Christian IV and his family

[palatine]

Christian was a linguist, a patron of artists and musicians, and he had scientific interests as well.  He was one of the first people to connect filth with disease: he shocked his subjects during a plague epidemic by ordering them to wash their hands at least once a day.  His cleanliness campaigns never went over well, thanks to the protests and stubborn non-compliance of his subjects.  He was more successful at reforming and enlarging the Danish navy, and he took steps to improve the army as well.  He won a war against Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and later lost wars against the Holy Roman Emperor and Christina of Sweden.  In short, Christian was a man of many accomplishments, despite the fact that he was an alcoholic.

He conscientiously kept a diary in which he used symbols to indicate whether he’d made it to bed on his own steam or if he’d been carried there.  He drank heavily at table, and his banquets were the stuff of legend: ambassadors to his court were chosen as much for their ability to carry their liquor as for their diplomatic skills.  He sometimes went pub-crawling with friends, and was not above breaking into taverns that were closed for the night if he felt like having a drink there.  On one occasion, he forced his way through a window and managed to trip over his sword in the process, nearly putting his eye out.  He blamed this mishap on a new wine he’d tried earlier in the evening, and scolded the friend who’d recommended it while mopping at the bloody gash on his forehead.   Christian didn’t allow his injury to ruin his night out, and a good time was had by all, even the rudely awakened proprietors of the tavern he'd broken into.  

[kmerov]

Christian IV is the most famous Danish king of them all, because of his long reign (1588-1648, the longest reign in Danish history), and for his personel life, his buildings and many other things. He build Rosenborg Castle, which today is the museum dedicated to the Oldenborg kings and houses the crown jewels. He didn't have much luck in his many wars which were of great damage to the country, and he left the country poor and second to the new power of Scandinavia, Sweden.

[palatine]

Thanks to his lavish lifestyle and the expensive war he lost against the Emperor, Christian had serious money problems during the last twenty years of his reign.  He knew that lack of money would cripple his son when he came to the throne, so he tried to balance the budget and stay out of war.  The last war of his reign was not of Christian's choosing.

His efforts to raise money and to economize didn't work very well.  One of Christian's economy measures caused serious problems in the long run.  Christian married off the daughters he'd had with his second wife into the Danish nobility.  He thus established them in the world at little cost to himself or Denmark, which was good, but their semi-royal blood caused their noble husbands to scheme and cause trouble.

Christian also tried to arrange a marriage for one of his sons with his second wife, Count Waldemar, with the Grand Duchess Irene, a daughter of Czar Michael I.  No one told Waldemar until he arrived in Russia that he would have to convert to the Orthodox faith, and that proved to be a dealbreaker.  The Czar didn't want to let him leave, and had him watched and guarded.  Waldemar learned that some of the Czar's advisors were discussing the possibility of forcibly baptising him, understandably freaking him out.  When the Czar died unexpectedly, Waldemar made his escape and refused all further attempts by his father to find a rich bride for him.  

[kmerov]

The marriage of Christian IV's daughters to nobel man became a political problem in the end, and his succeser Frederik III had great difficulties in dealing with them. In the end he won, and introduced hereditary monarchy and absolutism in Denmark.
The hatred between Frederiks wife, Sophie Amalie and his half-sister, Leonora Christina is legendary her in Denmark. Leonora Christina had to spend 23 years in a small prison cell, and was only led out after Sophie Amalie died.

[Lucien]

"The Golden Days" festival starts,all about renaissance Copenhagen:

http://www.goldendays.dk/composite-64.htm

[Yseult]

A thread started by Marc about the daughters of Frederick III and Sophie Amalie made me remember the great enemy of this queen...Leonora Christina, countess Ulfeldt. So, I thought it would be a good idea to create a new topic about her.

