Christian VII of Denmark

Christian VII succeeded his father Frederick V in 1766 and shortly afterwards married Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. Contemporary accounts describe severe instability in his behaviour, and the king increasingly depended on courtiers and ministers to conduct government. His reign nevertheless became the setting for one of the most radical reform episodes of the Danish eighteenth century.

The royal physician Johann Friedrich Struensee gained Christian’s trust and from 1770 to 1772 effectively controlled government, issuing a rapid series of Enlightenment-inspired reforms in the king’s name. A court coup led by Struensee’s enemies ended the experiment in January 1772. Struensee was executed and Caroline Matilda was exiled, while Christian remained king under changing regencies until his death in 1808.

In Norah Lofts’s The Lost Queen, Christian VII’s difficult marriage, dependence on Struensee and inability to control the factions surrounding him are central to the tragedy of Caroline Matilda’s Danish queenship.