Happy New Year from Scandalous Women

Wishing all of my readers a very healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year.

Scandalous Review: The Horror of Love

Title:   The Horror of Love: Nancy Mitford and Gaston Palewski in Paris and London

Author:  Lisa Hilton
Publisher: Pegasus
Publication date:  December 12, 2012
Pages: 336         

How acquired:  Net Galley

Overview:  "Oh, the horror of love!" Nancy Mitford once exclaimed to her sister Diana Mosley.

 Elegant and intelligent, Nancy was a renowned wit and a popular author. Yet this bright, waspish woman, capable of unerring emotional analysis in her work gave her heart to a well-known philanderer who went on to marry another woman. Was Nancy that unremarkable thing—a deluded lover—or was she a remarkable woman engaged in a sophisticated love affair? Gaston Palewski was the Free French commander and one of the most influential politicians in post-war Europe. Their life together was spent amongst the most exciting, powerful, and controversial figures in the center of reawakening Europe. She supported him throughout his tumultuous career and he inspired some of her best work, including The Pursuit of Love.

Lisa Hilton's provocative and emotionally challenging book reveals how, with discipline, gentleness, and a great deal of elegance, Nancy Mitford and Gaston Palewski achieved an affair of the heart.

Meet the Author

Lisa Hilton is the critically acclaimed author of Queens Consort and Athenais: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress, the Real Queen of France. She lives in London.

My thoughts:  The first summer I ever spent in England, I had the opportunity to see a new musical called The Mitford Girls.  Since I had never heard of the Mitford's, and had no idea why anyone would want to write a musical about them, I declined.  It wasn't until later that I learned that Nancy Mitford was the author of Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, two books that I read and loved in high school.  Since then, I have read a great deal about the sisters.  Of course, much of my focus has been on the more colorful of the sisters, Diana, who married the British Facist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, Unity Mitford and Jessica.  Nancy I knew more as author, especially of Voltaire in Love, one of the books that I used as a source when I wrote Scandalous Women.  She always seemed like the dark horse of the family.  The more respectable, older sister, who married terribly and moved to Paris, her happy place.  So when I saw that Net Galley had Lisa Hilton's new biography of Nancy and Gaston Palewski, I jumped at the chance to review it. 

Unfortunately my enthusiasm soon waned once I started reading the book. I'm not sure that I can put my finger on it exactly, but I found the book rather dry and unsatisfying.  The book starts off with their first meeting in 1942 in London during the war and then flashes back to their respective childhoods.  Since I knew less about Gaston than I did about Nancy, I found the sections on his early childhood and his family history interesting, particularly the fact that he and his brother both converted to Catholicism (their parents were Jewish from Poland originally).

However, once the war starts, the book becomes not only a general history of the Free French but also a mini-biography of Charles de Gaulle.  Long stretches of narrative are devoted to the war in Africa and de Gaulle's interactions with both the English and the Americans. When Gaston is involved, I found it interesting but most of it was tedious to wade through.  I found myself putting the book down or skipping ahead to parts where Nancy was concerned.  Finally after about 150 pages, Nancy and Gaston finally meet but again we're told a lot about their relationship but we don't really see it.  Because of Gaston work, the couple spent a great deal of time apart over the 30 years of their relationship.

I'm also not quite sure what it was that drew these two people together, apart from their shared love of France, the 18th century, collecting objet d'arts, and going out to parties.  It's clear that Nancy fell madly in love with Gaston for some reason (apparently he was also good in the sack) but whether he actually loved Nancy is a matter of debate.   Like Jean-Paul Satre, he seemed to have many women, at one point in the book, besides Nancy, he was juggling at least 3 other women, all of them social acquaintainces of Nancy, including Susan Mary Alsop.  Hilton points out that Nancy's sister Diana was also married to a serial philanderer as was another good friend of hers, Lady Diana Cooper but that Nancy is pitied because she wasn't married to Gaston, she was just one of his many mistresses. 

