The story is historically accurate--Christian VII is the Danish king who came to the thrown in the Age of Enlightenment. He was not entirely right in the head--what the exact problem was is not known, but there is general agreement that he had physical infirmity and he could be cruel, paranoid, silly, and unpredictable. He was almost certainly physically abused as a child, he most probably was verbally abused, and who knows, maybe there was some sexual sadism as well. In any case, he came to the thrown at age 17, which irritated his step-mother to no end, and she never forgave him.
He married his English cousin, Caroline Mathilda, a 15 year old who came to Denmark full of hope, all of which she lost on her wedding night. He was awful as a husband from start to finish, and they soon grew to detest each other. Not much of a story, but then enters the good Dr. Johann Friedrich Struensée. He is a country physician who attends to a crippled King while on a jaunt around Europe, and if the film is to believed, essentially did a little psychotherapy and the good King perked up enough to be able to travel home. That is where the story goes from grim to interesting.
Struensée and the Queen share a love for the philosophers of their time--they believe that the behavior of the nobility is unconscionable. They kill peasants with impunity. The poor live very poorly indeed--no food, no rights, no justice--and the rich live richly. Struensée uses his influence with the King to make marked changes in Denmark, and all the while he is bedding the Queen. Having his cake and eating it too, at least for a while. The King had an evil stepmother who eventually puts an end to all that, but not before significant changes have been made in the Kingdom in the North
No comments:
Post a Comment