| Christian VII | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byAlexander Roslin,c. 1772 | |
| King of Denmark andNorway (more...) | |
| Reign | 14 January 1766 – 13 March 1808 |
| Coronation | 1 May 1767 Christiansborg Palace Chapel |
| Predecessor | Frederick V |
| Successor | Frederick VI |
| Regents | See list
|
| Chief Ministers | |
| Born | (1749-01-29)29 January 1749 Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Died | 13 March 1808(1808-03-13) (aged 59) Rendsburg,Duchy of Holstein |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | Frederick VI Louise Auguste, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg |
| House | Oldenburg |
| Father | Frederick V of Denmark |
| Mother | Louise of Great Britain |
| Religion | Lutheran |
| Signature |  |
Christian VII (29 January 1749 – 13 March 1808) was King ofDenmark and Norway and Duke ofSchleswig andHolstein from 1766 until his death in 1808. He was affected by mental illness and was only nominally king for most of his reign. His royal advisers changed depending on the outcome of power struggles. From 1770 to 1772, his court physicianJohann Friedrich Struensee was thede facto ruler of the country and introduced progressive reforms signed into law by the king. Struensee was deposed by a coup in 1772, after which the country was ruled by Christian's stepmother, Queen DowagerJuliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, his half-brother Hereditary PrinceFrederick, and the Danish politicianOve Høegh-Guldberg. From 1784 until Christian VII's death in 1808, Christian's son, laterFrederick VI, acted as unofficialprince regent.[1]
Christian was born in the early hours of the morning on 29 January 1749 atChristiansborg Palace, the royal residence inCopenhagen.[2] He was the fourth child and second son of the reigning monarch ofDenmark–Norway,King Frederick V, and his first wifeLouise of Great Britain. The newborn prince was baptized later the same day in the afternoon by the royalconfessor Johannes Bartholomæus Bluhme, and was named after his late grandfather,King Christian VI.[3] Hisgodparents were King Frederick V (his father),Queen Dowager Sophie Magdalene (his paternal grandmother),Princess Louise (his aunt) andPrincess Charlotte Amalie (his grand-aunt).[3]
A former heir to the throne, also named Christian, had died in infancy in 1747, and the newborn was thuscrown prince from birth; therefore, hopes were high for the future of the new heir apparent.Christoph Willibald Gluck, then conductor of the royal opera troupe, composed the operaLa Contesa dei Numi (The contention of the gods), in which theOlympian gods gather at the banks of theGreat Belt and discuss who in particular should protect the new prince.[4]
At birth, Christian had two elder sisters,Princess Sophia Magdalena andPrincess Wilhelmina Caroline, and the family was joined by another daughter,Princess Louise in 1750. In 1751, almost three years after Christian's birth, his mother, Queen Louise, died during her sixth pregnancy, aged just 27 years.[5] The following year, his father married DuchessJuliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who gave birth to Christian's half-brother,Prince Frederick in 1753.[6]
After his mother's early death, the prince was largely denied parental affection. His stepmother, Queen Juliane Marie, showed no interest in him, preferring her biological son, Hereditary Prince Frederick. Prone todebauchery and increasingly affected byalcoholism, Christian's father became increasingly indifferent to the shy, sensitive child, who was also prone to epileptic seizures. Nonetheless, early historians state that Christian had a delightful personality and considerable talent, but that he was poorly educated and systematically terrorized, and even flogged, by a brutal tutor, CountChristian Ditlev Frederik Reventlow. He seems to have been intelligent and had periods of clarity, but had severe emotional problems, possiblyschizophrenia, as argued by Viggo Christiansen inChristian VII's mental illness (1906).[7] Hemasturbated frequently, which worried his court physicians and tutor, who thought the practice reduced the prince's fertility and affected his learning capacity.[8]
After a long period of infirmity, Frederick V died on 14 January 1766, just 42 years old. At the death of his father, Christian immediately ascended the thrones of Denmark and Norway as their sixthabsolute monarch, a few weeks before his 17th birthday. Later the same day, Christian was proclaimed king from the balcony ofChristiansborg Palace. Christian's reign was marked by severe mental illness,[9] which affected government decisions, and for most of his reign, Christian was only nominally king.[8] His royal advisers changed depending on who won power struggles around the throne. Bored by the politics of being king, a few years after he acceded to the throne, Christian was given a 9-year-old slave boy called Moranti, with whom he could play games. The two would eventually become friends, and the king would spend much of his time with the young boy.[10]
Later the same year, the young king married his first cousin, the 15-year-oldPrincess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, in a dynastic marriage. They had been betrothed already in 1765. Her brother, KingGeorge III of Great Britain, was anxious about the marriage but not aware that the bridegroom had a mental illness. They were married in aproxy wedding ceremony on 1 October 1766 in theChapel Royal ofSt James's Palace in London, with the Princess's brother,Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, acting as the representative of the groom. After her arrival in Copenhagen, another wedding ceremony took place on 8 November 1766 in theroyal chapel atChristiansborg Palace. Marriage celebrations and balls lasted for another month. On 1 May 1767, Christian VII and Caroline Matilda werecrowned King and Queen of Denmark and Norway in the royal chapel of Christiansborg Palace.[11]
The marriage was unhappy, and after his marriage, the king abandoned himself to the worst excesses, especially sexual promiscuity. In 1767, he entered into a relationship with the courtesanStøvlet-Cathrine. He ultimately sank into a condition of mental stupor. Symptoms during this time includedparanoia,self-mutilation, andhallucinations.[12] The king showed little interest in the queen and only reluctantly visited her in her chambers. His trusted Swiss tutor,Élie Salomon François Reverdil, had to step in, among other things, by writing love letters in the king's name, in an attempt to make the marriage result in a pregnancy and thus an heir to the throne.[13] On 28 January 1768, Queen Caroline Mathilde gave birth at Christiansborg Palace to the royal couple's son and heir to the throne, the futureKing Frederick VI.
