Christian's childhood is full of OMG stories, that would be worthy of their own post. As you can probably guess from the Frederik V write-up, Frederik was not the stuff of which good fathers are made. His country was being run by other people, his son was being raised by other people, and if anything was going badly...don't bother him. He had a full time job called "drunken orgies."
Christian's first governor is a religious fanatic who considers it his job to beat Christian and yell at him to save his soul. To quote Barz the romanticizer:
In the background Reventlow's terrible question roars again and again, whether Christian wants to end up a swine like his father, who spends all his time messing around with whores. Christian doesn't want that at all. He doesn't even really know what whores are; but they must be something evil for this dreadful man to get so upset about.
At one point, Christian tries running to Dad for help, but as he bangs frantically on the door:
Behind this door only a babble and groaning could be heard, and Christian guessed what the whole court knew: As always, the father had a few Copenhagen ladies of pleasure with him, as always he poured down streams of alcohol, and it wasn't the merry drinking of his ancestors. Friedrich V. was ill, an alcoholic, and he finally dies of cirrhosis of the liver, a ruler who does not know why he is actually a ruler. The king no longer rules in Denmark.
Christian also didn't have a great relationship with Juliana Maria. Later in life, he cast her as the evil stepmother who wanted him dead so her son could inherit (and tells some really heart-rending stories to Struensee later); Barz is willing to acknowledge that we haven't heard her side of the story, but whatever happened there, it wasn't the kind of relationship that would compensate for paternal neglect and tutorial abuse.
When he's 11, little Christian gets a second tutor, a Voltaire protege who manages to alleviate some of the non-stop abuse, and then Christian decides he's going to become a freethinker. (Oh, *man*, I need to write up the Ferdinand of Parma monograph, it's so relevant!)
But he still turns out a mess. He ends up with severe trauma when he's king: first threatening to get rid of the guy who abused him, then crying and saying his beloved tutor can't leave. THERAPY FOR EVERYONE.
Once he becomes king, there's a combination of drinking and carousing, not wanting to get out of bed, jerky movements and general nervousness, delusions, impulse control problems (he's not at the butt-groping Ferdinand of Naples level, but they have to keep him out of public sight, because it's pretty obvious he's not normal), some punching down, and general chaos.
He admires Fritz in a sort-of Peter III style, even mimicking his walk, but also wants to go to war with him and beat him, because if you can beat the best, you are the best! (ViennaJoe is Sir Not Appearing in This Story, as we'll see later.)
He watches torture scenes, and wants to know all the details of executions. Heroleplays his own execution, writhing in pretend agony as he's "beheaded".
His mistress is an Amazon type woman with a whip, and at least according to our author, he was a masochist in the literal, sexual sense of the word.
He's awful to his wife, Caroline Matilda, sister of George III, and says he doesn't care who "mounts the cow."
At some point, his desperate advisors decide he needs to go on a Grand Tour to see if a change of scenery will do him any good. But they need to bring a doctor along, and there's this new up-and-coming guy making a name for himself, this Johann Friedrich Struensee guy. "Do you want to be the king's doctor while he's on tour?"
Struensee: Sure!
They go to Germany, France, and England. Struensee keeps an eye on him, kind of pissing off the nobles already by actually caring what's good for his patient, and not being a courtier. Christian is somewhat impressed by the guy who's willing to tell it like it is, but the time of great influence has not come yet.
He burns out quickly on the tour, probably clinically depressed, and wants to go home even before they go to Italy. His entourage is mostly disappointed because winter is setting in in Denmark, and they were looking forward to Italy. But, the king has spoken, and back they go. Once they're in Denmark again, and he's miserably mentally ill with Struensee as official physician, that's when Struensee begins to gain influence.
Christian doesn't want to get out of bed, is threatening suicide, says he can't sleep with his wife, because she's really his mother, etc.
No one else knows what to do, but Struensee thinks his mental illness is neither immoral nor demonic possession, but that Christian is just a lost and scared child driven into mania. He becomes the first person who sits down and listens to Christian, and makes him feel heard and taken seriously.
Christian is all, "Oh, let me tell you all the stories about my childhood! My evil governor, my evil stepmother, my deadbeat dad..."
So now Struensee is what we would call Christian's therapist. Someone actually gets therapy!
And it helps. Christian's mental health starts to improve! He becomes a huge Struensee fan. Even better, it turns out his therapist also has all these liberal reforming ideas, which Christian had vaguely had before (remember, his second tutor was a Voltaire protege), but all his nobles were like, "With all due respect, Your Majesty, that's a stupid idea."
