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The Royal Physician's Visit: A Novel

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This book is based on an historical event. In 1766 Christian VII becomes king of Denmark. Christian is an anxious boy, made mad by the members of his court. Two years later Johann Friedrich Struensee becomes his personal physician. Very soon he gains the trust of the young king with his quiet behaviour. The king starts to give more and more power to Struensee, who, more or less against his own will, becomes the center of power. In a period of only a few years Struensee issues more than 600 decrees that improve the life of the ordinary Danes and make Denmark a frontrunner of the Enlightenment movement. However, Struensee does not realize how much resistance his actions cause in the surroundings of the king. In 1772 he is arrested and tried on the basis of his relationship with the queen.

We follow the events through the eyes of a number of people: Christians private teacher Reverdil, the young queen Caroline Mathilde, Struensees rival and successor Guldberg and Struensee himself.

Per Olov Enquist has succeeded in writing a monumental literary novel: the actors are real, full of doubt, passion and deceit. The description of the way in which the mind of the young Christian is broken is most impressive. A king has absolute power, but is not supposed to actually exercise it, so the whole court conspires to break his mind. What remains in the end of an intelligent, normal boy is a mental wreck who lives in a fantasy world.

Insanity was a singular problem for the crowned heads of Europe during the 18th century. While the travails of the Hanoverian King George III are well-documented, there were other psychiatrically afflicted monarchs who, whether due to some unfortunate gene or to the infectious subversion of enlightenment philosophy, injected the politics of their courts with the logic of madness. One such monarch was Christian VII of Denmark.

Per Olav Enguist's historical novel documents a turbulent period in Danish history, a time when medeival institutions bumped up against modern free-thinking with transformative, and sometimes explosive, results. It's a well-crafted work, laying out the history with insight and clarity, all the while painting complex and realistic characters in shades of grey. The book chronicles the rise of the royal physician Struensee, a disciple of the enlightenment who finds himself, through almost random selection, at the center of Denmark's political maelstrom. Though his ultimate demise is revealed at the outset, Struensee's journey through the looking glass at the Danish court, and the price he pays for his part in bringing the world to enlightenment, make for an engrossing read.

Central to Struensee's tenure as the main adviser to Christian VII was his affair with Christian's queen, Caroline Mathilde of England. This unfortunate consort could never seem to escape from the madness of either her times or her family. She was the sister of George the III, and her marriage to Christian, which involved one conjugal experience and one baby, never rose above the infantile level at which the Danish king could operate.

At times sensual and desperate, at others filled with the weight of impossible expectations and hopeless risks, the story of Struensee and his increasingly forceful paramour spills off the pages of the book with resigned determination. Struensee uses his time in power to rewrite Denmark's social code, infuriating the powers of court, and makes himself, through his passion for justice and for Queen Caroline, an easier and easier target for destruction.

Enquist's style is somber and instructive, his language plain but filled with complexity. He makes people and events come alive with spare sentences that speak volumes about the inevitability of freedom and the costs in imposes. As for the nature of logic, insanity, and the sanctity of free throught, he leaves the reader to draw his own conclusion.

In the cold and dank corridors of power in the North, King Christian VII cannot escape his petite size or his madness, and his court is in chaos. But it is the Age of Enlightenment. In a futile search for his own enlightenment, Christian comes to the attention of a philosopher/physician, Dr. Struensee. Attracted to the pitiful King in a way he cannot fathom, Struensee steps into history, unsure of his part, save to comfort and aid the suffering mad King. During Strunsee's short attendance on the King, a mere four years, great reforms are begun: unrestricted freedom of the press, religious freedom, tariffs to the state instead of the royal household, a ban on torture during interrogations. Later the French Revolution would adapt some of the same reform measures enacted in Denmark during this period of social upheaval.

Strunsee's great failure is that he is drawn into a love affair with Christian's young Queen, Catherine Mathilde, sister of England's Charles III. She actually gives birth to Struensee's child, a girl, later claimed by the King as his own. As well, the physician lacks the ability to protect himself from his many foes at court. When Christian's mental illness, actually madness, creates a vacuum in the center of power, Strunsee fills the void, to the good of the kingdom. But when his enemies inevitably prevail, others are prepared to strike him down and assume the mantle, demanding Strunsee's execution.