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The progressive and radical thinkerJohann Friedrich Struensee, Christian's personal physician, became his advisor and steadily rose in power in the late 1760s to become the country'sde facto regent, introducing widespread progressive reforms. Struensee was a protégé of anEnlightenment circle of aristocrats that had been rejected by the court in Copenhagen. He was a skilled physician, and having somewhat restored the king's health while visiting theSchleswig-Holstein area, he gained the king's affection. He was retained as travelling physician (Livmedikus hos Kong Christian VII) on 5 April 1768, and accompanied the entourage on the king's foreign tour toParis andLondon viaHannover from 6 May 1768 to 12 January 1769. He was given the title of State Councilor (etatsråd) on 12 May 1768, barely a week after leaving Altona. The neglected and lonely Caroline Matilda entered into an affair with Struensee.[14]
From 1770 to 1772, Struensee wasde facto regent of the country and introduced progressive reforms that were signed into law by Christian VII. Struensee was deposed by a coup in 1772 after which the country was ruled by Christian's stepmother,Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, his half-brotherFrederick, and the Danish politicianOve Høegh-Guldberg.[15]
The king divorced Caroline Matilda in 1772 after they had produced two children: the futureKing Frederick VI andPrincess Louise Auguste (the latter is believed to be the daughter of Struensee). Struensee, who had enacted many modernising and emancipating reforms, was arrested and executed the same year. Christian signed Struensee's arrest and execution warrant under pressure from his stepmother, QueenJuliana Maria, who had led the movement to have the marriage ended. Caroline Matilda retained her title but not her children.[16] She eventually left Denmark and passed her remaining days in exile atCelle Castle in her brother's German territory, theElectorate of Hanover. She died there ofscarlet fever on 10 May 1775 at the age of 23.[17]
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Christian was only nominally king from 1772 onward. Between 1772 and 1784, Denmark-Norway was ruled by his stepmother, the Queen DowagerJuliane Marie,his half-brother Frederick, and the Danish politicianOve Høegh-Guldberg. From 1784, his sonFrederick ruled permanently as prince regent. This regency was marked by liberal, judicial, and agricultural reforms, but also by disasters of theTheatre War,French Revolutionary Wars, the beginning of theNapoleonic Wars, and the rise of theNorwegian separatist movement.[18]
Christian died at age 59 of astroke on 13 March 1808 inRendsburg, Schleswig. Although there were rumours that the stroke was caused by fright at the sight of Spanish auxiliary troops which he took to be hostile, Ulrik Langen, in his biography of the king, did not indicate that there was any external cause. He was buried inRoskilde Cathedral and was succeeded by his son Frederick VI.[19]
In 1769, King Christian VII invited the Hungarian astronomerMiksa Hell (Maximilian Hell) toVardø. Hell observed thetransit of Venus, and his calculations gave the most precise calculation of the Earth–Sun distance to that date (approx. 151 million kilometres). Hell's companionJános Sajnovics explored the affinity among the languages of theSami,Finnish, andHungarian peoples (all members of theFinno-Ugric language family).[20][21][22]
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Christian VII, the story of his marriage, and his wife's affair with Struensee have featured in many artistic works:
Christian VII Born: 29 January 1749 Died: 13 March 1808 | ||
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| Preceded by | Count of Oldenburg 1766–1773 | Succeeded by |
| King of Denmark andNorway Duke of Schleswig 1766–1808 | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Duke of Holstein 1766–1808 withPaul (1766–1773) | |
The generations are numbered from the implementation of hereditary monarchy byFrederick III in 1660. | ||
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1 Also prince of Norway 2 Also prince of Greece 3 Also prince of Iceland 4 Also prince of the United Kingdom 5 Not Danish prince by birth, but created prince of Denmark Princes that lost their title are shown in italics | ||
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