But now he has a strong-willed man at his side to put these ideas into practice! So he gives Struensee the green light to start reforming. Struensee tries to get Christian involved in governing, for the sake of his mental health and for the country, but Christian's approach to governing is rather like his father's: "I have all these demons from my childhood to cope with, you just tell me what to sign and I'll sign it."
So now Struensee's in power. He's therapist to the king, and as we'll see, therapist to the queen as well, then probably her lover, he's entrusted with their son's education, and now he's allowed to reform the country. The king even seems fine with the menage a trois they have going.
Everything is great for about five minutes! But there is a snake in paradise. Workaholic Struensee becomes obsessed with all the good he can do as minister. He stops having time for Christian.
Who still needs a therapist. And now suddenly he doesn't have one. If you know anything about clinical practice today, it is a very, very bad thing to lose your therapist without warning.
Christian's behavior becomes very erratic again. Struensee is all, "Ugh, I do not have time for this," and gives him a babysitter. One Enevold Brandt, a friend of Struensee's who likes putting on plays, and whom Struensee puts in charge of entertaining at the court. His instructions are "distract the King while I do the ruling."
Only Brandt and Christian have very different taste in plays, and they don't get along at all.
And things go even further south.
Christian keeps challenging people to duels, knowing that if they obey, assaulting the king is high treason, and if they disobey, disobeying the king is just as bad! He's got them in a catch-22, ha!
One day, Brandt, who is totally fed up with Christian and with Struensee for not letting him quit this stupid job of royal babysitter, finally snaps and takes Christian up on his challenge. They go into another room, throw a few punches, Brandt bites the king's hand, and then they come out laughing and in a better mood with each other. Having let off some steam, as it were.
Unfortunately, they're not the discreet type, and they tell everyone. As rumors spread and grow in the telling, it does not contribute to Struensee's PR that his friend that he put in charge of the king is punching and biting the king.
Christian is also showing signs of being fed up with Struensee never having time for him any more. He tells one of his ministers that the King of Prussia is sleeping with his wife. When asked who this King of Prussia is, he cackles madly and says, "Struensee, obviously!" (As we've seen, both Fritz and Struensee would be offended by this comparison, but...you can see where Christian got it.)
Eventually Struensee decides they have to take Christian out to a remote palace, just like in the bad old days, and hide him from the people so no one sees how erratic the king's behavior is.
Unfortunately, never seeing the king allows rumors to start among the population: that he's being kept against his will, abused, even poisoned.
Eventually, there's a coup.
Christian gets woken up in the middle of the night by a group of conspirators (which Moltke, remember, refused to join), and told Struensee is plotting against him. He signs paperwork agreeing to let Struensee be taken prisoner, and also agrees to divorce his wife and send her away. There's a show trial, and Struensee is condemned to lose a hand and his head. Former babysitter Brandt gets executed alongside Struensee, for an alleged assassination attempt (the punching and biting episode retold). Christian is supposedly distracted with a lot of festivals and parties from realizing what was going on and having time to reflect and change his mind.
His stepmother Juliana Maria, leader of the coup, ends up running the country in concert with some ministers. Later in life, Christian's son will get him to sign yet another document without reading it, allowing the son to be regent. Sadly, the tragedy of Struensee is also the tragedy of Christian VII.
Next up: the tragedy of Struensee, and also of Queen Caroline Matilda.
Christian's first governor is a religious fanatic who considers it his job to beat Christian and yell at him to save his soul.
I'm reminded of future F1 and Prussian Severus Snape, Danckelmann, not least because adult F1 also had these mixed feelings about Danckelmann, but of course future F1 had his much loved mother to intervene on his behalf for his early childhood, and he had siblings he was close to. I take it Christian wasn't close to Juliana's son, but did he have full siblings? I don't recall from the movie. (The movie being "A Royal Affair".)
he cast her as the evil stepmother who wanted him dead so her son could inherit
This also reminds me of F1 and stepmother Dorothea the founder of the Schwedt line. As more than one biographer said, both can be true: that it's psychologically easier to blame the stepmother as opposed to blaming one's father, and that the stepmothers in question once they had children of their own of course promoted and fought for them, though not to the degree that they wanted their stepsons actively dead.
So now Struensee's in power. He's therapist to the king, and as we'll see, therapist to the queen as well, then probably her lover, he's entrusted with their son's education, and now he's allowed to reform the country. The king even seems fine with the menage a trois they have going.
