A Royal Affair: -- Behavior
King Christian VII’s behavior is an extremely prominent part of his ruling. From his mental illness, to the council’s overbearing power of political actions. The people Christian VII had in his life were very important to his successes and failures. This page serves as to analyze a few of those people and their effect of King Christian VII and his reign, along with an analysis of the film A Royal Affair and their depiction of King Christian VII.
King Christian VII
King Christian VII was born to Queen Louise of Great Britain and King Frederick V of Denmark. When Christian VII was only two years old, his mother died, and his father was an alcoholic for the remainder of his childhood, often neglecting him.(1) Much of his time was spent with Ditlev Reventlow, his teacher. Reventlow subjected Christian to his ‘hardening’ treatment which included flogging, threatening, mocking and terrifying Christian. These beatings would leave Christian foaming at the mouth and convulsing.(2) Some historians argue that his childhood led to his childish and unstable behavior throughout his life.
During his reign, Christian was actually mentally ill. Scholars have hypothesized that he was schizophrenic and bipolar, or suffered from porphyria, a genetic disorder, that parallels the symptoms he had, as well as those of some other members of the royal family.(3) He had sudden outbursts and the people around him could not control him, except for Struensee. A diary was kept by Struensee recording Christian’s behavior and highlighting his “inconsistency, indifferences to and disgust for all things.”(4) He also wrote about Christian laughing uncontrollably at inappropriate times. Struensee diagnosed Christian’s problems with that of ‘a bad habit,' which was uncovered as frequent masturbation, and cold baths were described as a remedy.(5)
In the movie, A Royal Affair, he was portrayed more as an ill-behaved child than a person with severe mental illness. He seemed to have very little respect for others and especially his family members. The film did not depict Christian suffering from sudden outbursts, but rather he would use irrational thinking skills or come to bizarre conclusions. This does not reflect the historical record that Struensee wrote as discussed above. The behavior of the king in the movie was a very watered down version of what the historical sources suggest he was actually like. The film creators did not use the historical record of Struensee's diagnosis of excessive masturbation. Instead they showed him going to brothels, or infrequently having sex with Caroline, instead of pleasuring himself. In one scene he is shown in a bathtub talking to Struensee, which would be accurate to the historically written about doctor's prescribed remedy for Christian. It must be said that though many believe he had schizophrenia it is hard to determine what exactly he suffered from, since there is no doctor today that could correctly analyze his behavior back then. What we do know for sure is that he had severe mental and emotional issues that greatly impacted his life and made him a prime target of manipulation. Johan Struensee was vital in helping King Christian VII do the best he could with the situation he was presented with.
Johan Struensee