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Christian VII (29 January 1749 13 March 1808) was a monarch of the House of Oldenburg who was King of Denmark-Norway and Duke of Schleswig and Holstein from 1766 until his death. He was the son of King Frederick V and his first wife Louise of Great Britain. Christian VII's reign was marked by mental illness〔The A to Z of Norway By Jan Sjåvik, p.49〕 which affected government decisions, and for most of his reign Christian was only nominally king. His royal advisers changed depending on who won power struggles around the throne. In the late 1760s, he came under the influence of his personal physician Johann Friedrich Struensee, who rose steadily in power. From 1770 to 1772 Struensee was "de facto" regent of the country, and introduced progressive reforms signed into law by Christian VII. Struensee was deposed by a coup in 1772 after which the country was ruled by Christian's stepmother, Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, his half-brother Frederick and the Danish politician Ove Høegh-Guldberg. From 14 April 1784 until Christian VII's death in 1808, Christian's son, later Frederick VI, acted as unofficial regent, a regency marked by liberal and agricultural reforms, but also by the beginning disasters of the Napoleonic Wars. ==Early life == Christian was born on 29 January 1749 in the Queen's Bedchamber at Christiansborg Palace, the Royal residence in Copenhagen. He was the son of King Frederick V of Denmark by his wife, Princess Louise of Great Britain. He was baptised a few hours later the same day. His godparents were King Frederick V (his father), Queen Dowager Sophie Magdalene (his paternal grandmother), Princess Louise (his aunt) and Princess Charlotte Amalie (his grand-aunt). A former heir to the throne, also named Christian, had died in infancy in 1747; therefore, hopes were high for the future of the new heir presumptive. Christoph Willibald Gluck, who was conductor for King Frederick V's opera troupe in Copenhagen between the years 1748-49, composed the scene ''La Contesa dei Numi'' (the contention of the gods), where the Olympian Gods gather at the banks of the Great Belt and discuss who in particular should protect the new prince. His mother Queen Louise died, just 27 years old, in 1751, two years after his birth. The following year his father remarried, to Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Early historians state that he had a winning personality and considerable talent, but that he was poorly educated and systematically terrorized by a brutal governor, Christian Ditlev Frederik Reventlow, the Count of Reventlow. He seems to have been intelligent and had periods of clarity, but suffered from severe emotional problems, possibly schizophrenia as argued in doctor Viggo Christiansen's book ''Christian VII's mental illness'' (1906). Recent historians have, however, refrained from characterizing the nature of his mental state. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christian VII of Denmark」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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