Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: Even though it was a masquerade ball, the identities of
Speaker 1: Queen Caroline Matilda and Doctor Strunz were immediately obvious to
Speaker 1: anyone around them. The doctor was tall over six feet,
Speaker 1: and Caroline Matilda hadn't leapt his side the entire evening.
Speaker 1: They were flirting in public, and every tiny gesture, every glance,
Speaker 1: every hand resting lightly on his arm unleashed a new
Speaker 1: shock wave of whispers through the ball room at Christianburg Palace.
Speaker 1: It was that sort of behavior that made people certain
Speaker 1: that the new royal infant, a girl just over six
Speaker 1: months old, was actually the doctor's daughter and not the
Speaker 1: King's of course, and Christian wasn't at this party. He
Speaker 1: hadn't attended a social event in weeks. His condition, which
Speaker 1: historians sometimes characterized as schizophrenia, meant that there were periods
Speaker 1: of highs and lows when it came to the King's cognition,
Speaker 1: but for the winter of seventeen seventy two, it was
Speaker 1: a low period. For the past ten months, the country
Speaker 1: of Denmark had been ruled with almost full control, not
Speaker 1: by the king but by Dr Struantz, a German Man
Speaker 1: born as a commoner. But the nobles and the people
Speaker 1: of Denmark wouldn't stand for it for much longer. Depending
Speaker 1: on which broadsides you read, the doctor and his harlot,
Speaker 1: the Queen had either kidnapped the King or already poisoned him,
Speaker 1: and later that very night, the night of the masquerade ball,
Speaker 1: the king's stepmother, the Dowager Queen, would give her go
Speaker 1: ahead for Strudents and Queen Caroline Matilda to be arrested
Speaker 1: in their beds, unforged evidence of an attempted assassination of
Speaker 1: the king. Around the world, the late seventeen hundreds was
Speaker 1: a time of social upheaval. Philosophers like Voltaire and Jean Jacques,
Speaker 1: Rousseau and Montesquieu wrote widely read treatises arguing for what
Speaker 1: they saw as more rational, more enlightened forms of government.
Speaker 1: They argued for individual freedoms and against the powers of
Speaker 1: absolute monarchy. Their ideas circulated like the smoke in the
Speaker 1: drawing rooms of Paris. It was an intoxicating notion that
Speaker 1: nations could achieve a perfectibility, that the brand new scientific
Speaker 1: method could also inform a rational approach to governments. Over
Speaker 1: the next decade, Enlightenment thinking would affect nations around the
Speaker 1: world and lead to revolutions. There was one, first in
Speaker 1: the United States and then in France, but something strange
Speaker 1: happened in Denmark. In America and France, enlightened philosophy took
Speaker 1: hold of and inspired the people who revolted in favor
Speaker 1: of more democratic forms of government. But in Denmark there
Speaker 1: was a revolution of only one man, Dr Johannes Strums.
Speaker 1: Doctor Strunge was in a rare position as the King's
Speaker 1: personal doctor. He had authority over the king, a medical
Speaker 1: authority at first, but as the king's condition deteriorated, that
Speaker 1: authority began to apply to everything. Exerting his control over
Speaker 1: the incapacitated King, Strunge became well sort of an enlightened despot.
Speaker 1: During his ten months as de facto leader of Denmark,
Speaker 1: he enacted over a thousand reforms, including the abolition of torture,
Speaker 1: freedom of the press, ban on the slave trade, and
Speaker 1: limiting feudal titles. He singlehandedly decided he would be the
Speaker 1: one to pull Denmark into the nineteenth century, even though
Speaker 1: he never really had the authority to do it. The
Speaker 1: country didn't respond well, but those students failed to win
Speaker 1: over his adoptive nation. He did manage to seduce someone.
Speaker 1: The Queen. Young Caroline Matilda, sister of the British King
Speaker 1: George the Third, fell madly in love with the man
Speaker 1: who was treating her infirm husband, and her love would
Speaker 1: doom them both. I'm Danis Schwartz and this is noble blood.
