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‘Caroline Mathilde’

pastels

Peder Als, 1767

(x)

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This is a wonderful list! Thank you!

A Comprehensive Guide to Caroline Mathilde (Queen of Denmark and Princess of Great Britain), Johann Friedrich Struensee, and Christian VII

A very trustworthy biography is Hester W. Chapman’s ‘Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark, 1751-1775’ published in 1971. Chapman cites from the memoirs, letters, and biographies of all parties involved. Importantly, she puts earlier biographies into the context of who the authors were and what their ultimate goals were in relation to the angles taken.

Some of the aforementioned works:

‘A Faithful Narrative of the Conversion and Death of Count Struensee, to Which Is Added the History of Count Enevold Brandt’ by Balthasar Münter, 1774 (x)

‘Memoirs of Sir Robert Murray Keith,’ 1849 (x)

‘Memoires de la Cour de Copenhagen’ by Élie Salomon François Reverdil, 1858 (x)

‘A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings’ by Stella Tillyard, 2006

‘A Queen of Tears: Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway and Princess of Great Britain and Ireland’ by William Henry Wilkins, 1904(x, x)

‘Life and Times of Caroline Matilda’ by Frederic Charles Lascelles Wraxall,1864 (x, x, x)

*Take note that the publication ‘Memoirs of an Unfortunate Queen’ is in fact almost entirely fiction.

Non-English:

‘Christian VII og Caroline Mathilde’ by Christian Blangstrup, 1890 (x)(Danish)

‘Struensee’ by Karl Wittich, 1879 (x) (German)

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“It's also an important reminder of what Tillyard calls in her book "the boldest attempt ever mounted to shift human consciousness from a god-centred to a man-centred view both of the world and of the life that could be lived in it."”

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“Two serious mistakes - including a bite in the royal finger - wrote him into the history books and gave him a seat next to Struensee on the scaffold in 1772.”

Good article on Brandt. Run it through Google Translate for the main ideas. 

Source: http://www.altomhistorie.dk/artikler/enevold-brandt/

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‘Profilportrætter af Dronning Caroline Mathilde, J.F. Struensee, og Enevold Brandt’

pencil

“possibly Jens Juel himself,” 1784

(x)

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❤️ A royal affair

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‘Caroline Mathilde, Dronning af Danmark’

oil on canvas

Jens Juel, 1775

(x)

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Where people today are walking their dogs, sunbathing, and playing football, Struensee was executed.

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mahogany, silk

Queen Mathilde and her ladies in waiting, 1772

(x)

embroidered by Mathilde and her ladies in waiting during her imprisonment in Kronborg Slot while awaiting her trial and eventual exhile

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Dario Fo (Italian actor-playwright, comedian, singer, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter and political campaigner, and recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature (Wikipedia)), has just published a new book about Struensee and the mad king. Unfortunately it's in Italian.

A few months ago, I painstakingly translated Struensee - Til nytte og fornøjelse by Danish author Asser Amdisen with Google Translate. Of course the translation was extremely rough and it took forever. I downloaded the eBook in Danish and then translated nine pages at a time (that's all the program could handle). I then turned each nine-page group into a PDF file. The things I do for Struensee! Looks like I'll have to do it again. Anyone know a quicker way to get a rough translation?

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'Princess Caroline Matilda' 

attributed to Catherine Read, 1764

(x)

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Luck Turns For You, Count Struensee! (Popular print). Found in the collection of Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)Credit: Heritage Images / contributor

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"At this point, stood the house in which the doctor and enlightened reformer lived during his tenure as city physician and doctor of the poor of the then Danish Altona. As Minister of Denmark from 1770 to 1772, he created an extensive reform work, which would have, had it on hand, made Denmark a modern state ​​in Europe long before the French Revolution. Struensee was friends with several founders of the Patriotic Society of 1765 in Hamburg."

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There in his own words and in the lurid statements of the Queen's maids was the story of his ascent to power, and a testimony of his care of the King and passion for the Queen, how they left the sheets of her bed rumpled, how he carried in his pocket a handkerchief stained with his semen and her blood, how the sofas in her apartments had to be re-covered when they were past cleaning, and how, unlike most men and women, they made love naked and he left her, as she hinted, like Eve, in a state of nature on the bed.

Stella Tillyard, A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings

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These are my favorite portraits of Queen Caroline Mathilde. They were sketched at the height of her love affair with Johann Friedrich Struensee. <3

In 1771 rumors were spreading about the Queen. In particular, it was said that she was neglecting her son, the Crown Prince Frederik. Visitors were shocked to see that the Prince had no maids, nurses, or tutors. He was allowed to explore outside, to do as he wanted, usually only lightly clothed and barefoot even in the dead of winter.

So Struensee and the Queen hired trusted artist Peder Als to paint a portrait that would help quiet the rumors. Als, who had previously painted the Queen unconventionally in men's clothing, this time portrayed her in a most feminine and motherly light. Prince Frederik appears happy (and definitely shoed!) holding his mother's hand.

Unfortunately, the political turmoil surrounding the affair kept Als from transforming these watercolor sketches into a final painting.

But, what I love about these sketches is that, looking more closely, we see some hint of truth in the rumors. Struensee and the Queen were raising Prince Frederik under the naturalist philosophy of Rousseau. Frederik was encouraged to explore nature (yes, often barefoot), to dress informally, eat simply, and exercise. Rousseau's philosophy also emphasized the importance of teaching children to garden--he believed that it not only brought them closer to nature, but also taught them important lessons about property and rights. And so we see Prince Frederik in relatively loose clothing holding a watering can.