Death Of The Eccentric Christian VII Of Denmark

Death Of The Eccentric Christian VII Of Denmark

Christian was born to King Frederick V and Louise of Great Britain, at the lavish Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen.
Christian was a small and frail boy.
As time wore on, he developed a crippling insecurity about his short stature and slender frame.
The young prince was reportedly bright and talented, with no sign of the strange, unhinged person he would become.

Everything changed for the young Crown Prince, when his parents hired him a tutor.
The illustrious Detlev, Count of Reventlow, was hired for the job.
The Count was incredibly cruel to Christian, and delighted in beating him to a pulp.
During one of the Count of Reventlow’s cruel beatings, attendants claimed they saw Christian on the floor, foaming at the mouth.

After Christian’s treatment at the hands of the Count, his personality changed drastically.
He and a gang of other youths started to trawl the streets of Copenhagen and attack anyone they came across.
Disturbingly, it’s said that Christian’s weapon of choice during these attacks, was a spiked club.

In 1766, King Frederick V died after a long illness following a drunken accident.
The king was just 42 years old.
His troublesome heir Christian, was still a surly 16-year-old with a reputation for immaturity, and mental imbalance.

Less than a year into his disastrous reign, Christian’s councillors forced him into a marriage with his 15-year-old cousin, Princess Caroline Matilda, to try to steady his violent tendencies.
Resentful of the match, Christian treated Caroline coldly.
He even delayed consummating their union.

Queen Caroline was generous and open by nature, and her new bridegroom’s scorn for her was both hurtful and alarming to the young girl.
In an effort to fully ensnare the king, she took the advice of a friend and withheld physical intimacy ~ in the hopes that it would make him want her more.
Enraged, Christian withdrew his affections even further.

In the end, Christian was persuaded to do his duty and consummate his marriage to Caroline Matilda.
The couple then welcomed a son and heir, the Crown Prince Frederick, on 28th January 1768.
Christian celebrated the momentous event by dropping all interest in Caroline, and taking up a very vested interest in the city’s brothels instead.

Besides earning himself premium membership to Copenhagen’s red light district, Christian also took up with Anne Benthagen, one of Denmark’s most famed courtesans.
Christian’s love of carnal delights, was legendary.
His libido was so high, that he took every spare moment he could, indulging in mAsturbation.

It was not unusual to come across the King, pulling at his genitalia at all hours of the day.
The King did the lewd act so much, that his council members were afraid it was affecting his ability to govern the kingdom properly.

Christian’s joy of creating torment was getting worse.
If one of his councillors said something that displeased him, the king would often respond by slapping them hard across the face.
When any visiting dignitaries bowed to him, he would childishly leap~frog over them.
Christian also loved public exEcutions and torment so much, that he built his own custom-made rack, he then ordered his lackeys to flog him on it, until he bled.

In the late 1760s, the king’s bedroom excesses, and continual mAsturbation, were surpassed only by his mental illness.
His hallucinations and paranoia, had now become frequent, yet terrifying, occurrences at court.
In the deepest ravages of his illness, Christian would often sit in corners and stare at people with a distressed look.
He’d bang his head against walls until he bled, or claim that he was actually an elfin changeling, rather than a human man.

Then Christian met the man whom he thought was going to be his savior – the progressive Doctor Johann Friedrich Struensee.
Struensee seemed to be able to calm the monarch.
It wasn’t long before Christian made the physician his royal advisor.
The cultured, radical Doctor Struensee soon captured the interest of Queen Caroline, Christian’s utterly neglected and mistreated wife.
Caroline was still an impressionable teenager at the time, and Struensee’s lively manners and open affections were irresistible to her.

By 1770, Struensee and Queen Caroline were an illicit item, and many palace employees claimed they’d gotten together months before.
Caroline was allegedly so indiscreet, that she would boast to her chambermaids after Struensee’s nightly visits, and even show them her ruffled clothing.

Meanwhile, Christian was retreating further into his paranoid delusions.
For 13 months Struensee held all but absolute power.
The doctor did as he saw fit, from firing councillors to naming himself “The Master of Queries” without consulting Christian at all.
Struensee had truly usurped Christian’s throne.

On 7th July 1771, Queen Caroline Matilda gave birth to her second child, a little girl named Louise Augusta.
Historians now widely believe that the princess was actually Struensee’s daughter.

On 17th January 1772, a coup was launched against Struensee, and he was arrested, along with his lover Queen Caroline.
The Doctor was subjected to a brutal end.
Struensee had his right hand severed, then he was b-headed, and drawn and quartered.
Queen Caroline Matilda’s fate was divorce.
She lived out the rest of her heartbroken days in exile.
Caroline Matilda died in the German territory of Hanover, at the young age of 23, to scarlet fever.

After the 1772 coup, Christian’s stepmother Juliana took away all of her stepson’s lavish toys, and King Christian lost the small shred of power he had left.
Juliana placed herself and her own son Frederick, on the throne as regents of the country.

Christian was still only 23 years old.
He spent the rest of his life subdued and controlled by his regents, dying on 13th March1808, from a stroke.
He was 59 years old.
Christian VII was buried in Roskilde Cathedral and was succeeded by his son, Frederick VI.

? Portrait of Christian VII, 1772~by Alexander Roslin