not so bad.
Denmark had long sighed under the brutal dictatorship which the envoys
of Russia exercised. Struensee broke this yoke, and did it so cleverly,
that the ambitious czarina in Petersburg was obliged to give way, whether
she liked it or not. The management of the foreign policy by Struensee
least of all deserves blame, because it was based on the sensible
principle that Denmark must live in peace and amity with all states, but
not be subject to any one of them. The same praise cannot be afforded
to Struensee's home administration. The tendency generally was good and
reasonable here, but the execution left much, very much, to be desired.
We find everywhere hasty attempts, but no thorough carrying through. A
despotic theorising, which was followed by no energetic practice, and
the most correct designs destroyed and confused by the interference
of personal interests, sympathies, and antipathies, characterised the
administration.
Struensee's great fault was that he did not, and would not, understand
that in statesman-like calculations, not abstract ideas but men are the
figures employed in reckoning--men with all their weaknesses, follies,
prejudices, and passions. Through mistaking this great fact, he contrived
to embitter all classes of the nation. He offended the nobles without
winning the peasants; he made the officers, soldiers, and sailors his
enemies, without making the citizens his friends. And he did this among
a people whose education was behindhand, and to whom he was an object of
hatred, from the fact of his being a foreigner.
After his fall, which every one but himself had foreseen--and we may
fairly say that he signed his own death-warrant by the maniacal cabinet
decree which placed all the authority in his hands--Struensee behaved
like a miserable coward and traitor. It has been said that his judges,
or, more correctly, executioners, terrified the ruined man by a menace of
the torture, and, at the same time, deluded him by the idea that his sole
chance of salvation was in compromising Caroline Matilda most deeply.
But, for all this, a man would never do, and only a weakling and coward
would do what he did, when he confessed, on February 21, that he had
been the queen's lover. From this moment he could only lay claim to a
feeling of contempt. It would not even excuse him were it true, as has
been alleged, that a pretended confession of Caroline Matilda's guilt was
shown him.
Still the means employed to get rid of the favourites were most
reprehensible. It is true that the queen dowager and Prince Frederick
had a right to feel irritated at having no credit at a court where
a Struensee domineered, and that they wished to remove him and his
partisans. We can understand that Queen Juliana Maria, who had no
experience of business, and Prince Frederick, who had scarce emerged from
boyhood, should not suspect the extremities to which Guldberg's faction
would lead them; and it may be true that it was owing to their generosity
that the children of Caroline Matilda were not deprived of their rights.
Nor can we positively condemn Guldberg for wishing to tear from Struensee
powers which Struensee had torn from others. Perhaps Guldberg possessed
more capacity, or a better claim to hold the power than he. But, as to
the means employed in gaining the object, we cannot help agreeing with
Falckenskjold when he says:
"To make Struensee perish in order to seize on his office, was not this
purchasing it very dearly? and especially to add the punishment of the
unfortunate Brandt to that of Struensee, and to assail the liberties
and fortunes of so many persons who were innocent of the ambition of
these two men. And, in order to give a legal appearance to these
proscriptions, they do not hesitate to abuse whatever is most sacred in
human laws; they convert private intrigues into judicial proceedings;
they employ calumnious libels as authentic documents and sentences; they
raise the veil and expose to the public the domestic secrets of the
king's house! They do not fear violently to break the happy union of the
king with his consort; to render doubtful the rights of the issue of that
union, by compromising the future tranquillity of the state; and, lastly,
to cast on a young queen the affront of a mortal stain, and to condemn
her to expire in a lengthened agony!
"Was the post of a principal minister of the King of Denmark so
important, or desirable at such a price?"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 17: Reverdil, p. 422.]
[Footnote 18: Reverdil is the only writer who produces this curious
document.]
[Footnote 19: Gespräch im Reiche der Todten.]
[Footnote 20: Gespräch im Reiche der Todten.]
[Footnote 21: Struensee's skull was eventually stolen by four English
sailors, belonging to a Russian man-of-war commanded by Admiral Greig.]
[Footnote 22: It has been said that Juliana Maria expressed a regret at
not seeing the decapitated corpse of Caroline Matilda by the side of
that of her accomplices. But such language would be quite contrary to
the reserve, prudence, and dissimulation of which she furnished so many
proofs during the whole of her life.]
[Footnote 23: The Commission of Inquiry has received orders to consider
in what manner the persons _employed in convicting_ the prisoners of
state should be rewarded; in consequence of which it was allotted that
Dr. Hee and Dr. Münter should each receive 300 rix dollars; but the court
was of a different opinion, and judged it most proper to make presents to
these ecclesiastics. The two civil officers who drew up the protocol each
received 150 Danish ducats.--_Annual Register_ for 1772.]
[Footnote 24: This letter I have found in Raumer's "Beiträge zur neueren
Geschichte," vol. i.]