Виктория Холт - The Widow of Windsor

At his first council meeting he was bland and careless. The people wanted a constitution? Then certainly they must have a constitution. He would not stand in their way. If by any chance they, like the rest of Europe, were tired of kings they had only to say so. He would retire to his estates in the country; he was quite ready to take on the life of an ordinary nobleman which he assured them was far more comfortable than that of a king.

Would he marry? they wanted to know. No, he would not marry. Would he give up his mistress? No, he would not do that either. If they wished for a conventional king who would give them their constitution and an heir they had only to say so and he would happily abdicate.

The people were nonplussed. They had been ready to plunge into revolution, to drive the new King from his newly acquired throne, but how could they when he had no desire to retain it and was ready to save them the trouble of revolution by immediate abdication?

They were amused. He had promised them their constitution. Let them accept it and with it their new King, who was colourful and made them laugh. They quickly discovered that they were content with their King.

So, much to the surprise of all those who had feared that Frederick’s accession might precipitate the country into revolution, he became in a few days more popular than his father had ever been.

The people of Denmark wanted no revolution. They had their new constitution and they wanted Frederick as the King, for it was quite clear that he was going to be a very free and easy monarch with the gift of amusing them by his unconventional behaviour.

Frederick showed no surprise at their attitude. He settled into the Royal Palace with his ex-midinette and they were often seen strolling along the streets of Copenhagen much to the amusement of the people.

He quickly realised the anxiety of the family at the Yellow Palace and one day in his unceremonious manner he called.

Christian was in the middle of giving the gymnastic lesson and the King, having told the servant not to announce him, stood at the door watching them.

‘I wish I could do that!’ he cried.

Christian stood on ceremony; the children were very still.

‘No need to stand on ceremony,’ said Frederick.

But Christian signed to them to bow and curtsey.

‘His Majesty has honoured us with a visit,’ he said.

‘You’d better call me Uncle Frederick,’ replied the King.

Louise came hurrying in.

‘Your Majesty …’

Frederick smiled. ‘I wanted to have a talk with you,’ he explained.

‘Then if you will come into the drawing-room … They should not have let you come in unannounced.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m not used yet to being treated like a king.’

Christian dismissed the children. Alix took Dagmar by the hand and led her away, the boys following.

‘Nice little family,’ said the King. ‘Pretty little girls.’

Christian and Louise exchanged glances. They couldn’t help wondering whether this visit meant they were going to be told they could no longer have the Yellow Palace. But surely if this had been the case someone else would have told them? But how could they be sure with a king as unconventional as Frederick.

In the drawing-room Frederick sprawled on the sofa as he spoke, pulling at the place there which Louise herself had darned.

‘Don’t imagine,’ he said, ‘that my coming to the throne makes any difference as far as this place is concerned. It’s yours while you want it.’

The relief was too intense to hide.

‘My place in the Guards …’ began Christian.

‘You don’t think I want to disband my army and lose my best men,’ said Frederick with a grin. ‘There’s a possibility that you will be heir to the throne, you know.’

‘Oh no, Your Majesty will have sons.’

‘I think that’s hardly likely. I’d have to find a wife first, wouldn’t I? As a matter of fact I’m going to marry Countess Danner.’ He laughed. ‘You look surprised. Perhaps you know her better as Mademoiselle Louise Rasmussen. I’ve just made her a Countess. But of course they’d call that a morganatic marriage, wouldn’t they, and even if we had children they wouldn’t be allowed to inherit.’ He pointed gleefully at Christian. ‘You may well be for it, my boy. So enjoy your freedom from the affairs of state while you can.’

A very undignified monarch, thought Louise. When her Christian was King – which he might well be – it would be a very different matter. She was secretly elated because her eldest son Frederick could very likely in due course follow his father and be King of Denmark.

In the meantime there was nothing to worry about. The country was no longer on the edge of revolution and the new King was even more benevolent than the old.

* * *

There was tension throughout the Yellow Palace. Fredy knew why. It was war. He whispered it to Alix in the little room which she shared with Dagmar. Funny Uncle Frederick would put on his beautiful coat with all the gold braid and buttons and the medals and march to war. Papa would go with him because he was a soldier.

‘Bang, bang,’ said Fredy. ‘Then Uncle Frederick and Papa will come home and all the bands will play and we’ll stand on the balcony and watch.’

Alix listened wide-eyed to Fredy’s account of what war meant.

In the privacy of their room Louise tried to conceal her anxiety even from her husband. Christian, with his particular buoyancy and innocent outlook on life, believed that the war would soon be over. Louise, more realistic, was not so sure.

She tried to assess what would happen to her family if Frederick was defeated. Also she feared for her husband. Christian, good soldier that he was, had no desire to go to war because it meant leaving his family. His idea of being a soldier was to report to the barracks daily and come home to teach gymnastics and bring his children up with the aid of their clever mother. To leave them now was a tragedy. His great consolation was that they would be in the capable hands of their mother.

‘It was bound to come sooner or later,’ said Louise. ‘Schleswig-Holstein has always been a source of anxiety to Denmark. It has been boiling for years.’

