Johann Friedrich Struensee

Johann Friedrich Struensee trained as a physician and entered royal service when he accompanied Christian VII on a European journey. He gained the king’s confidence and moved rapidly from medical adviser to political power. By 1770 he was effectively directing the government of Denmark–Norway and used royal authority to issue an ambitious programme of administrative and Enlightenment-inspired reforms.

Struensee abolished censorship, reduced privileges and attempted to rationalise government, but the speed of change, his foreign birth and his relationship with Queen Caroline Matilda generated powerful enemies. A court coup in January 1772 led to his arrest. Convicted of offences including lèse-majesté and adultery with the queen, he was executed in Copenhagen on 28 April 1772.

In Norah Lofts’s The Lost Queen, Struensee is both Caroline Matilda’s political ally and lover. His rise and fall supplies the novel’s central historical crisis and connects the queen’s private life to the struggle over reform and royal authority.