The beauty of this novel is in the writing: people and events are presented in such a way as to give a glimpse into the insanity of Christian's reign, the vacuum in leadership and the strange aura of madness that permeates the court. There is a real sense of the unreality that infects everyone at the top, the secrecey and intrigue, illustrating with frightening clarity the true peril in having a puppet for a leader.

Having read "Lost Queen" by Norah Lofts, which book was a work of historical fiction that covered much of the same story told by this author, there could not be two books more different, though both are riveting. The major difference is in the writing style. The book by Ms. Lofts is superlative and tells an interesting, intriguing, though somewhat superficial story about the love triangle consisting of the mad king of Denmark, Christian VII, his wife, Queen Caroline Mathilde, and the royal physician, Johann Struensee. This author, on the other hand, rips the reader's guts out with its angst filled, staccato telling of the same story. It is a more literary book than that of Ms. Lofts and compelling in its own way, a beautifully written work of historical fiction that will keep the reader riveted to its pages until the very end.

It, too, tells the story of Princess Caroline Mathilde of England, sister to King George III. At the age of fifteen she was wed to young King Christian VII, who eventually became known as the mad king of Denmark. Temperamental, high strung, and given to strange outbursts, his predilection for odd behavior was known early on, but despite this the two kingdoms would still see these two wed, as the unification of England and Denmark was more important than individual happiness.

King Christian VII was a truly pitiable figure who had survived a childhood fueled by rank cruelty and was easy prey for the sycophants of the Danish court. He developed a peculiar aversion to his wife and, consequently, had conjugal relations with her only once, which propitiously resulted in the birth of a son nine months later. Alone in a foreign country, whose language she was only beginning to learn, and estranged from a King surrounded by sycophants, the young queen gravitated to the one person who treated her as a person in her own right, the King's physician, Johann Struensee.

An advocate of the philosophy of Enlightenment that was overtaking Europe, the idealistic Struensee had many ideas that were introduced as reforms in Denmark, through his influence with the King, who by now was easily led, since his madness left a void in leadership that Struensee was all to happy to fill. These reforms were to make many enemies for him, as they upset the established feudal system that still existed in eighteenth century Denmark. As he gained power through his influence, resentment against him grew within those circles that had formerly been close to the King. Unaware of the growing animosity against him and lacking political canniness, Struensee and the Queen became close intimates, bound by shared ideas and interests.

Struensee's relationship with the Queen, who was lonely and starved for affection, eventually transgressed the bounds set by propriety. Now lovers in fact, their relationship became grist for the rumor mill. She even gave birth to a daughter who the King acknowledged as his own but who was actually Stuensee's. As gossip and innuendo about their relationship swirled across royal circles in Europe, it ultimately became the focal point for a political coup that saw them both arrested and charged with treason. It was a relationship that was to have great personal and political ramifications for the protagonists, as well as for Denmark. What ultimately happened to each of them was tragic, governed as it was by the initial reluctance of the Danes to give up their feudal system. Even those whom Struensee championed through his reforms, the peasant class, turned against him in the end.

This is a richly atmospheric work of historical fiction, filled with political intrigue, historical personages and events, shadowed by darkness and a palpable sorrow apparent in each and every one of its pages. It is as if the individual psyche of each of the protagonists were driving the book, giving it texture, shadings, and glimpses into the psyche of those involved in this high drama. It is an angst filled, almost surreal, rendering of lives that were to come together and leave a mark on the world, making for a story that to this day has the power to captivate the reader. Bravo!

It is really pretty rare that I read new books. I work at a library, and something about this one kind of interested me. I opened it up and read the first paragraph:

"On April 5, 1768, Johann Friedrich Struensee was appointed Royal Physician to King Christian VII of Denmark, and four years later he was executed."

