Life and Times of Her Majesty Caroline Matilda, Vol. 3 (of 3): Queen of Denmark and Norway, and Sister of H. M. George III. of EnglandWraxall, Lascelles, Sir
History
Life and Times of Her Majesty Caroline Matilda, Vol. 3 (of 3): Queen of Denmark and Norway, and Sister of H. M. George III. of England
Wraxall, Lascelles, Sir
Caroline Mathilde, Queen, consort of Christian VII, King of Denmark, 1751-1775; Denmark -- History -- Christian VII, 1766-1808
Count von der Osten, who became minister of foreign affairs through
the palace revolution of 1772, did not occupy his post long, but was
banished to Jütland in 1774, when, on the recommendation of Landgrave
Charles, Count Bernstorff's nephew, the afterwards so celebrated Peter
Andreas Bernstorff, was summoned to Denmark, and the foreign affairs
were entrusted to him. A few years after, however, Von der Osten was
recalled from his bailiff's post in Aalborg, and appointed president of
the Supreme Court; a little later, chief president of Copenhagen; and,
shortly before the downfall of the usurping government, was decorated
with the order of the Elephant. This participator in the conspiracy also
attained an age of upwards of eighty years, and died in 1797.
All that is left now is to describe the fate of the fifth principal
conspirator and actual manager of the palace revolution, Cabinet
Secretary Guldberg, after whom the misgovernment, from January 17, 1772,
to April 14, 1784, has been called the Guldberg Ministry.
Always keeping behind the scenes so long as he had any one to fear who
might contend with him for the supreme power, Guldberg accepted no seat
in the privy council established immediately after Struensee's fall, but
temporarily contented himself with his position as cabinet secretary to
the hereditary prince and intimate adviser of the queen dowager, though
he at the same time decided everything. But when the younger Bernstorff
undertook the foreign ministry in 1774, and Guldberg was alarmed at
the influence of this respected man, he effected his own appointment
to the hitherto vacant post of privy cabinet secretary to the king,
which ensued on the birthday of the hereditary prince. In this way,
the cabinet government, which had been charged as the highest crime
against Struensee, was re-established, and Guldberg granted official
interference in all higher affairs of state. External dignities speedily
followed; for the king, in 1777, raised him to the Danish nobility, with
precedence from January 29, 1773, the king's birthday, and granted him
the name of Höegh-Guldberg. In his new post of honour, he very soon made
Bernstorff tired of his ministerial functions;[62] so that the latter
sent in his resignation in 1780, and it was accepted. Immediately after,
Höegh-Guldberg was appointed a privy councillor, and it was at the same
time published that the king had also selected him as a member of the
privy council of state.
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