Carolines Behaving Badly: Scandal at the Georgian Court

Part II: Caroline Matida

Hello and welcome back to your favourite family drama, The Hanoverians. This week, we’ll be talking about the second Caroline in our series: Caroline Matilda of Great Britain.

Caroline Matilda was born in July 1751, the posthumous daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales. If you’re trying to keep track of the family relations, this Caroline was the granddaughter of last week’s Caroline of Ansbach, queen consort of George II. To make things easier for us, baby Caroline was actually known by her middle name, Matilda, so that’s what I’ll call her from now on. Matilda grew up in a loving but secluded family environment, thanks to the mutual antipathy between her father and her grandfather. Frederick never did achieve his “reversion”; he died before his father, George II, and the English Crown eventually passed to his son, another George. The third and ultimately best known one: Mad King George.

Because her father had died before she was born, Matilda’s real father figure was her older brother, George. A shy and diffident young man, George III never shone intellectually – in this regard, he followed family tradition – and his education wasn’t top rate. His mother, the Dowager Princess of Wales, was more concerned with George being good than well-read. In that regard, she needn’t have worried; George III was a placid man, who loved domesticity and family life. Apart from a brief but volcanic crush on an unsuitable young lady (Sarah Lennox, whose own family history is fascinating but sadly can’t fit into this post), George III never gave his advisors any hassles, at least not until much later. He dutifully married and fell deeply in love with the German princess chosen for him – Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz – and settled down to a generally quiet life.

His siblings, on the other hand … not so much. George III was very fond of his brothers and sisters and felt responsible for them as the head of the family, but they grew up to be a trying lot. The most trying of all turned out to be Matilda.

Unlike her brother, Matilda was intelligent, musically gifted, well-read and spoke 4 languages. She had the Hanoverian temper but also possessed an engaging naturalness and informality of manner that would have made her very popular in England. Alas, it was not Matilda’s fate to remain there. Her family’s preferred approach was to marry its daughters into foreign princely or ducal dynasties, rather than allow them to marry English noblemen. Something to do with maintaining the honour and prestige of the House of Hanover or whatever. Anyway, Matilda was destined to be sent abroad to Denmark, as bride of Crown Prince Christian.

Christian was not a promising bridegroom. While intelligent and sensitive, he was also moody and fearful. He lived in a “nebulous and precarious mental world” and his condition was exacerbated by an unhappy home life. His mother, the youngest daughter of George II and Caroline of Ansbach, had died when Christian was 2. [Yes, Christian and Matilda were cousins, in case you were wondering.] His stepmother, Queen Juliana, was a cold, unsympathetic character. On top of that, Christian’s tutor was a harsh man who made liberal use of physical punishment as part of his teaching methods. It’s easy to feel sorry for Christian, but also easy to see how he would make an unsuitable husband for someone like Matilda. In the months leading up to their planned marriage, increasingly troubling rumours began to circulate about Christian’s behaviour. By then king, he had developed a distaste for government affairs, preferring to spend his time picking fights on the streets of Copenhagen or visiting brothels. His advisors thought that marriage would provide a “steadying counterweight” to these behaviours which – hah! When has that ever happened?

Even though Matilda had no idea about Christian’s ahem hobbies, she became overwhelmed with grief before her scheduled departure from England. A sheltered young girl, about to be wrenched from her close family? I can’t imagine why. During the marriage by proxy that took place in London, Matilda cried so much that “she was near falling into fits”. Things were going to get worse for her, of course. In the tradition of all foreign princesses arriving in their new country, Matilda was not allowed to bring any friends or servants with her to Denmark; she could only bring her clothes and a letter from her brother, George. And her reception in Copenhagen was distinctly chilly. Christian was uninterested in her, Queen Juliana polite but reserved. Every member of the Danish royal family had their own apartments in the palace, and Matilda would often spend days and days without seeing her husband. She did her best – learning Danish quickly to try to fit in – but she was still miserable. Her personality, natural and unaffected, did not gain her any fans at the stuffy, protocol-obsessed Danish court.

One of her ladies in waiting, Madame von Plessen, made matters worse by convincing Matilda that the best way to attract the uninterested Christian was by playing hard-to-get – feigning indisposition on the rare occasions that he bothered to visit Matilda. This backfired spectacularly, no surprise there. Eventually, Christian managed to bring himself to pay enough nightly visits to Matilda to achieve the primary purpose of their marriage. In 1768, Matilda gave birth to the couple’s only child, luckily a boy – Crown Prince Frederick. By the time he was born, Matilda and Christian were effectively living separate lives. The only thing they had in common, apart from their kid, was the fact that both managed to scandalize the Danes; Christian, by roaming the streets at night with his band of cronies, smashing windows and inciting fights, and by flaunting his low-born courtesan mistress. Matilda, by walking on foot through the streets of Copenhagen, accompanied only by her lady-in-waiting and a footman. ESCANDALOSO! Apparently, it was not considered respectable for noblewomen to “mix” with ordinary people in this way. But Matilda was a trendsetter, and after a while, other women at court picked up the walking habit. She also started hanging out with a new, racy group of friends, who encouraged her to become more involved in the social life at court, to dance and even – GASP – to flirt. Keep in mind that Matilda was still only a teenager at this point. She was entitled to a little bit of fun. Christian, for his part, didn’t seem inclined to interfere in his wife’s life as long as she stayed out of his.

