The Queen's Lover by Francine Du Plessix Gray Page B
Authors: Francine Du Plessix Gray
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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blood for you and the salvation of the fatherland!” A young officer called out: “We’re willing to sacrifice both blood and life in Your Majesty’s service!” The king then had his officers take a new oath that absolved them from their allegiance to the Riksdag and bound them solely to his will. Meanwhile, the members of the Privy Council had been arrested and the fleet secured. When, at the end of the day, the king made a tour of the city, he was everywhere received by enthused crowds, which hailed him as a liberator.
A few days hence, having assembled the estates at his palace, the king took his seat on the throne and delivered a philippic that berated the estates for their license and venality, and that would be viewed as another masterpiece of Swedish oratory. He accused them of havingdegraded the nation by “inciting hatred, inciting hatred to grow into revenge, inciting revenge to become persecution…. The ambition and lust for glory of a few people has damaged the realm,” he continued, “…and the result of this has been the suffering of the people. To establish their own power base has been the estates’ sole goal, often at the cost of other citizens and always at the cost of the nation.” I was not a witness to this particular event, but I much doubt if Gustavus would have so readily met his political goals if he had not been one of the century’s great orators—a gift inevitably linked to his devotion to the stage.
S TRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH Gustavus’s sense of drama was his love of fashion. He took a passionate interest in women’s clothes, noticing the smallest details of their costumes—the rosettes on ladies’ slippers, the facings of their jackets. In the afternoons, after the business of cabinet meetings was over, he amused himself by drawing designs for new courtiers’ vestments, most of them eccentric—I particularly remember black satin trousers trimmed with red ribbons, matched with a black-and-red hooded jacket, which made their wearers look like lobsters. Or else he embroidered bodices and belts for ladies of the court. To make himself taller, the king himself wore shoes with bright red high heels made for him in France.
Yet notwithstanding his fascination with their clothes, Gustavus had shied away from women and never displayed any interest in them. The only woman who had ever influenced him was his mother; and some members of his court soon began to sense that he might be homosexual. Alas for Crown Prince Gustavus, when he had turned twenty the issue of marriage had inevitably arisen. The bride imposed upon him by the Riksdag and his powerful courtiers was Sophia Magdalena, a daughter of Frederick V of Denmark and a granddaughter, on her mother’s side,of George II of England. This princess could not have been more ill-suited to Gustavus. Pleasant-looking but not beautiful, diminutive in height, very pious, very shy, she loathed opera, theater, and all forms of dramatic art, and talked to me about her husband’s artistic proclivities as being whimsical or profane. She did captivate many at the court, however, through her sweetness and generosity, even though her mother-in-law’s entourage did everything they could to make her miserable. Every one of her moves was watched by the queen mother’s spies. Oh, what a witch, what a harridan, that woman was; I’ve never met the likes of her! Queen Ulrica and her retinue did not even allow Sophia Magdalena to retain any of her Danish maids. They snubbed her for not taking part in theatricals, ridiculed her for not wearing rouge, called her stingy for refusing to gamble. And for years they teased her heartlessly about the fact that she was still a virgin.
For Gustavus had loathed the very notion of wedlock. He had been forced into his marriage by sheer public pressure, and had no plans whatever for consummating it. The couple had married in 1766. In the following decade Gustavus lived in palaces other than his wife’s for a year
A few days hence, having assembled the estates at his palace, the king took his seat on the throne and delivered a philippic that berated the estates for their license and venality, and that would be viewed as another masterpiece of Swedish oratory. He accused them of havingdegraded the nation by “inciting hatred, inciting hatred to grow into revenge, inciting revenge to become persecution…. The ambition and lust for glory of a few people has damaged the realm,” he continued, “…and the result of this has been the suffering of the people. To establish their own power base has been the estates’ sole goal, often at the cost of other citizens and always at the cost of the nation.” I was not a witness to this particular event, but I much doubt if Gustavus would have so readily met his political goals if he had not been one of the century’s great orators—a gift inevitably linked to his devotion to the stage.
S TRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH Gustavus’s sense of drama was his love of fashion. He took a passionate interest in women’s clothes, noticing the smallest details of their costumes—the rosettes on ladies’ slippers, the facings of their jackets. In the afternoons, after the business of cabinet meetings was over, he amused himself by drawing designs for new courtiers’ vestments, most of them eccentric—I particularly remember black satin trousers trimmed with red ribbons, matched with a black-and-red hooded jacket, which made their wearers look like lobsters. Or else he embroidered bodices and belts for ladies of the court. To make himself taller, the king himself wore shoes with bright red high heels made for him in France.
Yet notwithstanding his fascination with their clothes, Gustavus had shied away from women and never displayed any interest in them. The only woman who had ever influenced him was his mother; and some members of his court soon began to sense that he might be homosexual. Alas for Crown Prince Gustavus, when he had turned twenty the issue of marriage had inevitably arisen. The bride imposed upon him by the Riksdag and his powerful courtiers was Sophia Magdalena, a daughter of Frederick V of Denmark and a granddaughter, on her mother’s side,of George II of England. This princess could not have been more ill-suited to Gustavus. Pleasant-looking but not beautiful, diminutive in height, very pious, very shy, she loathed opera, theater, and all forms of dramatic art, and talked to me about her husband’s artistic proclivities as being whimsical or profane. She did captivate many at the court, however, through her sweetness and generosity, even though her mother-in-law’s entourage did everything they could to make her miserable. Every one of her moves was watched by the queen mother’s spies. Oh, what a witch, what a harridan, that woman was; I’ve never met the likes of her! Queen Ulrica and her retinue did not even allow Sophia Magdalena to retain any of her Danish maids. They snubbed her for not taking part in theatricals, ridiculed her for not wearing rouge, called her stingy for refusing to gamble. And for years they teased her heartlessly about the fact that she was still a virgin.
For Gustavus had loathed the very notion of wedlock. He had been forced into his marriage by sheer public pressure, and had no plans whatever for consummating it. The couple had married in 1766. In the following decade Gustavus lived in palaces other than his wife’s for a year
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