Everything is great for about five minutes! But there is a snake in paradise. Workaholic Struensee becomes obsessed with all the good he can do as minister. He stops having time for Christian.
That is his big mistake in the movie as well. On the one hand, one feels like yelling "buddy, how could you forget that all the power you have derives exclusively from keeping Christian happy!", but on the other, giving the state of Denmark and the chance for reforming, it's all too understandable that Struensee prioritized, as it turns out, wrongly. I'm reminded that the Chevalier de Lorraine, a far worse man as a human being, is an example of a favourite who always got it right. It's not that he didn't have sex with other people, even women, shock, horror, but Philippe the Gay was never for a moment in doubt he was the Chevalier's primary priority and central focus. Then again, the Chevalier didn't have the chance to run the kingdom. Hm, perhaps a better comparison would be to Madame de Pompadour, who also had no power beyond what her King gave her, but who managed to maintain Louis XV' favour even when he wasn't sexually interested anymore, not least because not only did she was emotionally available to him whenever he wanted to reassure, amuse and praise, but she could delegate. (I.e. promote her allies into Louis' cabinet, she didn't have to do all the work and thus had time for Louis.)
Reinette: Being and remaining Maitresse en titre wasn't as easy as it looks like! And no one ever suspected me of ordering black masses.
Christian is supposedly distracted with a lot of festivals and parties from realizing what was going on and having time to reflect and change his mind.
His German wiki entry says he wrote an a paper "Ich hätte gerne beide gerettet" (meaning Struensee and Brandt) and that he kept referring to Struensee as a great man. Alas.
I take it Christian wasn't close to Juliana's son, but did he have full siblings?
Ah, this is something I was going to mention! He did, yes, and apparently he was even close to the one closest in age to him. But then, according to our author, she committed the treasonous act of *shock* *horror* liking his wife!
Christian's sister Wilhelmine [is] supposedly his only relative whom he really loves. But Wilhelmine had committed the state crime of becoming friends with his wife, and Christian, who always feels cheated of love, takes his revenge when he sells Wilhelmine to the inexperienced Landgrave of Hesse, whom he himself dislikes.
Now, Wikipedia chronology makes mincemeat of this theory: Wilhelmie and Wilhelm of Hesse were married before Christian became king, when he was only 15, and in fact two years before Christian himself got married. According to Wikipedia, Wilhelmine's marriage was arranged when she was still a child, and she and her future husband were even raised together.
So while it's possible she liked Caroline Matilda and Christian was upset about that, the marriage-as-revenge claim doesn't hold up. (Is everything in this book wrong?)
Anyway, he doesn't seem to have been close to his other two full sisters, but I will let you know if I learn otherwise after reading other, perhaps more reliable, sources.
Hm, perhaps a better comparison would be to Madame de Pompadour, who also had no power beyond what her King gave her, but who managed to maintain Louis XV' favour even when he wasn't sexually interested anymore, not least because not only did she was emotionally available to him
Yeah, she's the one I was thinking of. Struensee could not delegate, though. And when he tried, it went badly (he tended, at least according to our author, to delegate to his friends who shared his opinions rather than to people who were qualified for the position). He tried delegating "be emotionally available to the king," and that went extremely badly!
On the one hand, one feels like yelling "buddy, how could you forget that all the power you have derives exclusively from keeping Christian happy!", but on the other, giving the state of Denmark and the chance for reforming, it's all too understandable that Struensee prioritized, as it turns out, wrongly.
Exactly how I felt. :/
His German wiki entry says he wrote an a paper "Ich hätte gerne beide gerettet" (meaning Struensee and Brandt) and that he kept referring to Struensee as a great man. Alas.
Yeah. :( Barz at least presents him as being bullied into it more than being really on board with it, and by the time he had second thoughts, it was too late.
Therapy for everyone. With therapists who don't get distracted by running the state.
(Someone finally gets therapy in this century, and it still ends badly! *lolsob*)
As more than one biographer said, both can be true: that it's psychologically easier to blame the stepmother as opposed to blaming one's father, and that the stepmothers in question once they had children of their own of course promoted and fought for them, though not to the degree that they wanted their stepsons actively dead.
Ugh, yes!! (Source: my father had a stepmother. She was extremely awful, though as far as I can tell did not want him actively dead. But my father's father was the one who was ACTUALLY tasked to take care of my father and really, really didn't in almost all ways.) (Honestly compels me to admit that my father's father did bring him to the US.)
