Something Rotten in the State of Denmark
When Ambassador Molesworth criticised the government of Christian V, the Danish king cried ‘off with his head!’.
1693
King William III 1694-1702
When Ambassador Molesworth criticised the government of Christian V, the Danish king cried ‘off with his head!’.
1693
King William III 1694-1702
Christian V, King of Denmark and Norway from 1670 to 1699, was a great admirer of the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV of France, and sought to emulate the glory of Louis’s court, his ‘divine right of kings’ and his absolute power of government. Over here, though, Parliament had thrown out James II in 1688 for doing the same, and his replacement William III gathered that in England no one was beyond criticism.
LORD Molesworth,* who had been Ambassador at the Court of Copenhagen, published, at the end of the last century, an esteemed work, entitled Account of Denmark.* This writer spoke of the arbitrary government of that kingdom, with the freedom which the liberty of England inspires. The King of Denmark, then reigning, was offended at some reflections of the author, and ordered his Minister to complain of them to William III, King of England.
‘What would you have me do?’ said William.
‘Sire,’ replied the Danish minister, ‘if you had complained to the King, my master, of such an offence, he would have sent you the head of the author.’
‘That is what I neither will, nor can do,’ replied the King; ‘but if you desire it, the author shall put what you have told me in the second edition of his work.’
* Irishman Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth (1656-1725), was English ambassador to Denmark-Norway from July 1689 to December 1692. Having suffered at the hands of James II, who had a similar political outlook to that of Christian V, Molesworth was understandably a severe critic of the Danish king’s grandiose ambitions.
* Molesworth’s Account of Denmark was published in 1693. It can be read online at The Online Library of Liberty. Why, then, did ordinary Danes let Christian V take their freedoms from them? According to Molesworth, it was fear and hatred: Fear of the country’s economic problems, notably the national debt and widespread poverty; and Hatred for the contemptuous nobility, who openly labelled them ‘slaves’. The king, said Molesworth, sent his spies among the people to stoke the fear and hatred, and they abandoned themselves completely to him as saviour, thereby winning the title of ‘free’ at the same time that it lost any real meaning.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.