Speaker 1: Being the youngest of nine children, Caroline Matilda was used
Speaker 1: to feeling like an afterthought. Her father, who had been
Speaker 1: next in line to be the King of England, died
Speaker 1: just a few months before Caroline Matilda was born, which
Speaker 1: meant that her older brother, the future George the Third,
Speaker 1: would become king upon the death of their grandfather. George
Speaker 1: was twenty two when he became the King of England
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty. Caroline Matilda was nine. She would have
Speaker 1: only a few brief years of childhood left before her
Speaker 1: brother would use her for the purpose that princesses are
Speaker 1: born for forging political alliances. It was actually Caroline Matilda's
Speaker 1: older sister who was originally supposed to marry their first cousin,
Speaker 1: Christian of Denmark. It was important that England solidify its
Speaker 1: relationship with Denmark to make sure Denmark didn't drift too
Speaker 1: far away into friendship with France. Heaven forbid. But Caroline
Speaker 1: Matilda's older sister had what people in the eighteenth century
Speaker 1: described as a weak constitution, and so, at age thirteen,
Speaker 1: young Caroline was the one who became engaged to the
Speaker 1: future King Christian of Denmark. Instead, she was told to
Speaker 1: say good bye to England, her home, her mother, her friends,
Speaker 1: and her siblings, and to prepare to spend the rest
Speaker 1: of her life in a place she had never been before.
Speaker 1: When she turned fifteen years old, Caroline was married to Christian, who,
Speaker 1: since their engagement, had become the King of Denmark. He
Speaker 1: was seventeen years old. That first marriage was by proxy
Speaker 1: in England, but a few weeks later she arrived in
Speaker 1: Copenhagen and they were married again, this time in person.
Speaker 1: Two teenagers bound before God to spend their lives together
Speaker 1: and rule a country side by side. Christian was tired
Speaker 1: of Caroline Matilda within a week. Caroline Matilda was not unattractive.
Speaker 1: She was a pretty girl with a round figure and
Speaker 1: blue eyes, and she enjoyed talking about books in politics,
Speaker 1: Christian didn't care. Unbeknownst to Caroline Matilda, before she arrived,
Speaker 1: King Christian of Denmark was already showing troublesome symptoms of
Speaker 1: mental illness that would only continue to worsen as he
Speaker 1: grew older and was given more power. When his new
Speaker 1: bride arrived, he was polite but entirely cold to her.
Speaker 1: One of Caroline Matilda's new ladies in waiting advised her
Speaker 1: that to get her husband to be more interested in
Speaker 1: her sexually, she should play a little hard to get.
Speaker 1: One night, when one of the king's men came to
Speaker 1: her bed chamber to ask if she was ready for
Speaker 1: a visit from her husband, Caroline Matilda's lady told him
Speaker 1: that the queen was indisposed. A little rejection, the lady
Speaker 1: told Caroline Matilda will make him want you more. It
Speaker 1: turns out that that was bad advice. From that point on,
Speaker 1: Christian baily seemed to regard his wife at all. He
Speaker 1: also didn't seem to regard any notions of dignity or propriety.
Speaker 1: He held elaborate orgies, drank obscenely, and coworted so openly
Speaker 1: with mistresses that Caroline Matilda became able to identify each
Speaker 1: one by the sound of her laughter as it echoed
Speaker 1: through the Christianborg Palace all the way to her bed chamber.