On the one hand, one feels like yelling "buddy, how could you forget that all the power you have derives exclusively from keeping Christian happy!", but on the other, giving the state of Denmark and the chance for reforming, it's all too understandable that Struensee prioritized, as it turns out, wrongly.
Oh wait, sorry, I'm going out of order! I meant to respond to this one first :PP (But hey, I saw there was more on Moltke! But lol, I may not get to the rest of the Moltke posts tonight.)
omg poor EVERYONE in this story! Generational trauma indeed.
The hand-biting, okay, that was kind of hilarious. It's too bad they couldn't keep quiet about it. But then SO MANY THINGS about this story are too bad!
Oh wait, sorry, I'm going out of order! I meant to respond to this one first :PP (But hey, I saw there was more on Moltke! But lol, I may not get to the rest of the Moltke posts tonight.)
Hahaha! Your saying Moltke was your fave too definitely helped inspire the quest for further information. There *is* a monograph on Moltke that I'm eyeing, but 1) it's in Danish, 2) I would consider google translating it, especially as it might help my Danish, but that's time-consuming and I have very little time these days, 3) none of the copies I can find ship to the US, 4) I don't know how interested luzula is. ;)
[ETA: Well, after trying 7 sites, one will ship to the US...for $40 shipping. *pondering* Someone stop me, I can't even read Danish. :P]
That reminds me, though, Luzula did agree to read some Fredrik Munck (Finnish sex machine) for us if I obtained the reading material! I should get on that...
I have indeed been following at least some of this stuff about the Danish kings and their favorites, and found it interesting, but haven't gotten around to commenting yet! Although I haven't quite kept up with all the comments.
It's all sort of like watching a trainwreck, with the people involved mostly having good intentions, or at least not bad ones? But not the best mental health...
I don't know that I can commit to reading a whole book about it in Danish, though! I mean, I have read a book in Danish once, and it was quite possible for me, but also much more work than reading a book in Swedish. Hmm, I do have a Danish brother-in-law who is interested in history, but he also has two small kids, so I probably couldn't draft him into this...
ETA: And I have received Mildred's list of Finnish sex machine sources! Will eventually report back...
It's all sort of like watching a trainwreck, with the people involved mostly having good intentions, or at least not bad ones? But not the best mental health...
It is SUCH a trainwreck! Even Struensee, who had good mental health, made some poor choices with his good intentions, and it's so very train-wrecky.
I don't know that I can commit to reading a whole book about it in Danish, though!
I was not expecting any such thing! That's why I was half-seriously trying to see if I could teach myself Danish based off of German. (Spoiler: it's both easier and harder than expected. Definitely not doable in one day, though!)
Though honestly, the majority of the monograph is probably of less interest. I don't care about Moltke's patronizing of the arts, or his leadership of the Asiatic Company, or his work as an estate owner. I really only care about his personal life. And that has me thinking maybe I should buy the book after all and Google translate just the relevant chapter(s), as I am doing with Holm's magnum opus on Danish history.
The biggest problem is that it wouldn't arrive until March, at which point there's a 90% chance I won't care enough to prioritize it. So thus far I have resisted the urge to buy a copy.
Hmm, I do have a Danish brother-in-law who is interested in history, but he also has two small kids, so I probably couldn't draft him into this...
So while I have 100% discovered that the way to learn history is to draft people (Selena, Felis, you, Prinzsorgenfrei) into reading the things you cannot read or sometimes even the things you don't want to read, I am not asking anyone to read a monograph on Moltke for me! If nothing else, a random stranger probably won't pick up on the parts that are of interest to salon specifically; we'd presumably be better off with Google translate.
But that is very interesting that you have a brother who likes history. What period(s) is he into, and would salon be of any interest to him even without being drafted into reading and writing up a specific book? cahn, who also has two kids, enjoys following the conversations even without doing much reading and reporting back. (God knows even I, without any kids, have to drop out of actively participating in a bunch of conversations, like Louis XIV and Byzantium, no matter how much I enjoy reading along with them.) And he might know random things off the top of his head that we don't know.
ETA: And I have received Mildred's list of Finnish sex machine sources! Will eventually report back...
We look forward to it! But no rush, everyone is busy. I have 3? 4 now? languages I'm trying to study. I might do the thing with Danish that worked so well with French that I'm now doing it with Italian: read one paragraph a day and see what happens.