That one sentence had me hooked. I took it home, and this beautiful novel has quickly become one of the favorite reads I've had. The plot of the novel follows real events that happened in Denmark during the Enlightenment. They primarily follow four main characters: Struensee, King Christian VII, Caroline Mathilde, and Guldberg. Struensee was the royal physician appointed to take care of the king. The position allows him have power over the country to put in place many principals of the Enlightenment. It also places him near the queen with whom he falls in love. Christian is the insane king who is troubled, but remains human. Caroline Mathilde is the Queen whose passions drive the story to its end. Guldberg is the force fighting against Struensee and Caroline.

It may seem like the first sentence of the novel gives away everything, but it doesn't. Primarily, the beauty of this book lies in the brilliant characterizations, and the intense feelings that the characters develop. The novel is intensely romantic, but it is also extremely literary. The novel, besides being a powerful story, also serves to disect the thought that drove this period in history. The novel also contains intriguing insights into Christianity and existentialism. Really, this novel is a masterpiece from any angle it is looked at. It serves to entertain any reader and it can enlighten him or her. What more can be asked of from a novel? Please, read this novel if you can get your hands on it. You won't regret it.

The Royal Physician, Struensee came to Denmark in the 1760s, to be the physician of the Danish king Christian VIII. The king is married to the young English girl, queen Caroline Mathilde. She was married to the king to give him a son, and as the king had spent one night with her, out of massive pressure, she had born him a heir.

Struensee saw his chance to get power, and he took it. And in a few months he issued more than 600 decrees in the name of the king. A paper revolution took place from Struensee's desk. Through this time, which is called the start of the Enlightenment in Denmark, and in Europe as well, Struensee is doing the fatal mistake of falling in love with the young queen. The king knows what is going on, but in his narrow mind he loves both Struensee and the queen and has nothing against what is going on between them. Other people has though, and Struensee's future is sealed. We know already from the first page in the book that Struensee's "mistake" will be fatal for him, and he is to be killed by the end of the book.

Though knowing the end, Enquist manage to hold our interest through the whole book. We get angry with Struensee, we cry with Caroline Mathilde, and we feel pity for the king, unable to rule his country.

The books is a masterpiece in the way it tells part of the Danish history, and also part of the Royal history of Europe. Through the little girl Struensee and Caroline Mathilde get together they can be said to be father and mother of most of the European monarchy of today.

Britt Arnhild Lindland

I must completely disagree with my fellow Danish reader.This book is a perfect example of pure and good writing and it deserves all the praise and prizes it has won.It is about the fear of Enlightenment and how the Danish court deals with this fear.I enjoyed the writing so much and have looked for more of his books, as this was my first one.It is historic fiction written like no other of that genre.Do yourself a favor and buy this fantastic book and judge for yourself.

"The Royal Physician's Visit" is a gorgeous novel that centers around the court of King Christian VII of Denmark and the machinations of his Royal Physician, Johann Friedrich Struensee.

Struensee, a German citizen from the village of Altona, was appointed Royal Physician on 5. April 1768. He was executed only four short years later, but in those four years he accomplished more than many people do in a lifetime...a long lifetime.

King Christian was not your usual king; at least he was not a king in the manner in which one generally thinks of a king. Christian considered the royal court to be his theatre, a theatre in which he had to know his lines or pay a heavy penalty. A combination of innocence and madness, Christian really didn't understand what was going on in Denmark during his reign and what was going wrong.

Well, plenty was going wrong in Denmark at that time. There were public executions and tortures; the Danish peasants were living in a state of perpetual penury; the Danish navy was locked in a deadly war with Algeria; Christian's half-brother was an invalid and Christian, himself, was barely lucid. This was a court ripe for the preying and those prone to such things preyed, indeed.

"The Royal Physician's Visit," by necessity, contains many diverse characters, but essentially, the story belongs to three: Struensee, King Christian, and Caroline Mathilde, the young English girl brought to Denmark to be Christian's bride, for the express purpose of bearing the mad king an heir. Perhaps there have been no other royals less fit to become parents than Christian and Caroline Mathilde. Caroline had been cloistered for all of her thirteen years with no sense of mother or father, people or place. Christian, who was the recipient of much psychological torment and physical beatings, had either been born mad or had been driven mad.

