alternatehistory.com

I have just finished watching A Royal Affair, a Danish movie who depicts the rise and fall of Johann Friedrich Struensee. He was a German physician and anonymous writer of progressive pamphlets who later became the personal physician of the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark. Through him, he passed several laws aiming to turn Denmark into an enlightened monarchy. However, the population and at least half the court didn't know of the King's mental problems, so they came to see Struensee not as a necessary regent, but as an usurper - his disregard of Danish traditions only made the nobles and the population hate him even more. The affair he had with Queen Caroline only gave everyone else an excuse to chop his head off.

What if he managed to stay in power? The King wanted to pardon him, but I think that a pardoned Struensee wouldn't have been powerful at all. Would the progressive turn Denmark experienced with Christian VII's son, Frederick VI, be anticipated by a couple of decades?
Top