fair almost to a marvel, with light flaxen hair,
shining like silver and of luxuriant growth,
large, clear, bright, blue eyes, full red lips—the
under one rich and pouting—small teeth white
and even, and of a temper as bright and sweet as
her face: lovely and fascinating enough surely
to have made her lover for life the young
profligate who kissed her publicly at Roeskilde
when they met—perhaps moved for the moment
by the sight of her girlish beauty—but who
soon taught her what was the real worthlessness
of his kisses, and of what infinite power of
subdivision the instinct which it pleased his royal
majesty to call love, was capable. For the
marriage feast was scarcely cold, when Christian
found "Milady," or "Katherine of the Pretty
Feet"—about whose life the less said the
better—a companion more congenial to his
taste than the young English princess, whose soul
was as pure as her face was fair. And not only
"Milady," but all the roués and demireps to be
met with in Copenhagen, to the scandal of decent
people and the destruction of public morals.

Caroline Matilda found her Danish crown
more thickly set with thorns than roses. Young
as she was, and so sadly needing careful
guidance, she had not a friend in her new home to
direct or uphold her. Juliana Maria, the king's
stepmother, had always been his declared enemy
(even, so Christian believed, to his attempted
destruction), because of her own son Frederick,
who would come to the throne could the crown
prince, as he was then, be destroyed; so that
she was the poor young queen's enemy too, ex
officio if not by personal dislike, and laid snares
and digged pitfals whenever and wherever she
could; the old grandmother, Sophia Magdalena,
was kind enough, but even she cared more
for power than for the right, and had spent her
life in trying to keep her personal influence
paramount in Danish politics; and the Princess
Charlotte Amelia, the king's aunt—who seems
to have been about the best of the set—lived
only for religious practices and charities, keeping
as far out of the reach of her royal nephew as she
could, having been his favourite butt and the
object of his rudest practical jokes time out of mind.

The final cause of her withdrawal from the
palace was "a fright she received through the
king's first page crawling into the dining-room
on all fours, disguised as a savage."

So Caroline Matilda was absolutely unfriended,
save by the Grand Mistress of her household,
Frau von Plessen; and she, though a virtuous
woman and so far desirable in a court where even
common propriety was at a discount, was a harsh-
tempered domineering old-maidish kind of
person, who made bad, worse, by injudicious advice,
and by never being able to understand that some-
times it is better to drive with a slack rein and
a silken lash than with tight ropes and a
leathern thong. Influenced by this clever lady,
Caroline Matilda put on an air of forbidding
coldness to her husband (perhaps it was not
much trouble to do that), with the idea, so
common among women, and so mistaken, that
the best way to secure a husband's vagrant
affections is to deny or conceal their own. In
this case, however, it was not so much concealment
as confession, for the young queen had no
great fondness for her royal spouse; as, indeed,
how could she have? Unless neglect, debauchery,
and open infidelity were qualities calculated to
win the love and esteem of a girl-wife virtuously
educated. Nevertheless, she nursed him
assiduously when he had the scarlet fever; and when he
recovered, he went back to his street-rows, his
mistresses, his low pot-house riots, his assaults on the
watch, and all the other disgraceful doings which
made him the disgust and the talk of Europe.

The royal favourite in chief at this time was
Count Conrad von Holck, lately appointed Court
Marshal, but acting as a kind of private M.C. to
the monarch, arranging all the court balls and
fêtes: also helping him in pleasures less innocent.
He it was who accompanied Christian to and from
Milady's house, "during which street riots were
but too frequent;" who shared in all his vices,
and who organised many a nocturnal orgie during
the brilliant luncheons which he was in the habit
of giving at Blaagaard, a kind of castellated pleasure-
house, just outside the north gate. And even
when the queen gave birth to a son—the future
Frederick the Sixth—and all Denmark went
mad with joy; always excepting the queen-
dowager, Juliana Maria, whose son was thus
doubly barred; even then, Christian and his
favourite continued their excesses, and made
the whole town ring with the echo of their
misdeeds. Christian was seen one day in broad
daylight returning from "Milady's" in a state
of intoxication, the people pursuing him with
hootings and insults to his own palace-gates;
in a word, the private and public annals of
king, court, and favourite, were of the worst
kind. At last, however, the ministers arrested
Katherine of the Pretty Feet, and put her in
prison, after her royal lover had bought her an
hotel and created her a baroness.

And now Christian and his court set out on
their travels; taking with them, as surgeon and
physician in ordinary, John Frederick Struensee,
hitherto physician of Altona, and of the
lordship of Pinneberg. And first the King of
Denmark came here to visit the King of England.
But "Farmer George" was not especially eager
to favour his brother-in-law; so little eager,
indeed, that when Christian came to Dover, he
found no royal carriages waiting for him, and
had to come to town in hackney-carriages. Even
when he got to town, "by another mistake,"
says Walpole, "King George happened to go to
Richmond about an hour before King Christian
arrived in London. An hour is exceedingly
long, and the distance to Richmond still longer;
so with all the despatch which could possibly be
made, King George did not get to his capital
till next day at noon. Then, as the road from
his closet in St. James's to the King of
Denmark's apartments on the other side of the
palace is about thirty miles (which posterity,
having no conception of the prodigious extent
and magnificence of St. James's, will never
believe), it was half an hour after three before his