By the end of the book, I felt I knew less about Gaston and Nancy but a great deal about post-war French politics and Parisian society after the war.  I'm also not sure that I liked either one of them very much either.  Hilton points out that Nancy was not a snob, which is partly true.  She was virulently anti-American despite the fact that she had never been there, and also her sister Jessica lived in the States for many years.

Verdict:  A perfectly serviceable but ultimately disappointing biography.

 

 

Hetty Green – America’s First Female Tycoon

I was first introduced Hetty Green during the Bicentennial.  LIFE Magazine had put out a special issue on noted American women during the previous two hundred years of the nation’s existence and Hetty was one of the women.  Of course, they chose the least flattering picture they could find, Hetty during her later years when she was noted for her eccentricities.  She was nicknamed “The Witch on Wall Street,” which is interesting when you consider there were hardly any women on Wall Street or in business in the 19^th century.  All of which makes Hetty’s accomplishments all the more remarkable.  Unlike Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin, Hetty didn’t get her stock tips from a railroad tycoon like Cornelius Vanderbilt.  She studied the markets closely, bought low and sold high (Warren Buffett would have been proud), and kept her expenses low by borrowing a desk in the offices of Chemical bank (which later merged with J.P. Morgan).  For years, Hetty was known more for her eccentricities and her frugality and then for her business acumen.  In recent years, however, Hetty has been recognized for being the first American woman to make a substantial impact on Wall Street.  Her success paved the way for women such as Muriel Siebert and Sayra Lebenthal.

She was born Henrietta Howland Robinson in New Bedford, MA on November 21, 1834. At the time of her birth, New Bedford was a thriving town, whose primary industry was whaling.  Her family were Quakers who owned a large whaling fleet.  Her father was disappointed that she hadn’t been the longed for son, and her mother suffered from post-partum depression after her birth.  As a result, Hetty was farmed out to relatives, including her maternal grandfather Gideon Howland.  Feeling abandoned by the people who were supposed to love her, from an early age, Hetty began to act out and throw tantrums when she didn’t get her way.  It also led her to become a massive control freak as she got older.

Hetty became interested in finance, through reading the financial papers to her grandfather whose eyesight was failing. It became a way for her to connect not only to her grandfather but also to her father as well.  By the time she was 13, she was the family bookkeeper.  Despite her financial savvy, when her father died in 1864, and left her $7.5 million ($107 million in 2010), the money was still left in a trust. Hetty was furious that she was not allowed to control the bulk of her money.  Hetty had invested a small amount of money on her own; she invested what she could in Civil War bonds, against the objections of her family.  Hetty made a killing, as she would continue to do for the rest of her life. 

When her aunt Sylvia died and left the bulk of her fortune to charity, Hetty was livid.  Her aunt had used her fortune throughout her life as a way to control people; Hetty had catered to her in the expectation that she would inherit everything.  Showing just how ruthless she could be, Hetty challenged the will’s validity in court by producing an earlier will which allegedly left the entire estate to her.  The case dragged on for years, and ultimately Hetty ended up losing, after the court decided that the signature on the will had been forged.

While Hetty was no raving beauty, she was considered attractive with fine blue eyes and a tall, shapely figure.  While living in New York, she met Edward Henry Green, who came from a wealthy Vermont family.  Thirteen years older, he was tall and handsome, with wavy blond hair, and blue eyes.  While Hetty was reticent, no interest in clothes or parties; and had no small talk , her beau had a robust personality, was a witty conversationalist filled with amusing anecdotes, and he was the type of man who feasted on life. Fluent in several languages, he had lived abroad for twenty years.  After a long courtship, the two married when Hetty was 33 years old. In a sort of 19^th century pre-nuptial agreement, she made him renounce all rights to her money before their wedding.  For several years, they lived abroad in London, making their base at the ultra-exclusive Langham Hotel.   The couple soon had two children, Edward Howland Robinson born in 1868 and Sylvia born almost three years later in 1871.  While her husband was much more of a gambler when it came to investing, Hetty was much more practical when it came to money.  She had a simple investment strategy, conservative investments, substantial cash reserves, and an exceedingly cool head.  While other investors might drop their stock at the first sign of a dip in the markets, Hetty would hold on until the stock rebounded.  She initially invested heavily in greenbacks, which according to Wikipedia, were notes printed by the U.S. government immediately after the Civil War. While other investors were wary, Hetty invested heavily and made $1.2 million from her investment in the first year.  She later expanded her portfolio to include railroads, eventually feuding with most of the major players including Collis Huntington.