When Struensee arrives at this strange and confusing court, he views his mission as one of rescurer...of Denmark, not of Christian. Christian may be mad, and he may remain mad for the rest of his days, but Struensee was a man of reason, a man who knew there was something very rotten in the state of Denmark. After Christian happily turns over the keys of his kingdom to Struensee, the quiet German doctor proceeds to issue 623 decrees in only two short years. Although this may be viewed as opportunistic by some, Struensee's decrees did pull Denmark back from the brink of destruction and into the light of rationalism.

Like most of us, however, Struensee had a fatal flaw and it involved Caroline Mathilde. When the two fall in love, they incur the wrath of the dowager queen and a man called Guldberg. Struensee and Caroline Mathilde give the dowager queen and Guldberg the chance both have been waiting for and, inevitably, on 28. April 1772, the guillotine fell. Struensee, however, through his daughter, may have had the very last laugh and he may, in some ways, be laughing still.

"The Royal Physician's Visit" is a remarkable book that blends history and impeccable storytelling skills. We learn much about Denmark during the reign of Christian VII and we are thoroughly engrossed in the story of Struensee while we are learning. Enquist's prose is wonderful: beautiful, precise and absolutely on key. This is, quite simply, a perfect book for anyone who loves a great story set against a rich, historical background. It is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've read this year.

Palace intrigue of the highest order, conducted by courtiers and officials who will do anything to achieve their goals, makes this one of the most stimulating and thoroughly engrossing novels of the year. The Danish court from 1768 - 1772 pulses with life as powerful personalities collide in their rush to fill the power vacuum resulting from the weakness of King Christian VII, a sensitive, half-mad 17-year-old boy, married to Caroline Mathilde, the 14-year-old sister of Britain's King George III. This is a time of great intellectual ferment as the new ideas of the Enlightenment, with their value on the individual and freedom, begin to threaten the feudal basis of the old, autocratic monarchies of Europe, and more frightening to the courtiers, their own power within their countries.

Enquist brilliantly recreates the psychology of the king, a puppet who desperately wants to please the courtiers and officials and is tormented when he does not, a bright but "ravaged child," who from his earliest years was regularly flogged, ridiculed, beaten for casual conversations, forcibly separated from everyone with whom he developed attachments, shamed, and driven mad by his own courtiers. When he becomes interested in the enlightened ideas of Voltaire and Diderot and is celebrated by these philosophers on a trip around the continent, his nervous and threatened court decides he needs a physician. What they never expect is that the physician they engage, Johann Friedrich Struensee from Germany, will establish a relationship with Christian, share his enlightened ideas, and eventually become the de facto king.

Bursting with dramatic scenes of Machiavellian court intrigue and fear of the Enlightenment, and with powerfully moving scenes of psychological abuse, tenderness, passion, love, and genuine sadness, this novel is stunning! Though the reader knows from the opening pages what the outcome of the court struggle will be, Enquist manages to endow it with an immediacy and tension which totally engage the reader. By focusing on the court, rather than on the populace, he makes the Enlightenment and the revolutions it inspires throughout Europe come alive from a new perspective, and in creating this novel based on history, he brings to life both the sad and abused child-king Christian and Struensee, the enlightened but politically naïve mentor who paid the ultimate price. A beautifully realized novel! Mary Whipple