And I still want to write up the Duke of Parma monograph, especially as the Danish developments made me think of it and want to do a compare-and-contrast!
My kids aren't really that small anymore, though! On the other hand, I actually have less time to post in salon as a result -- when salon started, they went to bed a good hour earlier and I had what now seems like SO much more time in the evenings. And E, as she gets older, seems to consume more of my evening hours in other ways -- math team prep easily takes a couple of evenings a week when I let it, and there are a couple of other things like that, whereas at A's age there's not as much stuff like that. (except omg summer camp registration is coming up, ugh.)
Er, I take it back about my brother-in-law! I realized that I don't want him to read my fanfic...not that anything terrible would happen, I would just prefer that he didn't.
Haha, this is why I gave a talk to my extended family about Frederick the Great but, uh, didn't point them to salon AT ALL. I prefer to keep my fandom life separate from my family... :)
Whereas if someone speaks a language I don't, I am willing to direct them here! I have been asking around (unsuccessfully) for French speakers, and I have my eye on a new coworker who majored in Russian and seems intellectually curious, although no background in history.
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cahn
Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-11 07:23 pm (UTC)Christian's first governor is a religious fanatic who considers it his job to beat Christian and yell at him to save his soul. To quote Barz the romanticizer:
In the background Reventlow's terrible question roars again and again, whether Christian wants to end up a swine like his father, who spends all his time messing around with whores. Christian doesn't want that at all. He doesn't even really know what whores are; but they must be something evil for this dreadful man to get so upset about.
At one point, Christian tries running to Dad for help, but as he bangs frantically on the door:
Behind this door only a babble and groaning could be heard, and Christian guessed what the whole court knew: As always, the father had a few Copenhagen ladies of pleasure with him, as always he poured down streams of alcohol, and it wasn't the merry drinking of his ancestors. Friedrich V. was ill, an alcoholic, and he finally dies of cirrhosis of the liver, a ruler who does not know why he is actually a ruler. The king no longer rules in Denmark.
Christian also didn't have a great relationship with Juliana Maria. Later in life, he cast her as the evil stepmother who wanted him dead so her son could inherit (and tells some really heart-rending stories to Struensee later); Barz is willing to acknowledge that we haven't heard her side of the story, but whatever happened there, it wasn't the kind of relationship that would compensate for paternal neglect and tutorial abuse.
When he's 11, little Christian gets a second tutor, a Voltaire protege who manages to alleviate some of the non-stop abuse, and then Christian decides he's going to become a freethinker. (Oh, *man*, I need to write up the Ferdinand of Parma monograph, it's so relevant!)
But he still turns out a mess. He ends up with severe trauma when he's king: first threatening to get rid of the guy who abused him, then crying and saying his beloved tutor can't leave. THERAPY FOR EVERYONE.
Once he becomes king, there's a combination of drinking and carousing, not wanting to get out of bed, jerky movements and general nervousness, delusions, impulse control problems (he's not at the butt-groping Ferdinand of Naples level, but they have to keep him out of public sight, because it's pretty obvious he's not normal), some punching down, and general chaos.
He admires Fritz in a sort-of Peter III style, even mimicking his walk, but also wants to go to war with him and beat him, because if you can beat the best, you are the best! (ViennaJoe is Sir Not Appearing in This Story, as we'll see later.)
He watches torture scenes, and wants to know all the details of executions. Heroleplays his own execution, writhing in pretend agony as he's "beheaded".
His mistress is an Amazon type woman with a whip, and at least according to our author, he was a masochist in the literal, sexual sense of the word.
He's awful to his wife, Caroline Matilda, sister of George III, and says he doesn't care who "mounts the cow."
At some point, his desperate advisors decide he needs to go on a Grand Tour to see if a change of scenery will do him any good. But they need to bring a doctor along, and there's this new up-and-coming guy making a name for himself, this Johann Friedrich Struensee guy. "Do you want to be the king's doctor while he's on tour?"
Struensee: Sure!
They go to Germany, France, and England. Struensee keeps an eye on him, kind of pissing off the nobles already by actually caring what's good for his patient, and not being a courtier. Christian is somewhat impressed by the guy who's willing to tell it like it is, but the time of great influence has not come yet.
He burns out quickly on the tour, probably clinically depressed, and wants to go home even before they go to Italy. His entourage is mostly disappointed because winter is setting in in Denmark, and they were looking forward to Italy. But, the king has spoken, and back they go.
Once they're in Denmark again, and he's miserably mentally ill with Struensee as official physician, that's when Struensee begins to gain influence.