Speaker 1: The King and Queen spent one awkward night together not
Speaker 1: too long after their marriage, and it led to Queen
Speaker 1: Caroline giving birth to a son, Frederick. She had fulfilled
Speaker 1: her purpose and King Christian had done his duty, which
Speaker 1: meant that in his mind he had absolutely no more
Speaker 1: use for his wife, and he would spend his evenings
Speaker 1: partying without her as he saw fit. But Christians drinking
Speaker 1: and womanizing provided a smoke screen for how unwell he
Speaker 1: actually was. Modern scholars sometimes diagnosed him as schizophrenic. It's
Speaker 1: not really possible to say with any certainty. What we
Speaker 1: do know is that the king's grip on reality would
Speaker 1: leave him. Christian would dip in and out of lucidity,
Speaker 1: and when he was out, he was prone to bouts
Speaker 1: of rage and violence during his worst moments. At better moments,
Speaker 1: he would just humiliate himself and the crown, much to
Speaker 1: the shame of Caroline, Matilda and christian stepmother, the dowager
Speaker 1: Queen Julianne Marie, partly in order to hide the fact
Speaker 1: that the king was mentally l and partly because a
Speaker 1: change in scenery sometimes seemed to help him. The King
Speaker 1: was taken on lengthy diplomatic tours of Europe far away
Speaker 1: from Denmark. While he was gone, Caroline Matilda lived a lonely,
Speaker 1: quiet life. She would visit the court of the dowager
Speaker 1: Queen Julianne Marie, who was pleasant enough to her, even
Speaker 1: though it was obvious to everyone that Julianne Marie would
Speaker 1: rather that her son be the one on the throne.
Speaker 1: Julianne Marie had been the second wife of Christian's father,
Speaker 1: and she was the mother of Christians half brother, who
Speaker 1: by this point was a surly teenager. Everyone in court
Speaker 1: knew that Christian wasn't well, and though it would be
Speaker 1: treason to admit it, well, should he really be the
Speaker 1: one in charge? Julian Marie never said as much while
Speaker 1: she sipped her tea across from Caroline Matilda, but Caroline
Speaker 1: Matilda felt it in her sideways glances, her raised eyebrows,
Speaker 1: her two long sighs. Caroline Matilda did cause a minor
Speaker 1: scandal by leaving the palace and walking around Copenhagen on foot.
Speaker 1: I don't understand, Caroline said, when the dowager Queen gave
Speaker 1: her a stern reprimand I was just trying to see
Speaker 1: the city. It simply isn't done, Julian and Marie replied.
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda apologized, and she spent the next few months
Speaker 1: inside the palace grounds reading the few books that she
Speaker 1: had brought with her from England, the ones that had
Speaker 1: managed to make it through the rigorous Danish censorship of print. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the king returned from his European tour with a new
Speaker 1: member of court, a doctor named Johannes Strudents. The King's
Speaker 1: behavior had become so unpredictable that two of his nobles
Speaker 1: had found a local German doctor with a good reputation
Speaker 1: for success. Although they were aware that he had written
Speaker 1: some anonymous political pamphlets that were troublingly liberal, Doctor Struntz
Speaker 1: advised lots of exercise for Christian, and the two began
Speaker 1: to spend considerable time together. Christian wasn't cured, but he
Speaker 1: seemed to be making an improvement, and so doctor Struntz
Speaker 1: was invited first to finish the European tour and then
Speaker 1: to return to Denmark as his personal physician. Caroline Matilda
Speaker 1: dipped low into a curtesy to welcome her husband back
Speaker 1: to the palace, and when she rose, she felt Struance's
Speaker 1: eyes focused on her own. He was thirty three years old,
Speaker 1: with blonde hair and lips that turned up at the
Speaker 1: ends in an expression that most people saw as friendly,
Speaker 1: but that Caroline Matilda knew was masking something more mischief obvious.
