A Queen of Tears, vol. 1 of 2: Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway and Princess of Great Britain and Ireland — John Shaqi
A Queen of Tears, vol. 1 of 2: Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway and Princess of Great Britain and IrelandWilkins, W. H. (William Henry)
History
A Queen of Tears, vol. 1 of 2: Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway and Princess of Great Britain and Ireland
Wilkins, W. H. (William Henry)
Caroline Mathilde, Queen, consort of Christian VII, King of Denmark, 1751-1775
King Frederick was overwhelmed with grief at his consort's death and
refused to be comforted. He could not mention her name without weeping;
he commanded the deepest court mourning for a year and prohibited
all public amusements for the same period. Yet, like many bereaved
widowers, before and since, the more deeply this royal widower mourned
his wife, the more quickly he sought consolation by giving her a
successor. Six months of the stipulated mourning had scarcely passed
when the King cast off his sables and wedded Princess Juliana Maria
of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. This princess was the youngest of six
daughters, two of whom had already made great alliances. The eldest
was married to Frederick the Great, and the second to Prince Augustus
William, the heir presumptive to the throne of Prussia. One of her
nieces came near to be married to George III., but was rejected by
him on the advice of his mother. This slight upon her house did not
tend to make Juliana Maria well disposed towards the English royal
family; and the love of the Danes for the English princess who was her
predecessor contrasted vividly with her own unpopularity. Juliana Maria
was a handsome and determined woman, rigidly correct in her conduct and
unblemished in her morals, but she was of a cold and selfish nature,
a profound intriguer and dissembler. Frederick V. married her from a
sense of duty; he wanted a queen to preside over his court, and a wife
to give him another son. Juliana Maria fulfilled both these conditions;
she looked every inch a queen, and in due time presented her husband
with a prince, who was named Frederick. But though she shared her
husband's throne she had no place in his affections.
Frederick V. was popular with his subjects, who named him "Frederick
the Good". The first part of his reign as fully justified this title
as the latter part belied it. Queen Louise was his good angel and
led him to higher things, but when her beneficent influence was gone
he abandoned himself to evil habits, especially to his besetting one
of drunkenness. So much did he give way to this vice that he became
a confirmed dipsomaniac, and the reins of government passed out of
his hands into those of his Prime Minister, Count Moltke, and of his
mother, the Queen-Dowager, Sophia Magdalena.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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