At this point in Caroline Matilda's life I will leave her for a while, in order to introduce the reader to the other principal actors in the strange eventful drama of her life. We have seen how she was transported at once from the bosom of a happy private family to the morally aid physically frozen regions of the north. Born after the early and sudden demise of her father, this posthumous pledge of conjugal affection must have grown closely to the widowed mother's heart, while at the same time we can fully understand how genial must have been the atmosphere in which the natural talents and acquired accomplishments of the youngest of a large and happy family were previously developed. She left her home without the slightest acquaintance with the external world, "as unprepared to encounter its stern realities as some tender exotic, from her favourite summer abode at Kew, would have been to meet the blasts of the climate to which she was transplanted."[20] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: Baron von Seckendorf, writing to Mr. W. N. Wraxall, in 1776, remarks: "On m'a aussi parlé dernièrement d'une brochure qui vient de parôitre à Londres au sujet de notre chère et respectable maîtresse qui a pour titre, '_Memoirs of an Unfortunate Queen_;' quoique l'authenticité de ces lettres est incontestablement fausse, je serois pourtant bien aise de les posséder." How on earth could the Baron be certain of the falsehood of a book which he had not seen?] [Footnote 17: "Annual Register, 1765."] [Footnote 18: Walpole's "Memoirs of Reign of George III.," vol. ii. pp. 330-31.] [Footnote 19: "Memoirs and Correspondence of Sir R. Murray Keith," vol. i. p. 163. A book which contains a great deal of thrashed out straw, and is remarkable for the art by which every interesting or satisfactory document has been left out.] [Footnote 20: "Memoirs of Sir R. M. Keith," vol. i. p. 165.] CHAPTER III. THE DANISH COURT. BIRTH OF CHRISTIAN VII.--DEATH OF HIS MOTHER--JULIANA MARIA--THE CHRONIQUE SCANDALEUSE--A SEVERE TASKMASTER--THE PRINCE'S EDUCATION--REVERDIL--CURIOUS DELUSIONS--THE KING'S ILLNESS AND DEATH--ACCESSION OF CHRISTIAN--COURT INTRIGUES--THE TRIUMVIRATE--ROYAL MARRIAGES. On January 29, 1749, an heir to the united kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, the equally united duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, (with the exception of that portion of the latter country which was still Russian,) and to the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, first saw the light of the world in the person of the future Christian VII. Great was the delight of the royal parents at the birth of this son, because it prevented the possibility of any dispute about the succession on the death of the reigning monarch. In the duchies and counties the agnatic line alone was able to succeed, while in the two kingdoms the cognate line was competent to ascend the throne. This requires a few words of explanation, as the whole Schleswig-Holstein embroglio is based on it.