Speaker 1: She saw trouble. She was right. The queen resented the
Speaker 1: doctor at first. While he had been traveling with the king,
Speaker 1: Strength had heard for months about what an unattractive bore
Speaker 1: the queen was, But Strung still believed that being with
Speaker 1: a woman would help the king's condition, and so he
Speaker 1: casually steered Christian towards one of Christian's favorite mistresses. Of course,
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda presented him for it. She shot him icy
Speaker 1: glances every time she caught him looking at her, which
Speaker 1: was often. Strength couldn't figure it out. Why did the
Speaker 1: queen seem to hate him so much? He racked his
Speaker 1: brain and came up empty. When he finally overheard a
Speaker 1: few ladies talking about it a few days later, he
Speaker 1: was ashamed of his own stupidity. Of course, by this point,
Speaker 1: the King was spending more time with Struds than with
Speaker 1: anyone else. It had almost embarrassed Struands, how readily the
Speaker 1: King acquiesced to his suggestions, medical or otherwise. For the
Speaker 1: Queen's twentieth birthday, Strude suggested let the King throw her
Speaker 1: an elaborate three day party. It was all Strungth's idea,
Speaker 1: and he organized it completely, and the Queen knew it.
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda warmed to him. If King Christian noticed or
Speaker 1: cared that his wife and his best friend seemed to
Speaker 1: be spending a lot of time exchanging flirtatious glances, he
Speaker 1: didn't show it. In fact, he encouraged them to spend
Speaker 1: time together one on one, volunteering Struds to help treat
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda when she came down with a case of dropsy.
Speaker 1: For the first time in her life, someone was paying
Speaker 1: attention to Caroline Matilda, not just to the idea of
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda as a princess to be deployed to whichever
Speaker 1: European country with a marriageable prince happened to be the
Speaker 1: most convenient, but to Caroline Matilda as a person. She
Speaker 1: and the doctor talked and rode together. He spoke to
Speaker 1: her of philosophy and thinkers like Descartes and Rousseau. When
Speaker 1: she was with him, she felt alive with potential, as
Speaker 1: if her life might have meaning outside of those four
Speaker 1: gilded walls. Maybe she could do more than just sit
Speaker 1: and read and tend to her son and walk around
Speaker 1: the palace aimlessly. Strudents's influence over the royal family would
Speaker 1: be solidified a year later, when an outbreak of smallpox
Speaker 1: ravaged Copenhagen. Outside of palace walls, Young Frederick, the heir
Speaker 1: to the throne, was at a delicate at age. He
Speaker 1: was vulnerable. Struns, with his more modern conceptions of medicine,
Speaker 1: suggested to the King and Queen that Frederick be inoculated.
Speaker 1: The suggestion outraged the other nobles. A common country doctor
Speaker 1: pricking and infecting their crown prince. Think of the risk,
Speaker 1: Think of the fear if something went wrong, Trust me,
Speaker 1: strund said, and Caroline Matilda did. She gave her nod
Speaker 1: of assent, and Struent successfully inoculated the crown prince. From
Speaker 1: that point on the crown of Denmark more or less
Speaker 1: belonged to Struns. As the king's condition deteriorated, Struns's influence grew.
Speaker 1: He became a Privy Counselor and influenced the king into
Speaker 1: firing his most senior conservative minister, the one who had
Speaker 1: scoffed and shamed Struments for all of his liberal suggestions.
Speaker 1: It was around this point that the flirtation between Caroline
Speaker 1: Matilda and doctor Struns went from subtle to blatant. King
Speaker 1: George the Third wrote from England telling his sister not
Speaker 1: to make a scene. Julian Marie turned up her nose
Speaker 1: at Caroline Matilda in court. Servants had begun dusting sand
Speaker 1: along the corridor between Caroline Matilda's chambers and the doctors
Speaker 1: so that they could check for footprints in the morning.
Speaker 1: For his part, King Christian was too far gone in
Speaker 1: his madness to have any stake in what or whom
Speaker 1: his wife was doing. While Caroline Matilda was on tour
Speaker 1: in the Hanover region, her mother, Princess Augusta, came to visit.
Speaker 1: Caroline's mother had heard the rumors about her daughter's relationship
Speaker 1: with the doctor, and she spent the entire visit waiting
Speaker 1: to get Caroline alone so it could tell her that
Speaker 1: her behavior was causing a scandal. Unfortunately, Princess Augusta never
Speaker 1: got the chance for the entire weekend. Doctor Stearns never
Speaker 1: left Caroline Matilda's side, and so Augusta had no opportunity
Speaker 1: to speak to her daughter alone. All she could do
Speaker 1: before she left was begging Advisor to pass along a
Speaker 1: message to her daughter, telling her to be careful. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until a much later visit that her mother, Princess Augusta,
Speaker 1: was finally able to see her daughter one on one.