The story begans with the danish king Christian IV. He was married to Anne Catherine of Brandenburg, with whom he had six children...among them was the future king Frederick III Christian was not a faithful husband to Anne Catherine. Before the queen´s death in 1612, he had a relationship with Kirsten Madsdatter, who gave birth to his illegitimate son Christian Ulrich. After the breakup with Kirsten Madsdatter, the king became involved with Karen Andersdatter, who bore him two more illegitimate children: Dorothea Elisabeth -died in childhood- and Hans Ulrich.

Circa 1614, the king fell madly in love with Kirsten Munk, the daughter of a noble courtier, Ludvig Munk, by his energetic and ambitious wife, Ellen Marsvin. An infatuated king Christian, aged thirty-eight, had to sign a declaration that we would marry Kirsten to obtain Ellen´s permission to live with the seventeen years old girl. It seems that Christian contracted a morganatically marriage with Kirsten, but it´s not clear. They had a long time relationship, and Ellen bore him ten children. One of their children was Leonora Christina, born at Fredericksborg castle the 8th July 1621.

Leonora had not a fair childhood. When she was just eight years old, the mother, Kirsten, gave birth to her last daughter, Dorothea Elisabeth. The king accused Kirsten of have been unfaithful (he was sure that Dorothea Elisabeth was fathered by another man) and trying to poison him. Kirsten was banished from court to Bollar Castle, as the king began his relationship with Vibeke Kruse. Vibeke had been a servant of Kirsten, and, later, a lady of service of Kirsten´s mother, Ellen Marsvin. Ellen encouraged the idyll between Christian and Vibeke, because she was determined to retain the king´s favour after the downfall of her daughter Kirsten Munsk. I suppose this was not a pleasant time for the children of Kirsten. Leonora was a charming creature, and she retained the love of her father, but it must have been a sad thing to see Christian living happily with the servant Vibeke, mother of two new royal bastards.

These are portraits of three interesting women I wish to know better...Ellen Marsvin, her daughter Kirsten and her grand-daughter Leonora Christina:

Ellen



Kirsten



Leonora Christina

[kmerov]

Leonora Christina, 1621-1698, is without a doubt one of the most famous women in Danish history, remembered for her rivalry with Queen Sophie Amalie and her imprisonment in  a dungeon in the Blue Tower within the Royal Palace for 22 years. Her fame also comes from her autobiography "A Memory of Lament" which naturally portray her as the innocent victim.
She was for many years the first lady at court, and her husband Corfitz Ulfeldt was the most powerfull person in the kingdom. She was very conscious of her stauts as daughter of a king, and designed her own speciel hat (seen in her portraits) which only children of kings had the right to use. She also held the title Countess af Schleswig-Holstein.
Her downfall began when her half-brother Frederik III ascendet the throne (1648) and a power struggle broke out between the two couples, especially between the Queen and Leonora Christina. It is said that Leonora broke the Queens crown before the coronation, and the decorations were torned down by the Ulfeldts people.
The couple finally fled the country and moved to Sweden, were they schemed to get back their former wealth and estates in Denmark. (Sweden was at war with Denmark).
The couple were arrested in 1660 after some Swedish complications and taken to a prison on the island of Bornholm. Here they spend 17 month, and during that time tried to escape by climping down their cell with torne up sheets. They were released, but Ulfeldt once again schemed against the king. Leonora Christina was arrested in England where she tried to make her cousin, Charles II pay back some loans. Instead, he arrested her and send her to Denmark where she was put in the Blue Tower.

Leonora Christina, Countess Ulfeldt, Countess of Schleswig-Holstein.




Her enemy, Queen Sophie Amalie

[Zanthia]

Leonora's "mission" with her autobiography must be said to be a succes. In Denmarks mind she almost have the status as a national heroine, while her sister-in-law is being seen as the evil queen, who has the worst reputation of all the queens of Denmark.

