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A Royal Affair
Aug. 29th, 2011 10:12 amHaving now heard something of
Johann Friedrich Struensee, I really want to see Lars von Trier's film of the story, coming in 2012.
A summary of the Struensee story, as per Crooked Timber:
"What they would have seen was the rise to power of Johann Friedrich Struensee, appointed as a travelling physician to the crazy Danish King Christian VII in 1768 and then as his personal doctor the following year. By 1770 he’d managed both to become the lover of the Danish queen and to persuade the king to get rid of his other advisers and grant him almost unlimited power which he used to promote various Enlightenment goals such as the abolition of capital punishment and torture, and the end of censorship. However it wasn’t to last. He’d upset too many people and the King’s mother denounced his relationship with the Queen in early 1772 and he was tried and then executed (after having his right hand cut off). The Queen, Caroline Matilda (British in a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha kind of way) who had borne Struensee a child, Princess Louise Auguste. The child was recognized as the King’s but the mother was swiftly divorced and exiled to Germany."
Johann Friedrich Struensee, I really want to see Lars von Trier's film of the story, coming in 2012.
A summary of the Struensee story, as per Crooked Timber:
"What they would have seen was the rise to power of Johann Friedrich Struensee, appointed as a travelling physician to the crazy Danish King Christian VII in 1768 and then as his personal doctor the following year. By 1770 he’d managed both to become the lover of the Danish queen and to persuade the king to get rid of his other advisers and grant him almost unlimited power which he used to promote various Enlightenment goals such as the abolition of capital punishment and torture, and the end of censorship. However it wasn’t to last. He’d upset too many people and the King’s mother denounced his relationship with the Queen in early 1772 and he was tried and then executed (after having his right hand cut off). The Queen, Caroline Matilda (British in a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha kind of way) who had borne Struensee a child, Princess Louise Auguste. The child was recognized as the King’s but the mother was swiftly divorced and exiled to Germany."