Speaker 1: By this point, it was far too late. What are
Speaker 1: you wearing, Augusta gasp as soon as she stepped out
Speaker 1: of her carriage. Her daughter was wearing breeches like a man.
Speaker 1: Do you like them? Caroline Matilda replied. Doctor Stearns says,
Speaker 1: Queen Catherine in Russia wears men's clothing and rides a
Speaker 1: horse in public, and her people adore her for it.
Speaker 1: A Agusta took a deep breath, but she started before
Speaker 1: faltering off. She was going to say, but you are
Speaker 1: not Queen Catherine of Russia. Instead, she said, but Denmark
Speaker 1: is not Russia. Caroline Matilda just laughed, but Augusta didn't.
Speaker 1: She told her daughter that she was causing a scandal
Speaker 1: by fraternizing so openly with that Doctor Strums and that
Speaker 1: minister who had been dismissed, did she have anything to
Speaker 1: do with that? Caroline Matilda's laugh fell from her face. Pray, Madam,
Speaker 1: she said to her mother, Allow me to govern my
Speaker 1: own kingdom as I please. It was the last time
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda would ever see her mother. From March seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy one to January seventeen seventy two, Denmark entered a
Speaker 1: period it known as the time of Strunds. The doctor,
Speaker 1: once a common German Man not even Danish, had eliminated
Speaker 1: his rivals from the cabinet, made himself account and passed
Speaker 1: a statute that meant that his signature on documents would
Speaker 1: have the same effect as the king's. For that ten
Speaker 1: month period, doctor Strutz wielded basically unlimited power, signing one
Speaker 1: thousand sixty nine cabinet orders, or the equivalent of more
Speaker 1: than three per day. His reforms were sweeping and progressive.
Speaker 1: Struns was committed to using his unusual opportunity to craft
Speaker 1: Denmark into a nation that would embody the principles of
Speaker 1: the French and English Enlightenment thinkers. He abolished torture, the
Speaker 1: slave trade, and capital punishment. He ensured full freedom of
Speaker 1: the press, and removed penalties for illegitimate children, reduced the army,
Speaker 1: reorganized courts to prevent corruption, and reformed universities and medical institutions.
Speaker 1: But perhaps his mistake was cracking down on the indulgences
Speaker 1: of the nobles. He reduced their privileges, He criminalized bribery,
Speaker 1: he taxed gambling, and taxed luxury horses to fund orphanages.
Speaker 1: They were all well meaning and progressive, forward looking reforms,
Speaker 1: but for some reason the other people in power in
Speaker 1: Denmark didn't care for them, and they didn't care for
Speaker 1: this doctor Strumps, who waltzed his way into a country
Speaker 1: he didn't know and took over with absolutely no qualifications. Sure,
Speaker 1: a king didn't really have qualifications, but a king was
Speaker 1: anointed by God. Strunge was just treating the king, who
Speaker 1: was Strums to be making all of these changes. He
Speaker 1: had no idea what Denmark was or what it should be,
Speaker 1: and the same one for that foreign queen who seemed
Speaker 1: to love him so much. The two of them were
Speaker 1: probably in on it together. The nobles knew that the
Speaker 1: king actually was incapacitated, but that information had been protected
Speaker 1: from the people for so long that most Danish people
Speaker 1: didn't understand why this random doctor was now ruling in
Speaker 1: place of King Christian. The king hadn't been sick before, right,
Speaker 1: so maybe the doctor had been poisoning him. Maybe the
Speaker 1: doctor and the queen were planning on murdering the king
Speaker 1: so they could be together and take over Denmark. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the queen during all of this, happily read philosophy and
Speaker 1: spent her nights with the man she loved. They really
Speaker 1: were another Catherine the Great and Tempken, she thought. That summer,
Speaker 1: the pair left Copenhagen to live at her Shawn Palace
Speaker 1: to enjoy a few months of lounging in the sun
Speaker 1: in one another's company. In July, Caroline Matilda gave birth