In 1885, the financial house John J. Cisco collapsed, in which Hetty was the largest investor.  In the fall out, Hetty discovered that not only was her husband the firm’s biggest debtor but that the firm had used her money as collateral for their loans to her husband.  While Hetty had no problem turning a blind eye to her husband’s infidelities and gambling, she put her foot down when it came to her money.  Despite his transgressions, the idea of divorcing him never occurred to her.  The couple separated, although they stayed on friendly terms, sharing lunch occasionally, and Hetty even nursed him in the years before his death. 

Over the years, Hetty began to develop a reputation as an eccentric.  Believing merchants raised the prices when they knew that she was coming, she started dressing in old clothes and using a false name to get a better price.  When she lived in New York, instead of renting a house or an apartment in one of the new luxury buildings like the Dakota, Hetty preferred to live in boarding houses because it was not just cheap but convenient.  Later in life, she moved from one furnished apartment to another in Brooklyn and Manhattan in order to avoid having a permanent residence (and to avoid paying income tax).  When the five boroughs combined into what we now know as New York City, she moved across the river to Hoboken. She ate baked onions because she believed that they warded off colds. Instead of eating in fancy restaurants like Delmonico’s, Hetty brought her lunch to work every day to save money.  She allegedly wore her clothes until they were falling apart.  There were rumors that she ate oatmeal that she heated on the office radiator. 

The biggest and most juicy myth was the story that Hetty’s frugality cost her son his leg.  Ned injured his leg while sledding at their home in Vermont.  Hetty applied a home remedy to try and heal the leg but she also called the local doctor. When it appeared that the methods were working, she canceled the doctor who had been called to attend him, because she would have had to pay him for his time, which she felt would be wasted since Ned appeared fine.  Unfortunately for Ned, the healing was only temporary.  Hetty, to her credit, when she realized that Ned’s leg was not healed, took him to see several eminent physicians. Almost all of them recommended that Ned have the leg amputated which both Hetty and her son were reluctant to have happen.  Over time, the leg grew worse and eventually had to be amputated.  She couldn’t escape the rumors even in death; she supposedly died of apoplexy when she argued with a maid about the virtues of skimmed milk. The truth was that Hetty had been suffering ill-health for a number of years.  Diagnosed with a hernia, she refused to pay $150 to have an operation, considering the price too high.  Instead, she put a ruler in her underwear, pressed against the hernia. 

Many of the stories were spread by her mostly male business competitors who gave her the lovely nickname of the ‘Witch of Wall Street,’ partly due to her habit of mostly wearing black. It no doubt galled them that Hetty was so successful in business that the City of New York came to Hetty more than once to help keep the city afloat.  Hetty could be just as ruthless and litigious as any male tycoon. She sued the trustees of her father’s estate, accusing them of mismanagement, and despite the negative publicity, she foreclosed on a church that had gotten behind in its loan payments.  When the pastor told her that she was in danger of not getting into heaven, Hetty told him to pray for her.  Hetty enjoyed making money, the wheeling and dealing, much more than she did spending it. While other tycoons built lavish mansions, monuments to their wealth, or donated large sums to charity, Hetty quietly went about her business, crisscrossing the country to inspect the various properties she owned. Instead of just donating money to charity, Hetty preferred to help others help themselves by providing jobs whenever possible.

Hetty believed that it was important for women to have some knowledge about business, how to write a check, open a bank account, read a financial statement, in order not to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous businessmen.  She believed that knowledge of business would make them better wives, since they would have an understanding of the pressures their husbands were under. However, Hetty didn’t believe in women’s suffrage, that they should have the vote or even run for political office.   Despite her success in business, she still believed that a woman’s greatest job was to be a wife and a mother.

But all of her money made Hetty paranoid.  She believed that not only her aunt but her father had been poisoned.  She began carrying a gun to protect against the possibility of an attack. Determined to protect her children against fortune hunters, she made her son Ned promise not to get married for twenty years (he eventually married his long-time girlfriend after his mother’s death). When her daughter Sylvie eventually married in her late thirties to Matthew Astor Wilks, Hetty made sure that he signed a pre-nuptial agreement waiving his right to her fortune.  At point, Hetty moved into the brand new Plaza Hotel, but she moved out after six weeks, sick and tired of the letters she received from people begging for money. She also became afraid that she would be kidnapped and made detours to evade the would-be pursuer.

Hetty finally passed away on July 3, 1916 at the age of 81.  She left a fortune of between $100 million to $200 million (or $1.9 – $3.8 billion in 2006 dollars), arguably making her the richest woman in the world at the time.  Apart from a small bequest to a relative, the majority of her wealth was left to her two children, Ned and Sylvie.  Freed from his mother’s eagle eye, Ned spent lavishly but still managed to leave his sister a substantial fortune after his death.  Since neither of Hetty’s children had children of their own, Hetty’s fortune ended up being dispersed after Sylvie’s death to 63 charities and financial institutions.

Further Reading:

Farquhar, Michael:  A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans: Pirates, Skinflints, Patriots, and Other Colorful Characters Stuck in the Footnotes of History. New York:  Perigee Books (2008)

Slack, Charles, Hetty: The Genius And Madness Of America's First Female Tycoon. New York: Ecco (2004).
Wallach, Janet:  The Richest Woman in America – Hetty Green in the Gilded Age. New York:  Nan A. Talese/Doubleday (2012)

Scandalous Review: The Queen Mother - The Untold Story of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, Who Became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

Title:  The Queen Mother - The Untold Story of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, Who Became Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

Author:  Lady Colin Campbell

Publisher:  St. Martin’s Press

Pub Date:   April 2012

How Acquired:  New York Public Library

What it’s about:   (from the inside cover)

 Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother has been called the "most successful queen since Cleopatra." Her personality was so captivating that even her arch-enemy Wallis Simpson wrote about "her legendary charm." Portrayed as a selfless partner to the King in the Oscar-winning movie The King's Speech, The Queen Mother is most often remembered from her later years as the smiling granny with the pastel hats. When she died in 2002, just short of her 102nd birthday, she was praised for a long life well lived.

 But there was another side to her story. For the first time, Lady Colin Campbell shows us that the untold life of the Queen Mother is far more fascinating and moving than the official version that has been peddled ever since she became royal in 1923. With unparalleled sources—including members of the Royal Family, aristocrats, and friends and relatives of Elizabeth herself—this mesmerizing account takes us inside the real and sometimes astonishing world of the royal family.

About the Author:   

Lady Colin Campbell, who is connected to the royal family through mutual ancestors and marriage, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Diana in Private—which was the first book to reveal the truth behind the "fairytale" marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales—as well as The Royal Marriages: What Really Goes on in the Private World of the Queen and Her Family, and The Real Diana.

My thoughts:

When I first heard about this book, I wasn’t sure if I was going to bother to read it, despite the fact that I basically will read anything about the Royal Family.  I’d read an article in the Daily Mail about the book which made it clear that the author had an axe to grind with the Queen Mother.  What made me change my mind were two things:  I saw the book at my local library, and I had read Lady Colin’s previous books, much of what she had written about Diana in particular was later confirmed by Andrew Morton’s book. So I thought I would give the book a chance. Well after reading the book, I can say that she doesn’t so much as take an axe to the Queen Mother, but more like a chisel.

She starts off the book with the outrageous claim that the Queen Mother (Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon as she was then) was conceived in a sort of Edwardian surrogate mother situation.  The Queen Mum’s mother supposedly had a bit of a nervous breakdown after the death of her oldest child, and it was suggested that she not attempt to have any more children.  According to Lady Colin, the couple desperately wanted to add to their already enormous brood, so the future Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne conceived not one but two children with the family cook.  The author bases her evidence on the fact that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor used to call the Queen Mum ‘Cookie’ as a rather vicious nickname and the fact that there is some discrepancy about where the Queen was actually born.  She also claims that the Earl, on his deathbed, confessed to his physician that the true story of the Queen’s origins as well as that of her baby brother David.  Oh, and Elizabeth and David were referred to as the ‘Benjamins’ in the family, a reference to the biblical story of Jacob and Rachel (Rachel had offered her handmaiden to Jacob as a surrogate mother since she was unable to conceive).

Her second outrageous claim is that Princess Elizabeth (Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret were conceived by artificial insemination because the Duchess of York as she was then, hated sex and had avoided it ever since her honeymoon.  In her defense, she’s not the first author to come up with this theory.  Kitty Kelly wrote in her book The Royals that Bertie was sterile due to the mumps, which is why the royal couple had to resort to artificial insemination to have a child. Campbell also claims that Queen Maud of Norway conceived her son with King Haakon VII the same way.  Lady Colin also writes that denied the martial bed, Bertie went back to his previous girlfriend, an actress named Evelyn ‘Boo’ Laye for comfort.

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, according to Lady Colin, is a steel magnolia.  She’s all charm and sweetness on the surface, but manipulative and vindictive when you cross her.  Initially, she’d set her sights on the Prince of Wales, but she wasn’t his type of woman.  She wasn’t sleek and sophisticated enough and lacked sex appeal.  Unable to win the grand prize, Elizabeth settled for his brother who had long pursued her.  Campbell states that Elizabeth almost lost Bertie because King George VI and Queen Mary grew tired of the way she strung him along, hoping for a better offer.  Once married, she set out to become indispensable to him emotionally, soothing his rages, helping him with his speech difficulties, forging a tight unit.  If she couldn’t have the Prince of Wales, then she would help Bertie become the best man he could possibly be.  Sort of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear if you will. 

Fans of the Queen Mum will be most outraged by the claims that she manipulated events behind the scenes to get Edward VIII off the throne so that she and Bertie could rule.  Apparently a woman scorned, she was determined not to lose her place in the spotlight to anyone.  Already she’d had to deal with Bertie’s younger brother George marrying a genuine Princess, Princess Marina of Greece, who supposedly treated Elizabeth with disdain.  She wasn’t about to give way to a twice-divorced American woman.  Lady Colin claims that Elizabeth worked her magic on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, amongst other courtiers who were dismayed not just by the idea of a twice-divorced Queen but because the Prince of Wales had ideas about modernizing the monarchy.   This bit rings a bit true given the flack that Prince Charles has apparently gotten about wanting to limit the Firm to William and Harry and their children, cutting out Prince Andrew’s kids from performing royal duties.  Most egregious is her claims that if Edward VIII had stayed on the throne, he could somehow have prevented World War II from happening or at least kept Britain out of it.

Although this book is half the size of William Shawcross’s biography of the Queen Mother, it feels just as long.  She has a tendency to go off on tangents, about Thelma Furness and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, the Mountbattens, Princess Alice of Greece, Queen Marie of Rumania and on and on.  When she finally does get back to the main thrust of her story, the Queen Mother, it’s hard to remember what was happening before the tangent.  While Campbell does give the Queen Mother her due during World War II, and that, while she may not have been in love with Bertie, they did manage to forge a strong and enduring bond, she does so begrudgingly.  I agree with her that it was ridiculous for Elizabeth to be adamant that Wallis not be allowed to use the title HRH because if the Duke and Duchess ever divorced it would be embarrassing for her to still HRH, Mrs. Bob Smith.  Campbell rightly points out that both Diana and Sarah, Duchess of York lost the right to use HRH after their divorce.  She makes a point of comparing the two women and declaring Bertie and the Duke of Windsor married similar women, charming, dynamic but who also dominated the two men who were putty in their hands.  This, however, she blames on Queen Mary for withholding affection from her two oldest sons.

Campbell manages to wrap up the last 50 years of the Queen’s life in about 15 pages, most of which are a litany of how the Queen manipulated her way into having a bigger role on the royal stage than previous dowager Queens, how she ruined Princess Margaret’s life by not supporting her romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend, and by siding with Lord Snowdon in the divorce, how she hated Prince Philip calling him ‘The Hun’ and tried to undermine his marriage to the Queen, her promotion of Lady Diana Spencer as the perfect Princess of Wales until Diana proved that she was not a team player, and her devotion to the Prince of Wales at the expense of her other grandchildren who were not as important because they were not the heir to the throne.   She also spends a great deal of time in the book criticizing everything from the way the Queen dressed to the way she parented her children.  At the end of the book, she grudgingly admits a certain admiration for the woman she has spent the previous 400 pages eviscerating.

Most of Campbell’s information comes from people who were no fans of the Queen Mother, such as Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, the Windsors themselves, and other assorted society figures.  She clearly comes down on the side of Duke and Duchess, lamenting the fact that he was ‘forced’ off the throne.  She quotes liberally from Hugo Vicker's and William Shawcross' biographies but solely to bolster her own conclusions. She takes great delight at revealing what they were supposedly too polite to say in their books. One wonders why Lady Colin would want to write a book about someone she so clearly dislikes.

Verdict:  A completely biased and inflammatory look at the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.  I would suggest readers check out the Shawcross biography or Hugo Vicker’s biography of the Queen Mother.

Scandalous Review: A Royal Affair

Title:  A Royal Affair

Cast

Mads Mikkelsen as Johann Friedrich Struensee

Alicia Vikander as Caroline Mathilde
Mikkel Følsgaard as Christian VII
David Dencik as Ove Høegh-Guldberg
Søren Malling as Hartmann
Trine Dyrholm as Juliane Marie
William Jøhnk Nielsen as Frederik VI
Cyron Bjørn Melville as Enevold Brandt
Rosalinde Mynster as Natasha
Laura Bro as Louise von Plessen
Bent Mejding as J.H.E. Bernstorff
Thomas W. Gabrielsson as Schack Carl Rantzau
Søren Spanning as Münster
John Martinus as Ditlev Reventlow
Erika Guntherová as Hofdame
Harriet Walter as Augusta, Princess of Wales
Klaus Tange as Minister

Director & Screenwriter – Nicolaj Arcel

Distributed by:  Nordisk Film, Magnolia Pictures (US)

Based on Princesse af blodet by Bodil Steensen-Leth

What it’s about:  The story is set in the 18th century, at the court of the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark, and focuses on the romance between the queen and the royal physician Struensee.

My thoughts:  I first discovered the love triangle of Caroline Matilda, Johann Struensee and Christian VIII in Eleanor Herman’s Sex with the Queen several years and was fascinated by the story. So much so that I blogged about it here. So I was very excited to discover that there was a new film coming out called A Royal Affair (this is not the first time Caroline Matilda’s story has been dramatized.  Apparently there is a 1935 British film called The Dictator about the love triangle.  Yet another film that I will be emailing TCM about!).

The film starts out with Caroline Matilda writing a letter to her children from her exile in Celle, detailing the story of her love affair with Struensee.  The film then flashes back to the 15 year old Caroline Matilda in Britain just before she’s about to embark on her journey to Denmark to meet her husband for the first time.  Her mother, Augusta, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, gives her a little bit of marital advice.  Caroline Matilda embarks on her journey with great hopes for her marriage, which are quickly abused once she meets her groom, King Christian VII.  She first meets him hiding behind a tree displaying an odd giggle; he's mentally deranged and infantile. Being the dutiful princess she is, she does her duty in the marital bed with her reluctant husband.  I wish the filmmakers had included Christian’s public declaration that he couldn’t love Caroline Matilda because it was “unfashionable to love one’s wife,” instead of just having him tell Struensee in the film that she’s just boring.

 

She also discovers that some of the books that she brought with her from England were confiscated because they were banned in Denmark.  This is the first hint that the audience receives that Caroline Matilda might have ideas that are considered dangerous. While we are introduced to the principal players who become a thorn in Carolina Matilda’s side including Dowager Queen Juliana Marie, we never really get a chance to see how they tried to turn husband and wife against each other.  We also don’t see her chafing under the strictures of the puritanical Danish court or how Caroline Matilda managed to get around them.  One of the things that she did that was considered scandalous was that she used to take walks in Copenhagen, royal and noble Danish women normally only traveled by carriage. Caroline Matilda’s lady in waiting Louise von Plessen is exiled from court but we never learn why in the film.

Before too long the audience is introduced to Johann Friedrich Struensee, a German physician living in the Danish province of Altona.  Struensee is handsome, charismatic and burning with Enlightenment ideas.  He is the protégée of two exiles from the Danish court who put him forth as the ideal physician for the young King as he travels throughout Europe. Struensee agrees to the job and soon finds that the King is highly susceptible to his suggestions.  Caroline Matilda is not so taken with her husband’s new friend but Struensee soon finds the way to her heart by not just listening to her but taking her riding, and sharing his ideas with her.  There is a lovely scene where he slips her some anonymous pamphlets that he had written. Soon Caroline has fallen head over heels for the doctor and takes the scandalous step of inviting him into her bed.

This is where the film really takes off.  Princess Diana famously said “there were three of us in this marriage and it was a bit crowded.” In the case of Struensee, Caroline Matilda and Christian, he’s the glue that keeps the royal couple together.  He’s a father figure to Christian (whose own father died when he was 17), and a lover and accomplice of Caroline Matilda.  Although the couple are passionate lovers, they are equally as passionate about how they can change the kingdom. With Struensee’s help, Christian begins to act like a King, dissolving the council when they refuse to push through his reforms much to everyone’s dismay.  The puppet king, who sat in dull silence at council meetings, signing documents without reading them, is no more.

 

The film is lush, old-fashioned romance, and intellectual bodice ripper.  Mads Mikkelsen, known to American audiences as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, proves capable of doing more than just being a heavy in films.  Like the historical Struensee, he has unconventional good looks, and a towering masculine presence. Unlike the overly dressed and manicured courtiers, Mikkelsen’s Struensee favors dark, plain clothing and wears his hair unpowdered.  In Mikkelsen’s performance it’s easy to see who both Christian and Caroline Matilda could be seduced. His Mikkelsen is ambitious but he genuinely seems to care for the royal couple, they are not just a means to an end. Unlike the real Caroline Matilda, Alicia Vikander is gorgeous and she looks amazing in the costumes. She’s also a lot more knowing and sophisticated that I think the original Caroline Matilda was.  However, she glows whenever she’s on screen, and she and Mikkelsen have incredible chemistry in their scenes together. The film takes its time developing their relationship; Vikander ably portrays an unhappy woman ripe for seduction. The real find in the film is Mikkel Følsgaard who plays Christian VII. Truthfully his is the hardest role to play, Christian VII is not the brightest bulb on the tree, and he is willful and childlike, prone to tantrums with a cruel streak. The historical Christian was also psychologically abused by his tutor.  Folsgaard manages to convey someone who clearly has mental problems but who also needs someone to take a firm but gentle hand with him. One of the saddest scenes in the film is at the end, when he’s basically told by the head of the council to go play in a corner,  that he’s not needed.

The movie is a little bit too long and it sort of glosses over the fact that King ends up divorcing Caroline Matilda, and that Struensee confessed to his crimes because he thought she had confessed.  Also Caroline Matilda died in Celle two years after the events in the film not five. These are small quibbles because the film is just so sumptuous and wonderful, particularly after the disappointment that was Farewell, My Queen.  It also gets a little heavy handed at times with the mentions of Hamlet and the love triangle of Lancelot, Guinevere and King Arthur.

The Verdict:  Well worth seeing but it might be helpful to bone up a little on the background before seeing it.  There is no mention of the fact that Caroline Matilda and Christian are cousins or that her brother is King George III.