The Queen's Doctor: Being the Strange Story of the Rise and Fall of Struensee, Dictator, Lover and Doctor of Medicine

A Most Joyful Love Novel

Excuse me for starting with a private prologue. During the entire history of mankind there have been two and only two attempts to create a paradise on this earth. The first was the Jesuit state in Paraguay. The second was Denmark 1772-1774. King Christian 7th was mentally ill, and his doctor J. Fr. Struensee usurped the power. At a rate of four new regulations a day he transformed Voltaire's and Rousseau's ideas into real laws. Just a few examples. The enormous budget deficit of the state, five times GDP and growing at a rate of 20% a year, was in 2½ years reduced to less than thrice the GDP. Torture was abolished as a means of extracting confessions. And so were all the cruel methods of execution. No unmarried mothers were put in the pillory. Unmarried mothers were permitted to leave their children to specific institutions while preserving their anonymity. Such institutions ceased to be places where children would slowly starve to death. They were now given genuine economic resources, paid by a tax of 1% on all lotteries. Slavery was abolished in the Danish colonies. Jews got equal rights. Latin was substituted with Danish as the language used in schools. Corporal punishment at school was prohibited. Freedom of press was secured. When epidemic illnesses approached the Danish border, Struensee had the population inoculated. He was also one of the utmost greatest doctors in the entire history of medicine. After 2½ years his enemies succeeded in having executed. - The Danes are by no means proud of having participated in this experiment. I (who was originally Danish) was taught at school that Struensee had definitely deserved capital punishment. And several decades after the end of WWII we shall find so-called scientific Danish books replete with distortions of central facts. - - End of prologue. The book about the Queen's doctor is a novel, not a research report, and you will hardly find any of the above facts in it. Nevertheless, before the authors wrote their novel they made an extensive research on the historical situation of the prominent persons. But they also realized that many readers would appreciate not being burdened with facts of little interest to non-scientist. However, from the moment when Struensee was arrested by his enemies the historical facts are correct. Probably the writers deemed that from that point on the true facts had sufficient literary value to be included in a novel.

Max