Speaker 1: to a daughter, Louise Augusta. Though everyone at court knew
Speaker 1: that the daughter was almost certainly struns, the king still
Speaker 1: accepted her as his official daughter, and the dowager Queen
Speaker 1: Julianne Marie agreed to stand as godmother. But the idyllic
Speaker 1: summer wouldn't last. The truth was, Caroline Matilda's mother had
Speaker 1: been right about her being no Catherine the Great. Catherine
Speaker 1: the Great had united a nation behind her and inspired
Speaker 1: them the country resented Doctor Struns, and it had begun
Speaker 1: to hate Caroline Matilda. Public sentiment was so vitriolic that
Speaker 1: in October of sevent Struns had no choice but to
Speaker 1: pull back on the freedom of the press in order
Speaker 1: to prevent the waves of criticism being printed about him
Speaker 1: and the Queen. The wind had changed in Denmark. Struent's
Speaker 1: window of opportunity was closing. Sometime that winter, when the
Speaker 1: streets of Copenhagen that Caroline had once walked as a
Speaker 1: new queen turned slick and wet. Doctor Strunt asked her
Speaker 1: for permission to flee. He needed to leave and get
Speaker 1: to safety. She was taken aback, first that he would
Speaker 1: want to leave their adoptive country, but second that he
Speaker 1: was planning on leaving without her. Caroline Matilda paused and
Speaker 1: sized up her lover. She refused, she simply loved him
Speaker 1: too much. Any shred of hope she had for a
Speaker 1: bright future as queen had come from him, and she
Speaker 1: didn't want to let him go. In January, a group
Speaker 1: of disgruntled nobles presented manufactured evidence to Julian Mrie implicating
Speaker 1: students in Caroline Matilda in a plot to murder the
Speaker 1: King of course, the claim was ridiculous. The pair had
Speaker 1: absolutely no reason to murder the king. King Christian being
Speaker 1: alive protected them. He was an ally and his holding
Speaker 1: power was the one thing that afforded Caroline Matilda and
Speaker 1: Struents their power and positions. But that didn't matter. The
Speaker 1: night of January six, after a masquerade ball, Caroline Matilda,
Speaker 1: doctor Struns, and one of Struent's closest allies were all
Speaker 1: arrested in their beds. Because the queen had an infant
Speaker 1: daughter that she was still breastfeeding, she was permitted to
Speaker 1: take her with her, but otherwise she was brought to
Speaker 1: her new chambers, where she would be kept under house arrest,
Speaker 1: completely alone. The next morning, the conspirators paraded King Christian
Speaker 1: around Denmark, showing him off, proving that the King had
Speaker 1: been quote unquote rescued. He was as much upon as
Speaker 1: he had ever been. Despite her arrest, Caroline Matilda refused
Speaker 1: to confess or implicate her lover in any way. It
Speaker 1: was only when they showed her the signed confession from
Speaker 1: doctor Strund's that she relented. In his confession, he blamed
Speaker 1: the queen for seducing him and gave her full power
Speaker 1: and control. Over their entire relationship. Caroline Matilda finally relented
Speaker 1: and agreed to co operate. She signed the paper they
Speaker 1: put in front of her. While she was still imprisoned,
Speaker 1: she learned that her mother died. After doctor Struande was
Speaker 1: found guilty of usurpation of royalty and less majeste, his
Speaker 1: right hand was cut off, then he was publicly beheaded
Speaker 1: and drawn and quartered. Within a matter of weeks, two
Speaker 1: people that Caroline Matilda loved most in the world were
Speaker 1: both gone. The scandal of Queen Caroline Matilda's arrest meant
Speaker 1: there was no end of the delighted gossip around Europe
Speaker 1: about George the Third's criminal sister. Though her lawyer argued
Speaker 1: during her trial that Caroline Matilda was completely innocent and
Speaker 1: had only signed her confession to protect Struns, no one
Speaker 1: really believed that, But as Great Britain attempted to negotiate
Speaker 1: her release and casually threatened in attack at Sy, the
Speaker 1: judge made what I think is a fairly generous ruling.