Christian doesn't want to get out of bed, is threatening suicide, says he can't sleep with his wife, because she's really his mother, etc.
No one else knows what to do, but Struensee thinks his mental illness is neither immoral nor demonic possession, but that Christian is just a lost and scared child driven into mania. He becomes the first person who sits down and listens to Christian, and makes him feel heard and taken seriously.
Christian is all, "Oh, let me tell you all the stories about my childhood! My evil governor, my evil stepmother, my deadbeat dad..."
So now Struensee is what we would call Christian's therapist. Someone actually gets therapy!
And it helps. Christian's mental health starts to improve! He becomes a huge Struensee fan. Even better, it turns out his therapist also has all these liberal reforming ideas, which Christian had vaguely had before (remember, his second tutor was a Voltaire protege), but all his nobles were like, "With all due respect, Your Majesty, that's a stupid idea."
But now he has a strong-willed man at his side to put these ideas into practice! So he gives Struensee the green light to start reforming. Struensee tries to get Christian involved in governing, for the sake of his mental health and for the country, but Christian's approach to governing is rather like his father's: "I have all these demons from my childhood to cope with, you just tell me what to sign and I'll sign it."
So now Struensee's in power. He's therapist to the king, and as we'll see, therapist to the queen as well, then probably her lover, he's entrusted with their son's education, and now he's allowed to reform the country. The king even seems fine with the menage a trois they have going.
Everything is great for about five minutes! But there is a snake in paradise. Workaholic Struensee becomes obsessed with all the good he can do as minister. He stops having time for Christian.
Who still needs a therapist. And now suddenly he doesn't have one. If you know anything about clinical practice today, it is a very, very bad thing to lose your therapist without warning.
Christian's behavior becomes very erratic again. Struensee is all, "Ugh, I do not have time for this," and gives him a babysitter. One Enevold Brandt, a friend of Struensee's who likes putting on plays, and whom Struensee puts in charge of entertaining at the court. His instructions are "distract the King while I do the ruling."
Only Brandt and Christian have very different taste in plays, and they don't get along at all.
And things go even further south.
Christian keeps challenging people to duels, knowing that if they obey, assaulting the king is high treason, and if they disobey, disobeying the king is just as bad! He's got them in a catch-22, ha!
One day, Brandt, who is totally fed up with Christian and with Struensee for not letting him quit this stupid job of royal babysitter, finally snaps and takes Christian up on his challenge. They go into another room, throw a few punches, Brandt bites the king's hand, and then they come out laughing and in a better mood with each other. Having let off some steam, as it were.
Unfortunately, they're not the discreet type, and they tell everyone. As rumors spread and grow in the telling, it does not contribute to Struensee's PR that his friend that he put in charge of the king is punching and biting the king.
Christian is also showing signs of being fed up with Struensee never having time for him any more. He tells one of his ministers that the King of Prussia is sleeping with his wife. When asked who this King of Prussia is, he cackles madly and says, "Struensee, obviously!" (As we've seen, both Fritz and Struensee would be offended by this comparison, but...you can see where Christian got it.)
Eventually Struensee decides they have to take Christian out to a remote palace, just like in the bad old days, and hide him from the people so no one sees how erratic the king's behavior is.
Unfortunately, never seeing the king allows rumors to start among the population: that he's being kept against his will, abused, even poisoned.
Eventually, there's a coup.
Christian gets woken up in the middle of the night by a group of conspirators (which Moltke, remember, refused to join), and told Struensee is plotting against him. He signs paperwork agreeing to let Struensee be taken prisoner, and also agrees to divorce his wife and send her away. There's a show trial, and Struensee is condemned to lose a hand and his head. Former babysitter Brandt gets executed alongside Struensee, for an alleged assassination attempt (the punching and biting episode retold). Christian is supposedly distracted with a lot of festivals and parties from realizing what was going on and having time to reflect and change his mind.
His stepmother Juliana Maria, leader of the coup, ends up running the country in concert with some ministers. Later in life, Christian's son will get him to sign yet another document without reading it, allowing the son to be regent. Sadly, the tragedy of Struensee is also the tragedy of Christian VII.
Next up: the tragedy of Struensee, and also of Queen Caroline Matilda.
