Monthly Archives: January 2014

Let’s not waste time.
Struensee held absolute sway for almost thirteen months, between 18 December 1770 and 16 January 1772.
During this time he issued no fewer than 1069 cabinet orders, or more than three a day.
Reforms initiated by Struensee included:

• abolition of torture
• abolition of unfree labor (corvée)
• abolition of the censorship of the press
• abolition of the practice of preferring nobles for state offices
• abolition of noble privileges
• abolition of “undeserved” revenues for nobles
• abolition of the etiquette rules at the Royal Court
• abolition of the Royal Court’s aristocracy
• abolition of state funding of unproductive manufacturers
• abolition of several holidays
• introduction of a tax on gambling and luxury horses to fund nursing of foundlings
• ban of slave trade in the Danish colonies
• rewarding only actual achievements with feudal titles and decorations
• criminalization and punishment of bribery
• re-organization of the judicial institutions to minimize corruption
• introduction of state-owned grain storages to balance out the grain price
• assignment of farmland to peasants
• re-organization and reduction of the army
• university reforms
• reform of the state-owned medical institutions

Изюм.

• When Struensee abolished all censorship of the press, it mostly resulted in a flood of anti-Struensee pamphlets.
• On 17 June 1771 the royal family and court took summer residence at the Hirschholm Palace. That summer has come to be referred to as the “Hirschholm Summer” in Danish history.
  After that summer, and after the arrest of Struensee and the Queen on 17 January 1772, and the subsequent execution of Struensee, and the banishment and imprisonment of the Queen, the palace stood empty until 1810. At that time Frederik VI had the now dilapidated palace torn down for use as build materials for the rebuilding of Christiansborg Palace, which had burned to the ground in the fire of 1794. (link)
• The execution took place 28 April 1772 on Østerfælled, approximately where Denmark’s National Stadium PARKEN is located today, in front of approximately 30,000 of the city’s then 70,000 inhabitants. (map)
• From “The Visit of the Royal Physician”, first chapter:
  
• The axe used during execution can be seen at the National Museum.
• Today there is not a single monument to Struensee in Denmark – (you can’t fuck a queen without retribution!)

Personal musings.
That’s a great story, it pushes all the right buttons for me, tackles all the major themes and raises all the everpresent questions:
Power, responsibility, ideas, reality, power, seizing opportunity, perfect timing, power, staying human, invulnerability, adherence to principle, choice, decision making, responsibility, corruption by power, POWER.

Idealist comes by a perfect opportunity, vacuum of power, which can be used for… and then he HAS to answer all this questions.
I think he found an answer to them, but the Answer was very simple and not at all filled with hope, thus this relentless frenzy of law-making was started.
Yeah, he already knew how this will end.

Too idealistic, too unexperienced (or just too busy?) to secure his newfound political power and topple his enemies, but not a saint, stayed human afterall, so young and fresh faced queen is fucked, and enemies are provided with a weapon and death warrant is sealed.
Now, that’s a man after my own heart.

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Wherever XV Devil comes up in a reading for me it means POWER and hunger for it, passions and responsibility.
Doing what you WANT because you CAN and have a right to do it, precisely because of desire and preparedness to act.
Principle which is SO easy to abuse, and XV card reminds of that, bluntly.

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Lately, I’ve stumbled by chance on answers to those common “oh so deep and revealing” questions like “happiest day of your life”, “where you’d like to be buried”, etc
Now I know the answer to “you have a chance to meet any major historical figure, who would it be?” as well.