(I almost got named after her  . My godfather did'nt like the name my parents had selected. He had the oppinion that I should have the name of a queen, so at the christening when the priest asked for my name, he replied: "Sophie Amalie," with a big smile.  . The priest looked confused, and my mother cried out "NOO!!!", and I got my real name in the end.  I appreciate his thought about giving me a royal name, but I really don't want to named after that particular queen  )

I live on Bornholm where Leonora were held prisoner, and to escape from the Mantel Tower at Hammershus with sheets, down the dangerous cliffs, caring an ill husband, shows that she was a courageous and headstrong woman.
Sophie Amalie's daughter-in-law, Charlotte Amalie, did her best to ease Leonora's imprisonment in the Blue Tower when she became queen, but it was only after the death of Sophie Amalie, that Leonora was released. She was told that she free to go, but she refused to leave her prison as a simple commoner. She was daughter of a king, and wanted to leave her prison as such, and she got her way. One of her daughters came in a royal carriage to get her. Leonora died at Maribo Convent.
It is said that Sophie Amalie, on her death bed, wanted to have her son swear that he would never release Leonora, but that she lost her abillity to speak before Christian arrived. Even on the edge of death, she still hold a grudge against Leonora. She really must have hated her. 

[Yseult]

Oh, Zanthia, you´re always a great source of info

Do you know why Sophie Amalia hated so deeply Leonora Christina? I have read that Leonora Christina´s husband, count Corfitz Ulfeldt, son of the powerful chancellor Jacob Ulfeldt, had a character marked by ambition, avarice and absolute lack of honor and conscience. It seems that Corfitz was largely responsible for the disasters of the Swedish War. He was, also, always intriguing and making plots. So, I understand the monarchs´s hate to Corfitz.

But Leonora Christina seemed very innocent to my eyes. She was just nine years old when her royal father bethroted her to Corfitz. She was just fifteen when she finally was married to Corfitz, who was aged thirty eight. If the marriage failed to ensure the loyalty of Corfitz to the crown, Leonora Christina wasn´t responsible at all. By the way, I don´t understand WHY Leonora Christina stand by Corfitz, when he was not a good man, neither a good husband. He had his mistress, the former mistress Dina Vinhofvers was convicted for perjury and executed after a plot to poison the royal family.

[Zanthia]

I think the war between Sophie and Leonora started from the first day they met each other. Some people simply hate each other instincly. I guess thats what happend here. As Kmerov wrote, Leonora was very aware of her status, and since there had'nt been a queen for many years, she had the duties was unofficially the first lady. That gave her a stuckup attitude towards those beneath her, and a somewhat proud behaviour. Sophie refused to walk behind her, since she was married to the king's legitimate son, while Leonora was a result of a left hand connection. But Leonora upheld her right, and to be honest, she really was'nt so innocent herself. She hardly ever missed an oppurtunity to ridicule Sophie and Frederik, who prefered to stay in Germany, until crownprince Christian died, and they had to come to Copenhagen.
When Christian IV died, Leonora and Corfitz were the only one present. Corfitz only send for Frederik III and Sophie after the old king had died, and before doing so, he rummaged the king's personal papers, and burned everything that could make even the slightest doubt of wether Christian IV and Kirstens marriage had been legitimate or not. Then there was the "crown affair", that made matters worse between her and Sophie. Wether it was an accident or not, that Leonora dropped the crown on the floor at the jeweller a few days before the coronation, is not clear. But why would she else have picked it up? It really an unwise and downright stupid move from her side, and naturally Sophie was furious when she had to be crowned in a cheap, quickly made crown that looked like rubbish.

As for Corfitz, however a lousy husband or man he was, I guess Leonora simply loved him deeply, and he loved her too. If she had been on good terms with Frederik and Sophie, she probably would have been torn between loyalty to her family and to her husband, but since she did'nt liked her halfbrother and sister-in-law, she naturally sided with her husband. Corfitz was a leader, just like Leonora. None of them wanted to be second in the line, but Corfitz's ambitions were way too high, and he knew how to make intrigues, but not when to stop. Even Christian IV was about to have enough of him. He was only loyal to himself, and that became his downfall. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1663, and since he was'nt in the country, a wooden dummy of him was executed. He died on a boat on the river Rhine in 1664, and it has been said, that Leonora's name was his last word. Leonora was arrested a short while after Corfitz's "execution", and send to Denmark, where she was being imprisoned in the Blue Tower, without being on trial or convicted.