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-12 10:38 am (UTC)I'm reminded of future F1 and Prussian Severus Snape, Danckelmann, not least because adult F1 also had these mixed feelings about Danckelmann, but of course future F1 had his much loved mother to intervene on his behalf for his early childhood, and he had siblings he was close to. I take it Christian wasn't close to Juliana's son, but did he have full siblings? I don't recall from the movie. (The movie being "A Royal Affair".)
he cast her as the evil stepmother who wanted him dead so her son could inherit
This also reminds me of F1 and stepmother Dorothea the founder of the Schwedt line. As more than one biographer said, both can be true: that it's psychologically easier to blame the stepmother as opposed to blaming one's father, and that the stepmothers in question once they had children of their own of course promoted and fought for them, though not to the degree that they wanted their stepsons actively dead.
So now Struensee's in power. He's therapist to the king, and as we'll see, therapist to the queen as well, then probably her lover, he's entrusted with their son's education, and now he's allowed to reform the country. The king even seems fine with the menage a trois they have going.
Everything is great for about five minutes! But there is a snake in paradise. Workaholic Struensee becomes obsessed with all the good he can do as minister. He stops having time for Christian.
That is his big mistake in the movie as well. On the one hand, one feels like yelling "buddy, how could you forget that all the power you have derives exclusively from keeping Christian happy!", but on the other, giving the state of Denmark and the chance for reforming, it's all too understandable that Struensee prioritized, as it turns out, wrongly. I'm reminded that the Chevalier de Lorraine, a far worse man as a human being, is an example of a favourite who always got it right. It's not that he didn't have sex with other people, even women, shock, horror, but Philippe the Gay was never for a moment in doubt he was the Chevalier's primary priority and central focus. Then again, the Chevalier didn't have the chance to run the kingdom. Hm, perhaps a better comparison would be to Madame de Pompadour, who also had no power beyond what her King gave her, but who managed to maintain Louis XV' favour even when he wasn't sexually interested anymore, not least because not only did she was emotionally available to him whenever he wanted to reassure, amuse and praise, but she could delegate. (I.e. promote her allies into Louis' cabinet, she didn't have to do all the work and thus had time for Louis.)
Reinette: Being and remaining Maitresse en titre wasn't as easy as it looks like! And no one ever suspected me of ordering black masses.
Christian is supposedly distracted with a lot of festivals and parties from realizing what was going on and having time to reflect and change his mind.
His German wiki entry says he wrote an a paper "Ich hätte gerne beide gerettet" (meaning Struensee and Brandt) and that he kept referring to Struensee as a great man. Alas.
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-12 04:11 pm (UTC)Ah, this is something I was going to mention! He did, yes, and apparently he was even close to the one closest in age to him. But then, according to our author, she committed the treasonous act of *shock* *horror* liking his wife!
Christian's sister Wilhelmine [is] supposedly his only relative whom he really loves. But Wilhelmine had committed the state crime of becoming friends with his wife, and Christian, who always feels cheated of love, takes his revenge when he sells Wilhelmine to the inexperienced Landgrave of Hesse, whom he himself dislikes.
Now, Wikipedia chronology makes mincemeat of this theory: Wilhelmie and Wilhelm of Hesse were married before Christian became king, when he was only 15, and in fact two years before Christian himself got married. According to Wikipedia, Wilhelmine's marriage was arranged when she was still a child, and she and her future husband were even raised together.
So while it's possible she liked Caroline Matilda and Christian was upset about that, the marriage-as-revenge claim doesn't hold up. (Is everything in this book wrong?)
Anyway, he doesn't seem to have been close to his other two full sisters, but I will let you know if I learn otherwise after reading other, perhaps more reliable, sources.
Hm, perhaps a better comparison would be to Madame de Pompadour, who also had no power beyond what her King gave her, but who managed to maintain Louis XV' favour even when he wasn't sexually interested anymore, not least because not only did she was emotionally available to him
Yeah, she's the one I was thinking of. Struensee could not delegate, though. And when he tried, it went badly (he tended, at least according to our author, to delegate to his friends who shared his opinions rather than to people who were qualified for the position). He tried delegating "be emotionally available to the king," and that went extremely badly!
On the one hand, one feels like yelling "buddy, how could you forget that all the power you have derives exclusively from keeping Christian happy!", but on the other, giving the state of Denmark and the chance for reforming, it's all too understandable that Struensee prioritized, as it turns out, wrongly.
Exactly how I felt. :/
His German wiki entry says he wrote an a paper "Ich hätte gerne beide gerettet" (meaning Struensee and Brandt) and that he kept referring to Struensee as a great man. Alas.