‘And now, of course, with Frederick’s accession, the Holsteiners have used this as an opportunity.’

Louise nodded. The position of Schleswig-Holstein, lying to the south of Denmark as a border to the German states, was in itself provocative. The trouble was that while Schleswig was content to be under Danish rule, Holstein was not. The Holsteiners preferred to consider themselves Germans, so there was friction and the Holsteiners were constantly attempting to persuade the people of Schleswig to their way of thinking.

One member of the royal family of Oldenburg, a branch of the royal family, was the Duke of Augustenburg, who had in fact a claim to the Danish throne. With German support he decided to make a bid for it. Hence the war which had broken out.

‘If the people of Holstein should win …’ began Louise.

‘That’s impossible,’ declared Christian.

‘It’s all very well for you to be loyal to your country,’ said Louise rather impatiently, ‘but what if they get help from some of the German states? Could Denmark stand up against that? And what sort of commander is Frederick going to be?’

Louise could not bear to think of the defeat of the Danish armies. If Duke Christian of Augustenburg defeated Frederick he would most certainly become at least heir to the Danish throne which would mean that Louise’s husband and her son would be passed over. She realised how dear that project had become to her since it had been suggested to her by her mother through the last King. There was a more immediate problem. If the war were lost what would become of her family? They would most certainly be turned out of the Yellow Palace and Christian would no longer have a post in the Army.

It was a gloomy prospect.

‘Let us pray,’ she said, ‘that this war will soon be over.’

The children assembled in the music room while Louise sat at the piano and they all sang hymns. The ‘God help us’ kind of hymns, said Alix to Fredy, which meant that people were frightened because they always asked God’s help then in a special sort of way.

Their father read to them from the Bible and that too was all about God’s helping them in their battles.

Fredy had made war sound rather glorious but Alix sensed that her parents’ attitude was rather different.

Shortly afterwards their father left with the Army.

‘I’ll soon be back,’ he told them.

But the war dragged on, and it was three years before it was over.

Life had gone on much as before in the Yellow Palace. Alix and Dagmar shared an attic room which contained two narrow beds, a chest of drawers and very little room for anything else. There were lessons every day with their mother. Music played a very big part in their lives. Louise played her pianoforte with skill and feeling and she was anxious that the children should do the same. Alix was taught to make her own clothes for they were much too expensive to buy; and as soon as Dagmar was old enough she would learn too. In the meantime she was allowed to watch. Alix had developed a skill in dressmaking which was a pleasure to her mother; she could choose the most becoming colours with ease and had a natural artistic bent. She enjoyed making clothes and when they were completed would like to parade up and down before her brothers and little sister while they applauded.

When she walked out with her mother wearing the new dress or jacket which she had helped to make she would be very conscious of its cut and would compare it with clothes worn by others; on her return she would, on her mother’s orders, take it off, put on something less precious, and hang it up in her wardrobe so that it should be fresh when next required. There were the visits to Rumpenheim which still went on in spite of the war. There Alix became aware that her clothes were very simple compared with those of her female relations.

‘Never mind,’ said her mother. ‘You wear yours so much better that they look as good.’

This impressed Alix. It was true. Some of them slouched or did not stand up straight. She must remember that.

They continued with their physical exercises.

‘Papa will expect it when he comes home,’ said Louise.

And at last Papa did come home.

What rejoicing there was! It was just as Fredy had said all those years ago – it seemed an age – when the war had started. The bands played; there were marches through the streets; uniforms and general rejoicing. Uncle Frederick had won his war against the rebels of Schleswig-Holstein. Denmark was safe and the King was a hero. So was Prince Christian.

How proud they all were and how delighted the Prince was to be home with his family!

Mama played the piano and they all sang Danish songs. Songs of Triumph now. No need to ask for God’s help. They had won the war. They were safe.

Papa explained it all to them and they listened eagerly.

Schleswig-Holstein had ‘come to its senses’; it was content now to be part of Denmark; and the wicked ogre of the story, who oddly had the same name as Papa, Prince Christian, though of Augustenburg, had gone to Germany.

Papa was jubilant; he had conducted himself with honour in the war and had worked closely with King Frederick so that they had become good friends.

It was all wonderful.

Louise, however, was not so optimistic; she had qualms about the future and she often discussed these when she was alone with her husband.

‘It’s a temporary peace,’ she said. ‘A truce really.’

‘Why, my dear,’ remonstrated Christian, ‘we well and truly trounced them.’

‘What about Prussia? There are plots brewing there, I’m sure.’

‘You worry too much.’

But dear Christian was a little naive and none knew it better than his wife. The European powers shared Louise’s fears of the growing ambitions of Prussia and realised that a strong Denmark was essential to curb those ambitions. And as Frederick was without a son to follow him, the succession was still unsettled. A conference of the powers took place in London and one of the items discussed was a possible heir to the throne of Denmark, and now that Prince Christian of Augustenburg was in disgrace, it was decided that, in accordance with an earlier suggestion of the late King, it should be settled on Prince Christian through his wife Louise.