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda's marriage with Christian was dissolved, her dowry would
Speaker 1: be returned to England. The Queen would retain her right
Speaker 1: to a pension and her royal title, and she would
Speaker 1: go off to live in Hanover quietly in one of
Speaker 1: her family's holdings, cell Castle. In her exile, Caroline Matilda
Speaker 1: lived a simple life. She was visited by relatives, She
Speaker 1: built a small theater, and she filled a library with
Speaker 1: books in both English and German. She spent most of
Speaker 1: her days working at charities for poor children. As for
Speaker 1: her own children, her son and her daughter, because they
Speaker 1: were the official royal heirs of Denmark, she would never
Speaker 1: be permitted to see them again. Back in Denmark, the
Speaker 1: dowager Queen Julianne Marie took over as regent with her son,
Speaker 1: King Christian's half brother. The pair eliminated every single progressive
Speaker 1: cabinet order that Strength had signed in his time as
Speaker 1: unofficial regent. There was a point when she was an
Speaker 1: exile where a politician visited Caroline Matilda and tried to
Speaker 1: convince her that he could rally enough power to overthrow
Speaker 1: the regency and reinstate her as Queen. Caroline Matilda agreed
Speaker 1: in the abstract, but she wanted her brother George the
Speaker 1: Third support. The politician went to England, but while he
Speaker 1: was waiting for an audience with the king he lost
Speaker 1: his chance. Caroline Matilda died, maybe of scarlet fever, just
Speaker 1: three years into her royal exile. She was twenty three
Speaker 1: years old, just a few months away from turning twenty four.
Speaker 1: For the duration of her short life, from princess to
Speaker 1: queen to lover, there was only a brief window when
Speaker 1: Caroline Matilda picture a beautiful vision of her future, one
Speaker 1: where she was beside a man she loved, changing a
Speaker 1: country for the better. That vision lasted ten mon The
Speaker 1: infirm King Christian lived for another thirty three years, occasionally
Speaker 1: expressing regret at having lost his friend Dr Strunz. Three
Speaker 1: years after Struntz's brutal execution, the King doodled a little
Speaker 1: drawing of him in profile in German. The king wrote underneath,
Speaker 1: I would have liked to save him. But regret and
Speaker 1: sorrow didn't last long for King Christian. His mood changed
Speaker 1: and he continued on ruling a nation as king that
Speaker 1: he never really ruled. That's the story of Caroline Matilda
Speaker 1: and Dr Strunz. But stick around after a brief sponsor
Speaker 1: break to hear about what happened to Denmark later. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Prince Frederick, Caroline Matilda and King Christian's son came of age.
Speaker 1: He wrestled the regency away from his step grandmother and
Speaker 1: step uncle, a political battle that ultimately culminated in the
Speaker 1: prince punching his step uncle in the face. As regent
Speaker 1: and leader, King Frederick reinstalled the progressive ideology into Denmark
Speaker 1: that he had learned from Doctor Strunds. He had grown
Speaker 1: up for a few years under Struands and had come
Speaker 1: to see him as almost a father figure. In the end,
Speaker 1: when Prince Frederick took power and became King Frederick, he
Speaker 1: was able to complete Strudents's vision. He was actually the
Speaker 1: one who went one step further than Struns. He eliminated
Speaker 1: serfdom from Denmark entirely for good. Noble Blood is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey. The show is written and hosted by Dana
Speaker 1: Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the
Speaker 1: show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart radio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: M