My new Struensee books have arrived. I haven't been able to digitize them yet, because Covid, but one is 650 pages long and very academic-looking, and it has this anecdote about Christian VII and the guy his neglectful father was crazy about:
Especially hated by him was the former favorite of his father: Moltke. He considered him a man only concerned with his own interest. Once, at a court feast, an intoxicated Frederik V is supposed to have promised him Hirschholm Palace as a gift. When Christian learned about this, he hurried to the cabinet library, drew a sketch of the pleasure palace on a piece of paper, and took it to Moltke. "I beseech Your Excellency," he said to the all-powerful minister, "to content yourself with this, because you will never get the real palace, unless you also get the crown." On another occasion, he's supposed to have remarked about Moltke, "Selfishness is one of his four Achilles' heels!"
The citation for these is an 1841 book called "Merkwürdigkeiten aus der Weltgeschichte," which doesn't inspire confidence and which I can't seem to find online, but whether or not this exact anecdote happened, I bet Moltke saw his dismissal coming (but I bet he still blamed the evil advisors).
Also, "unless you also get the crown" to an all-powerful minister...that sounds like a veiled accusation. Barz (our romanticizing biographer of Struensee) refers to "König Moltke" at one point, but I don't know if that was a contemporary phrase (well, an attested one, I bet contemporaries said it privately amongst themselves!) or just Barz being a novelist and playright at heart.
Judging by Wikipedia, Moltke did *not* get Hirschholm Palace: it was originally built by Christian VI for his wife Sophia Magdalena, she lived there until her death in 1770 (so after Frederik V died in 1766), Struensee and Caroline Mathilde lived there until 1771, and after that it fell into disrepair.
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Frederik V and Moltke
Especially hated by him was the former favorite of his father: Moltke. He considered him a man only concerned with his own interest. Once, at a court feast, an intoxicated Frederik V is supposed to have promised him Hirschholm Palace as a gift. When Christian learned about this, he hurried to the cabinet library, drew a sketch of the pleasure palace on a piece of paper, and took it to Moltke. "I beseech Your Excellency," he said to the all-powerful minister, "to content yourself with this, because you will never get the real palace, unless you also get the crown." On another occasion, he's supposed to have remarked about Moltke, "Selfishness is one of his four Achilles' heels!"
The citation for these is an 1841 book called "Merkwürdigkeiten aus der Weltgeschichte," which doesn't inspire confidence and which I can't seem to find online, but whether or not this exact anecdote happened, I bet Moltke saw his dismissal coming (but I bet he still blamed the evil advisors).
Also, "unless you also get the crown" to an all-powerful minister...that sounds like a veiled accusation. Barz (our romanticizing biographer of Struensee) refers to "König Moltke" at one point, but I don't know if that was a contemporary phrase (well, an attested one, I bet contemporaries said it privately amongst themselves!) or just Barz being a novelist and playright at heart.
Judging by Wikipedia, Moltke did *not* get Hirschholm Palace: it was originally built by Christian VI for his wife Sophia Magdalena, she lived there until her death in 1770 (so after Frederik V died in 1766), Struensee and Caroline Mathilde lived there until 1771, and after that it fell into disrepair.