revival of the national energy, and the
extraordinary overflow of native middle-class talent, which were the
immediate consequences of the revolution of 1660. Under the guidance of
his great chancellor Griffenfeldt, Denmark seemed for a brief period to
have a chance of regaining her former position as a great power. But in
sacrificing Griffenfeldt to the clamour of his adversaries, Christian
did serious injury to the monarchy. He frittered away the resources of
the kingdom in the unremunerative Swedish war of 1675-79, and did
nothing for internal progress in the twenty years of peace which
followed. He died in a hunting accident on the 25th of August 1699.

See Peter Edvard Holm, _Danmarks indre Historie under Enevaelden_
(Copenhagen, 1881-1886); Adolf Ditleva Joergensen, _Peter Griffenfeldt_
(Copenhagen, 1893); Robert Nisbet Bain, _Scandinavia_ cap. x., xi.
(Cambridge, 1905).

CHRISTIAN VII. (1749-1808), king of Denmark and Norway, was the son of
Frederick V., king of Denmark, and his first consort Louisa, daughter of
George II. of Great Britain. He became king on his father's death on the
14th of January 1766. All the earlier accounts agree that he had a
winning personality and considerable talent, but he was badly educated,
systematically terrorized by a brutal governor and hopelessly debauched
by corrupt pages, and grew up a semi-idiot. After his marriage in 1766
with Caroline Matilda (1751-1775), daughter of Frederick, prince of
Wales, he abandoned himself to the worst excesses. He ultimately sank
into a condition of mental stupor, and became the obedient slave of the
upstart Struensee (q.v.). After the fall of Struensee (the warrant for
whose arrest he signed with indifference), for the last six-and-twenty
years of his reign, he was only nominally king. He died on the 13th of
March 1808. In 1772 the king's marriage with Caroline Matilda, who had
been seized and had confessed to criminal familiarity with Struensee,
was dissolved, and the queen, retaining her title, passed her remaining
days at Celle, where she died on the 11th of May 1775.

See E.S.F. Reverdil, _Struensee et la cour de Copenhague, 1760-1772_
(Paris, 1858); _Danmarks Riges Historie_, vol. v. (Copenhagen,
1897-1905); and for Caroline Matilda, Sir F.C.L. Wraxall, _Life and
Times of Queen Caroline Matilda_ (1864), and W.H. Wilkins, _A Queen of
Tears_ (1904).

CHRISTIAN VIII. (1786-1848), king of Denmark and Norway, the