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184]   ANNUAL REGISTER

majesty being entered, the bishop of Lindkioping pronounced the words, Blessed be she who cometh in the name of the Lord; after which the next eldest bishop read a prayer. Her majesty being seated on the throne prepared for her, all the rest of the bishops went into the choir.

After divine service was performed, the coronation music began again, during with the two princes conducted the king from his throne to the altar.  His majesty being seated in the silver chair, and surrounded by all the senators, and standard of the kingdom being placed behind the chair, the grand chamberlain, assisted by the other chamberlains, took off the mantle of prince royal, which the king wore, and it was laid upon the altar:  at the same time, the archbishop and the president of the chancery took the royal mantle from the altar, and put it upon the king's shoulders; upon which his majesty kneeled before the stool on which the Bible was laid, the music ceased, and the Bible was opened by the archbishop at the first chapter of Joshua.  The king then laying three fingers on the Bible, took his coronation oath.  This ended, the archbishop took the anointing horn; and, the king kneeling, he anointed his majesty's forehead, breast, temples, and both hands, repeating, at the same time, the prayer usual on this occasion.  The anointing being finished, the king rose, and seated himself in the chair: then the senator count Horn assisted the archbishop to take the royal crown from the altar, and to place it on the king's head, the archbishop reading the form of prayer for this ceremony; after which the senator baron Renterholm took the sceptre, from the altar, which he, together with the archbishop, delivered to the king, and another prayer was read.

The ceremony of crowning the king being finished, the senior grand marshal of the court gave notice to the heralds appointed for that purpose, to proclaim that Gustavus the Third was now crowned King of Sweden and Gothland, with the provinces thereunto belonging; he and no other.  The guns were next fired from the artillery and the admiralty, 113 cannons from each; and then the heralds proclaimed, Long live King Gustavus!  Afterwards the bishop of Abo chanted a prayer at the altar with the blessing.  Immediately after the blessing the king left the chair, and went to his throne, clothed in coronation mantle, with the crown on his head, the sceptre in his right hand, and the globe in his left.  The queen was then anointed and crowned with the same ceremonies as the king had been; after which the heralds proclaimed, Long Live Queen Sophia Magdalena.

After the ceremony was over, the procession moved out of the church in the same order in which it had entered.

As soon as they were returned to the palace, the king's rent master threw out money to the populace, and several hogsheads of wine, &c. were distributed among them.

About nine o'clock their majesties supped in public, in the great hall of the kingdom, which was richly ornamented and magnificently illuminated.

On the first of June, when the different orders of the state came to do homage, and to take the ac-

7     customed

For the YEAR 1772.           [185

customed oath of fidelity, his majesty, in his speech upon that occasion, said, "Assured of your hearts, most sincerely purposing to merit them, and to fix my throne upon your love and felicity, the public engagement, which you are going to enter into, would, in my opinion, be needless, if ancient custom, and the law of Sweden, did not require it of you:--Unhappy the King who wants the tye of oaths to secure himself on the throne; and who, not assured of the hearts of his subjects, is constrained to reign only by the force of laws, when he cannot by the love of his subjects."
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Particulars relating to the Sentence and Execution of the State Criminals in Denmark.

ON Saturday the 25th of April, the Committee of Enquiry proceeded to pronounce sentence against John Frederick Struensee, and Enevold Brandt, which was accordingly presented to the Privy-Council, without his majesty's attendance.  In the afternoon the Privy-Council met again; in the evening, towards seven o'clock, the King arrived from Charlottenburg, and presided at the Council-Board, when, after confirming the sentence, he went directly to the Italian Opera.

Same day, at twelve at noon, both the prisoners were acquainted, by their Counsellors, with their sentences.  Struensee received and read his with extraordinary composure, which naturally astonished all those present; to whome he observed, they ought, as he did, to impute it to his constant "apprehensions, and his long preparations for his unhappy fate."----His uneasiness appeared much greater, when he found Brandt's sentence equal to his own.  Brandt also seemed tolerably resigned on hearing his sentence: but the following morning his spirits totally sunk, there being no barber sent, as usual to shave him.  Mess. Munter and Hee have been, since Saturday, seldom absent from Struesee and Brandt.  Both prisoners delivered into their Counsellors hands, on their leaving them on Saturday last, two letters, one for the King, and one for the Committee of Enquiry.  Yesterday they both received the Holy Sacrament.

Struensee's sentence takes up five full sheets of paper:  Among the charges therein contained against him are, his having assumed too great a power to himself; his injuring the King's treasure for more than sixteen tons of gold; his forging (or falsifying) a draught; his discharging the guards; the suspicious arrangements he had been ordering within the walls of the city, &c.

Brandt's sentence expressly says, That, on account of his designs agitated immediately against the sacred person of his Majesty, the exceptions he made could not be admitted, and was therefore declared guilty, and condemned.  Towards the conclusion of their sentence is added, in virtue of the Danish Law Book, B. vi. C. 4, Art. I, "That both Count John Frederic Struensee, and Count Enevold Brandt, having made themselves guilty, and, as an example to others, stand justly condemned to forfeit their honours, lives, and property, and are entirely degraded from the dignities
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