Caroline Matilda of Great Britain - Later Life in Celle

Later Life in Celle

Caroline Matilda's brother, George III, sent Sir Robert Murray Keith, a British diplomat, to negotiate for her release from imprisonment. On 28 May 1772, Caroline Matilda was deported on board a British frigate to Celle, residing at Celle Castle in her brother's German territory of Hanover. She never saw her children again. In Celle, she was known for her charity toward poor children and orphans. She was also reunited with her former hofmesterinde (Mistress of the Robes) Countess Louise von Plessen.

She did not give up hope of returning to Denmark and seeing her ex-husband deposed, but her indiscreet behaviour dismayed her brother, and he was reluctant to have her back in England, even if she had been willing to return.

In 1774, she became the center of a plot with the intent to make her the regent of Denmark as the guardian of the crown prince, instigated by Ernst Schimmelmann with the Englishman Nathaniel Wraxall as a messenger. Wraxall met her many times and she used him as messenger to her brother, whose support she desired. She herself wrote a letter to her brother George III in 1775, in which she asked for his approval for the plan, which she referred to as “this scheme for my son's happiness.”

She died suddenly of scarlet fever at Celle on 10 May 1775. She was buried in the Stadtkirche St. Marien in Celle.