This novel takes place in the Swedish court in the 1760s, during the reign of the young mad King Christian VII. Christian is too young and scared to be an effective monarch, and gradually his power is usurped by the royal physician, a German named Johann Friedrich Struensee, who also takes over Christian`s teenage bride, Caroline Mathilde of England, and impregnates her. Events go downhill from there, culminating in the torture and death of Struensee who, for all his excesses, was a genuine liberal reformer. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.