This unconventional couple was about to become even more unconventional with the addition of a new character. After the birth of his heir, Christian embarked on a long, solo tour of Europe. In his travels, he picked up a new companion: Johann Friedrich Struensee. Struensee was a German physician who knew a career-making opportunity when he saw one. By the time they met, Christian’s mental health had declined considerably; he needed both a doctor and also a sympathetic friend to talk to in his darkest hours. Struensee knew how to be both and quickly gained the king’s confidence. Christian wanted someone to handle all the boring and difficult parts of his life as king, and Struensee loved himself in that role.

Christian, with Struensee in tow, returned to Denmark in 1769. His reunion with Matilda was about as warm as you might expect by this point. Matilda didn’t take to Struensee either, believing him to be another crony of Christian’s who would encourage his unsavoury escapades and affairs. But Struensee was a smoother operator than that; with an eye on the big prize – advancement at court – he positioned himself as sympathetic to both sides. Matilda began to thaw. She and Struensee began to see more and more of each other, mostly because Christian refused to go anywhere without his bestie. It was almost inevitable, really, that Matilda would fall head over heels with Struensee. His portrait doesn’t suggest your typical heartthrob, but Struensee had a commanding presence and a good bedside manner. He was also ambitious AF and was already starting to assume control of the government (with Christian’s active acquiescence if not encouragement). Matilda’s infatuation actually posed a risk to Struensee’s ambitions; having an affair with the king’s wife was a capital offence after all. But Struensee was not immune to Matilda’s charms and confident (or reckless) enough to risk it all. By early 1770, the two became lovers.

Matilda and Struensee threw themselves headlong into their affair. They tossed protocol aside and didn’t bother to conceal their intimacy. Matilda began wearing silk garters as a symbol for her love for Struensee; she called them her “ties of feeling”. This was a full-blooded affair, indeed. Christian, for his part, seemed “amused” by his wife’s evident partiality for another man, and put up no obstacles. He was happy, in fact. Struensee took all the government stuff off his hands, his wife was in a good mood all the time – life was great. The three of them lived and traveled together throughout 1770 and 1771, happy campers one and all. But the good times were not destined to last.

As Struensee gained more and more power, he began to demonstrate a “mania” for reform that was deeply unpopular with the conservatives at court, including the Dowager Queen Juliana. By virtue of her association with him, Matilda became increasingly unpopular too. She also continued to scandalize the court with such racy behaviour as horse-riding astride (not side saddle) while dressed like a man and making friends outside the aristocracy. THE WITCH!! It didn’t help that she loved luxury at a time when queens could and did lose their heads over it. One observer sniffed that “[n]othing could be more licentious than the court of Mathilda in 1770 and 1771 … [h]er palace was a temple of pleasure, of which she was the high priestess.” Phew, that sounds hot! To cap things off, in 1771, Matilda gave birth to a daughter; though Christian accepted paternity of the child, she was called la petite Struensee.

By 1772, Matilda and Struensee’s enemies were ready to mobilize. One of Struensee’s former political allies, who had begun nursing a serious grudge, went to Queen Juliana with fake evidence that the lovers were planning to overthrow Christian. This was patently nonsense, since it was in their interest for Christian to remain the figurative head of state and provide a cover for their affair. Queen Juliana acted on the evidence anyway, because she had been waiting for an excuse to take control of the government. Both Struensee and Matilda were arrested in a sudden coup. Struensee was eventually executed, after Juliana pressured Christian to sign the execution warrant. Due to his mental health, Christian was little more than a pawn in this whole affair. He certainly harboured no jealousy of Struensee or any hard feelings for Matilda, so it’s safe to say that he would not have spearheaded any retaliatory actions against them, but he lacked the ability or the willingness to stand up for his former best friends and wife. Juliana and her son, Christian’s half-brother, made all the decisions for him until 1784 when Christian’s own son became regent.

As for Matilda, her marriage was dissolved and she was eventually exiled, without her children, to Celle Castle in Hanover. George III had been prepared to send the British navy to save his sister from a worse fate, but in the end it had not been necessary. A few years later, Matilda was involved in planning a counter-coup and return to Denmark, but these plans never had the chance to get off the ground; Matilda died suddenly of scarlet fever in 1775. She was only 24 at the time.

Matilda was buried in the crypt of the Stadtkirche St. Marien near her paternal great-grandmother Sophia Dorothea of Celle, whose life held many parallels to her own. Sophia Dorothea had also had an unhappy marriage (to the future George I) from which she sought refuge in a passionate love affair with a courtier; the end result being much the same as for Matilda – divorce and exile for the princess, death for her lover. Both risked everything – and lost everything – in exchanged for a brief chance at happiness.

In a final twist of fate, Struensee’s granddaughter – the daughter of his and Matilda’s child – ended up becoming Queen of Denmark in 1839. I can only assume this would have pleased the ambitious Struensee, but I doubt it would have been much consolation to Matilda. She has always struck me as a young girl caught in a sh*tty situation, someone who went along with events rather than making them happen. She was no Isabella of France, that’s for sure.

Next week, we will meet our final Caroline, whose scandals put all the others’ to shame.

Selected Bibliography

Lucy Worsley, Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court

Stella Tillyard, A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings

Flora Fraser, The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline