Johann Friedrich Struensee - in Control of The Government

In Control of The Government

At first, Struensee kept himself in the background as he began to control the political machine. However, in December he grew impatient, and on the 10th of that month he abolished the council of state, and 10 days later appointed himself maître des requêtes. It became his official duty to present to the king all the reports from the various departments of state. Because King Christian was scarcely responsible for his actions, Struensee dictated whatever answers he pleased.

Next, he dismissed all department heads, and abolished the Norwegian stadholderships. Henceforth the cabinet, with himself as its motive power, became the one supreme authority in the state. 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 judical 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

Other reforms included the abolition of capital punishment for theft, the doing away with such demoralizing abuses as perquisites, and of "lackeyism," or the appointment of great men's domestics to lucrative public posts.

Critics of Struensee thought that he did not respect native Danish and Norwegian customs, seeing them as prejudices and wanting to eliminate them in favor of abstract principles. He also did not speak Danish, conducting his business in German. In order to be sure of obedience he dismissed wholesale without pension or compensation the staffs of all the public departments, substituting for old and experienced officials nominees of his own, in many cases untried men who knew little or nothing of the country they were supposed to govern.

While initially the Danish people favored his reforms, they began to turn against him. When Struensee abolished all censorship of the press, it mostly resulted in a flood of anti-Struensee pamphlets.

Still in spite of all his blunders, it is clear that, for a short time at least, middle-class opinion was, on the whole, favourable to him; and had he been wise, he might perhaps have been able to defy any hostile combination. What incensed the people most against him was the way in which he put the king completely on one side; and this feeling was all the stronger as, outside a very narrow court circle, nobody seems to have believed that Christian VII was really mad, but only that his will had been weakened by habitual ill usage; and this opinion was confirmed by the publication of the cabinet order of 14 July 1771, appointing Struensee "gehejme kabinetsminister" or "Geheimekabinetsminister", with authority to issue cabinet orders which were to have the force of royal ordinances, even if unprovided with the royal sign-manual.

Nor were Struensee's relations with the queen less offensive to a nation which had a traditional veneration for the royal House of Oldenburg, while Caroline Matilda's shameless conduct in public brought the Crown into contempt. The society which daily gathered round the king and queen excited the derision of the foreign ambassadors. The unhappy king was little more than the butt of his environment, but occasionally the king would put up a show of obstinacy and refuse to carry out Brandt's or Struensee's orders. And once, when he threatened his keeper, Brandt, with a flogging for some impertinence, Brandt ended up in a struggle with the king, and in the course of this he struck the king in the face.