One miscarriage of justice in the war between the monarchs and the Ulfeldts is the matter of the whore, Dina Vinhofvers. She was'nt Corfitz's mistress, and the whole thing about that she had heard that Leonora and Corfitz were planning to poison the king and queen, has proven to be lie. It was an attempt from a third part, to widen the gap between the royal family and the Ulfeldts, which both was innocent pieces in that case, but it was a succes. The relationship between Corfitz and Frederik III was at this time a little tensed, and Sophie Amalie immediatly believed that Leonora capable and willing to murder her and the king.


Oh my, look how much I already wrote, I just wanted to write a few sentences. I get so easy carried away

[Yseult]

It´s a marvellous tragedy! I mean...this could be the more intense and passionate movie ever seen in the screen!

I was asking myself, Kmerov and Zanthia (the two of you were really the best to relates us danish stories...), about the childhood of such a complex woman as Leonora Christina was. Ellen Marsvin and Kirsten Munk must have been two great characters. I have read that Kirsten was not faithful to the king, and the king was sure that her last daughter Dorothea was fathered by a german count. Was really Kirsten so stupid to risk her position as long standing mistress or maybe morganatical wife of a king having an affair with a courtier? If she did it, I suppose her ambitious mother Ellen must have been very angry. Angry enough, in fact, to support the new relationship between Christian and Vibeke.

What happened to the children of Kirsten when she was banished from court? I suppose they remained under the care of their maternal grand-mother, but I don´t know. How felt little Leonora? At the end, it seems that she had strengh enough to follow her way, she became a historical figure and her sisters not. She remembered me the zarevna Sophia Alexeyevna...the daughter of Alexis by Maria Miloslavskaya, so the half-sister of Peter the Great. Sophia had a lot of sisters that were in the terem, but she was energetic and determined to flight away from female´s seclusion and to hold on the power as regent.

[kmerov]

Kirsten Munk did have an affair with a Count Palatine Otto Ludwig at the court, and in the end had to leave for a life of internal exile. The marriage seems to simply  have tired out Kirtsen. She was very young when her relationship with the King began (supported by her mother, the widowed Ellen Marsvin), and soon found herself constantly pregnant, and married to a much older man she didn't really love. So she took a lover, and at one point denied the king entry to her rooms. At that point I don't think she cared much for her postion at court or her numerous children, who all were looked after by Ellen Marsvin and the King.
Ellen Marsvin tried to make out the last child to be Christians (who wrote to her that he was very surprised that she told everyone at court how the child looked like the king, when everyone knew that Kirsten did have an affair with the count). The children remained with Christian after Kirsten's banishment from court.

The marriage of Kirsten and  Christian IV was of the greatest importance to his children and son in-laws ,who based their power on that fact that they were not illegitimet. When the king lay dying, they summoned Kirsten to his deathbed (claiming it was the king who had send for Kirsten), and threw his mistress, Vibeke Kruse, who also was dying out of the palace. Soon however, their powers demised and Frederik III took complete control over the kingdom.

A side note, King Christian IV and Kirsten Munk's son, Count Valdemar Christian was to have married Grand Duchess Irina, daughter of Tsar Mikhail of Russia in 1643, but the marriage failed because of religion.

[kmerov]

The rivalry between Leonora Christina and Sophie Amalie, and Leonora's status as the heroine is indeed colored by her biography and the inpact it had on readers when it was published in the 1860-ties (she also wrote another autobio, published in the 18-century). Many of the things she claims in her bio (fx. she was the kings favorite child), are not recorded elsewhere, and the last months of CIV life are mostly based on what their party at court recorded, and that of course shows they were much liked by the king, whereas his son, future Frederik III is disliked.