Who might suspect that an account of Danish XVIII century history might be so fascinating! You might not be interested in the subject matter, the bit of Danish history of 1760-1784, more or less, but there are two aspects of "The Royal Physician's Visit" that one might find interesting. On the one hand, it's a creative nonfiction, since it's not exactly a fictionalized story, but the real events and personae expanded on in a readable way. On the other hand, the prose of Enquist should attract lovers of good, high-quality literature. He has his own distinct style, where even the trite sentences you find so often in pupils' compositions, fit perfectly into the framework of the narration. Devoid of linguistic ornamentation or archaisms, the book is highly readable. This, and the fact that the author magically avoided the dullness of wooden prose that so often is the case in historical fiction, or even creative nonfiction - all this is a success of Per Olov Enquist as a storyteller, who despite all odds managed to conceive a fascinating historical volume, which deserves to be widely read. Having delved deeper into the book, you will notice that Enquist quite often repeats words and sentences, introduces events briefly - to mention them a few times in the narration to fully come back to them later, when the seed of information is already planted in your mind. It's as if he worked on you, in these circular strokes of narration, to facilitate the injection of historical material, to make the fossilized historical personae more interesting, and finally, to add flavor to the story. I quickly overcame my apprehension at reading a historical book (usually, they are heavyweights), and I felt like reading a thriller, although there is no trace of conventional thrill in the book. The very first chapter reveals the end of the story, should you be unacquainted with the history of Denmark, and yet the reader's experience is that of enchantment and the nervousness usually accompanying other types of literature, where you can't wait to see what happens. Enquist keeps the fireplace of the reader's interest always full with fresh wood, from time to time jerking up the flames with balls of crumpled paper.

"The Royal Physician's Visit" is a multithreaded story, not only very engaging in the sense I have described above, but also because it provides an opportunity to widen the reader's horizons, to edify him, provide an incentive to search further, and finally, to make him aware of interconnected historical events of highest importance, not only from the pure historical point of view, but also from the rich, cultural perspective. You will learn that the Struensee's era of 1768-1772, the Danish Revolution in the spirit of the Enlightenment, was symptomatic for the fate of the whole Scandinavia in years to have come. At the time, the society consisted of two classes: the gentry, including the Royal Court, and the masses.

"The masses, unfortunately, don't understand the blessings of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately. For you. The masses are only interested in filth. In rumors." p. 178

The aforementioned masses initially welcome the reforms of Struensee, especially the relaxation of moral laws and the introduction of freedom of speech - to turn against him, and thus the reforms, for the very same reason. The relationship between the Queen and Struensee is a pivotal element that might be supposed to have led to Struensee's fall, even though the masses didn't see anything wrong in their own doing. Of course, with the support of the mob, the Court opposition manages to overthrow Struensee, and revert all reforms. So much the history says. But the seed was planted, and as Enquist observes, it was not immediately clear for the cheering mob that what they wanted was really what they did want. 'Nihil novi sub sole, one might say; the mob, the society as a separate organism does not exist, or if it does, it has no brains whatsoever.

Again, the seed was planted, and two centuries later Denmark is in the lead in implementation of libertine ideas of freedom from anything, responsibility and morals in particular. It all started in the Struensee's era. But why did he fall? Was the coup the real reason? Listen to Enquist's account of Goldberg, the chief machinator in the Court, the insignificant one who will hold absolute power on the ashes of Struensee's reforms:

"He [Goldberg] feared that Struensee was no ordinary intellectual. But he had an inkling of what his weak point might be. Guldberg alone, from the bunk of the river, had understood. Struensee's weakness, paradoxically enough, was that he had no desire for power. His hypocritical idealism was genuine. Perhaps it was because Struensee didn't wish to be entrapped or corrupted by power. Perhaps he had renounced the great game. Perhaps he was a thoroughly pure human being in the service of evil. Perhaps he harbored a naive dream that purity was possible. Perhaps he didn't want to be sullied by power. Perhaps he might succeed at this, be able to withstand the filth of power, not kill, not annihilate, not play the great power game. Be able to remain pure. And that was precisely why Struensee was doomed to fall." p. 140

The Danish/German reformers were in relatively close contact, direct or indirect, with the French philosophers, widely perceived as the viper's nest of Enlightened fools, or as dangerous minds, depending on the one who was frightened; Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot. For the first time in literature, some of these philosophers entered the fictionalized account, and were waxen fossilized figures of history no more. It's a fascinating book, "The Royal Physician's Visit", very intellectual and rich, and yet very readable. The latter is of course the virtue of Enquist's literary talents, but it's also due to excellent translation by Tiina Nunnally, an acclaimed translator of Scandinavian literature. An exquisite reading.