Yeah. :( Barz at least presents him as being bullied into it more than being really on board with it, and by the time he had second thoughts, it was too late.
Therapy for everyone. With therapists who don't get distracted by running the state.
(Someone finally gets therapy in this century, and it still ends badly! *lolsob*)
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-18 06:11 am (UTC)Ugh, yes!! (Source: my father had a stepmother. She was extremely awful, though as far as I can tell did not want him actively dead. But my father's father was the one who was ACTUALLY tasked to take care of my father and really, really didn't in almost all ways.) (Honestly compels me to admit that my father's father did bring him to the US.)
On the one hand, one feels like yelling "buddy, how could you forget that all the power you have derives exclusively from keeping Christian happy!", but on the other, giving the state of Denmark and the chance for reforming, it's all too understandable that Struensee prioritized, as it turns out, wrongly.
Ugh, yeah, I'm thirding this one!
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-18 06:04 am (UTC)omg poor EVERYONE in this story! Generational trauma indeed.
The hand-biting, okay, that was kind of hilarious. It's too bad they couldn't keep quiet about it. But then SO MANY THINGS about this story are too bad!
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-18 05:50 pm (UTC)Hahaha! Your saying Moltke was your fave too definitely helped inspire the quest for further information. There *is* a monograph on Moltke that I'm eyeing, but 1) it's in Danish, 2) I would consider google translating it, especially as it might help my Danish, but that's time-consuming and I have very little time these days, 3) none of the copies I can find ship to the US, 4) I don't know how interested
[ETA: Well, after trying 7 sites, one will ship to the US...for $40 shipping. *pondering* Someone stop me, I can't even read Danish. :P]
That reminds me, though, Luzula did agree to read some Fredrik Munck (Finnish sex machine) for us if I obtained the reading material! I should get on that...
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-18 09:58 pm (UTC)It's all sort of like watching a trainwreck, with the people involved mostly having good intentions, or at least not bad ones? But not the best mental health...
I don't know that I can commit to reading a whole book about it in Danish, though! I mean, I have read a book in Danish once, and it was quite possible for me, but also much more work than reading a book in Swedish. Hmm, I do have a Danish brother-in-law who is interested in history, but he also has two small kids, so I probably couldn't draft him into this...
ETA: And I have received Mildred's list of Finnish sex machine sources! Will eventually report back...
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-18 10:19 pm (UTC)It is SUCH a trainwreck! Even Struensee, who had good mental health, made some poor choices with his good intentions, and it's so very train-wrecky.
I don't know that I can commit to reading a whole book about it in Danish, though!
I was not expecting any such thing! That's why I was half-seriously trying to see if I could teach myself Danish based off of German. (Spoiler: it's both easier and harder than expected. Definitely not doable in one day, though!)
Though honestly, the majority of the monograph is probably of less interest. I don't care about Moltke's patronizing of the arts, or his leadership of the Asiatic Company, or his work as an estate owner. I really only care about his personal life. And that has me thinking maybe I should buy the book after all and Google translate just the relevant chapter(s), as I am doing with Holm's magnum opus on Danish history.
The biggest problem is that it wouldn't arrive until March, at which point there's a 90% chance I won't care enough to prioritize it. So thus far I have resisted the urge to buy a copy.
Hmm, I do have a Danish brother-in-law who is interested in history, but he also has two small kids, so I probably couldn't draft him into this...
So while I have 100% discovered that the way to learn history is to draft people (Selena, Felis, you, Prinzsorgenfrei) into reading the things you cannot read or sometimes even the things you don't want to read, I am not asking anyone to read a monograph on Moltke for me! If nothing else, a random stranger probably won't pick up on the parts that are of interest to salon specifically; we'd presumably be better off with Google translate.
But that is very interesting that you have a brother who likes history. What period(s) is he into, and would salon be of any interest to him even without being drafted into reading and writing up a specific book?
ETA: And I have received Mildred's list of Finnish sex machine sources! Will eventually report back...
We look forward to it! But no rush, everyone is busy. I have 3? 4 now? languages I'm trying to study. I might do the thing with Danish that worked so well with French that I'm now doing it with Italian: read one paragraph a day and see what happens.
And I still want to write up the Duke of Parma monograph, especially as the Danish developments made me think of it and want to do a compare-and-contrast!
Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-21 06:43 am (UTC)Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-21 08:26 pm (UTC)Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-21 11:17 pm (UTC)Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-24 06:37 am (UTC)Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-24 07:37 pm (UTC)Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-21 06:40 am (UTC)