The truth propaply is that Leonora and Sophie Amalie were two slices of the same cake. They both went for personel power and prestige, and for Leonora it ment bordering high treason and other crimes. She also came from the high nobilty (she and her sisters all married noblemen).
Sophie Amalie on the other hand came from an emerging (somewhat European) culture that belived in absolute monarchy and she wanted a heredetary Kingdom introduced in Denmark. Thus the power struggle between the two couples are also seen in a context to the struggle between a strong nobility and a strong King.   

Two pictures from 1882 that illustrates there reputation.

Leonora Christina as the dignified older lady.
 

And the death of Queen Sophie Amalie, surrounded by gold, and with a dress which pattern resemble spiders crawling to the Queens throat.

[Yseult]

Kmerov and Zanthia...how much I enjoy all your post on this board! When I enter for the first time at this forum, my knowledge about the danish monarchy was only since the reign of Christian IX and his Louisa, but, through all these months, I´m discovering a lot of great historical characters. And I must to say that this thread is very special for me

What do you think about Ellen Marsvin? Of course, I don´t understand a single word of danish...and the websites with information about the lady are written in this language All that I know it´s that she was one daughter of Jorgen Marsvin and his wife Karen Ottesdatter. She had an elder brother, Otte, dead two years before than herself, and one younger sister, Helvig, dead one year before than herself. If I´m not wrong, she married twice...firstly with Ludwig Munk, the father of Kirsten, and secondly with Knud Rud.

Ellen remember me Thomas Boleyn. Thomas gained a great influence through his daughter Anna, Ellen did the same through his daughter Kirsten. But when Anna and Kirsten fell from royal grace, not only Thomas, but also Ellen, retained the favour of the kings Henry VIII or Christian IV. I´m sure that Thomas Boleyn would made his compliments to Jane Seymour, as Ellen encouraged the relationship between Christian and her servant Vibeke Kruse. There´s a strange connection between Elizabeth I and Leonora, too. Elizabeth was always the very proud daughter of great king Hal, she never wanted to mention her ill-fated mother Anna. It seems to me (please, correct me if I´m wrong...) that Leonora was always the very proud daughter of great king Christian, but not a proud daughter of her ill-fated mother Kirsten.

I think that Ellen died the same year that Christian IV. I don´t know if she was alive when Frederick and Sophia Amelia arrived in Denmark to began their reign...

By the way, I have found three interesting pictures, of Christian IV, her first wife Anne Cathrine of Brandenburg and his second wife (?) Kirsten Munk...

[Zanthia]

As parents, Christian and Kirsten were as night and day; Christian loved all his children, while Kirsten did'nt cared much for them, and were often beating them with a stick. At a point, Kirsten became so violent, especially to the eldest daughter, that Christian had to forbid her to access to the nursery. The king wrote long lists to the governesses of how they should take care of the children, and if there were even the slightest mistake, the responsible lady could find herself looking for a new job. In spite of Kirstens behaviour towards her children, they all sided with her when she was banished from court. Of course this hurted Christian.

Ellen came to Copenhagen every time Kirsten gave birth, except the last time, and brought the newborn with her home to take care of them until they were about four or five years old. If Ellen lived today, I'm certain that she would be head of a big coorperation or something like that. She was very angry with Kirsten, when she cheated on the king, and she found her daughter incredible stupid when Kirsten were sleeping with the count and at the same time denied Christian access to her room, and thus ruining her alibi. Ellen was furious when Christian told her to give the Bollar estate to Kirsten, when she was banished from court. Bollar was almost the only one of Ellens many estates that were giving profit, and she had the entire place ripped for furnitures, food and animals before Kirsten moved in. Kirsten's guests said that if you were to visit her, you had to bring your own chair. Ellen was very ambitious, and many of Kirsten's children had inherited this feature from their grandmother. Leonora certainly had. I don't think I would have liked Ellen. She seems to me, as a very ruthless and unpleasant woman.


By the way, I too have often wondered why noone has made a film about Leonora or of Caroline Mathilde. Those two stories are defintely worthy to the big screen.