Johann Friedrich Struensee Chr. August Lorentzen · ca. 1770-71 Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, Denmark

Danish statesman. Struensee was originally educated as a physician and in 1758 became the medical officer for the city of Altona in Germany, where he met Christian 7. ten years later. Struensee accompanied the King as his personal physician on the King's journey abroad during 1767-68. The King was so satisfied with Struensee's efforts that he brought him back with him to Copenhagen and shortly afterwards had him appointed as his official, private physician.

Struensee was successful in treating Christian 7.s insanity, and gradually an informal relationship developed between him and Queen Caroline Mathilde – a relationship that lead to Struensee becoming the Queen's lover from 1770 on.

Through his influence on the King and his relationship with the Queen, Struensee in time accumulated a considerable amount of political power. In the course of about a year he managed to have the members of the Privy Council fired, subsequently replaced the Council by a cabinet system and appointed himself to the noble rank of Count and to State Cabinet Minister, with the power to – by his own hand – issue cabinet orders; these just had to be presented to the King for his approval afterwards. In less than 18 months Struensee issued around two thousand cabinet orders – public service employment was to be based exclusively on qualifications, the state's bureaucracy was to be simplified, and the influence of the large land owners was to be reduced. A large number of these cabinet orders were changes and reforms that were influenced by the thoughts of the Age of the Enlightenment – such as freedom of the press, abolishment of torture in the legal system, improved conditions for tenant peasants, abolishment of many privileges, etc.

But the times were apparently not yet ripe for such sweeping changes, so Struensee's reform eagerness and his intimate relationship with the Queen, quickly earned him many enemies, particularly in aristocratic and military circles. In January of 1772, Struensee was toppled at a palace coup led by the Dowager Queen Juliane Marie, her son Crown Prince Frederik and Ove Høeg-Guldberg. They managed to get the terror-stricken Christian 7. to sign an arrest order, and during the night after a masked ball at the Court Theater Struensee, and his friend Enevold Brandt, were apprehended. The primary charges against Struensee were misuse of power and his relationship with the Queen. Brandt was indicted on several counts, including having beaten the King on several occasions. Both were pronounced guilty of lese-majesty, and Christian 7. signed the death sentence.

Thousands of Copenhageners flocked to Øster Fælled common on April 28 to witness the macabre event when the sentence would be carried out. Struensee and Brandt first had their right hands cut off, and shortly afterwards the executioner was able to hold up the severed heads for the crowd to see. The bodies were then cut into pieces and put on wheels, whereas their heads and hands were placed on stakes. Queen Caroline Mathilde confessed to her relationship with Struensee, her marrige to the King was dissolved, and she was deported to Celle near Hannover, Germany. She never saw her children again – neither Crown Prince Frederik (6.) nor the daughter Louisa Augusta, who Struensee had fathered. Caroline Mathilde died during a scarlet fever epidemic in 1775.