April 15, 1646: Birth of King Christian V of Denmark and Norway.

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Carl XI of Sweden, Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Cassel, Christian V of Denmark and Norway, Count Danneskiold-Samsøe, Frederick III of Denmark, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of Norway, Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Scanian War, Sophie Amalie Moth, Treaty of Roskilde

Christian V (April 15, 1646 – August 26 1699) was King of Denmark and Norway from 1670 until his death in 1699.

King Christian V of Denmark and Norway was born the eldest son of King Frederik III of Denmark and Norway and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the daughter of Georg, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Anne Eleonore of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Christian V, King of Denmark and Norway

King Frederik III instituted absolute monarchy in Denmark-Norway in 1660, confirmed by law in 1665 as the first in Western historiography. He also ordered the creation of the Throne Chair of Denmark.

Christian was elected successor to his father in June 1650. This was not a free choice, but de facto automatic hereditary succession. Escorted by his chamberlain Christoffer Parsberg, Christian went on a long trip abroad, to Holland, England, France, and home through Germany. On this trip, he saw absolutism in its most splendid achievement at the young Louis XIV’s court, and heard about the theory of the divine right of kings. He returned to Denmark in August 1663. From 1664 he was allowed to attend proceedings of the State College. Hereditary succession was made official by Royal Law in 1665. Christian was hailed as heir in Copenhagen in August 1665.

Well-regarded by the common people, he was the first king anointed at Frederiksborg Castle chapel as absolute monarch since the decree that institutionalized the supremacy of the king in Denmark-Norway, he fortified the absolutist system against the aristocracy by accelerating his father’s practice of allowing Holstein nobles but also Danish and Norwegian commoners into state service.

He became King Christian V of Denmark and Norway upon his father’s death on February 9, 1670, and was formally crowned in 1671. He was the first hereditary king of Denmark-Norway, and in honor of this, Denmark-Norway acquired costly new crown jewels and a magnificent new ceremonial sword.

Crown of Christian V of Denmark and Norway

It is generally argued that Christian V’s personal courage and affability made him popular among the common people. Part of Christian’s appeal to the common people may be explained by the fact that he allowed Danish and Norwegian commoners into state service, but his attempts to curtail the influence of the nobility also meant continuing his father’s drive toward absolutism.

King Christian V was marred by his unsuccessful attempt to regain Scania for Denmark in the Scanian War. Christian V initiated the Scanian War (1675-1679) against Sweden in an attempt to reconquer Scania which Denmark the lost under the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. The failed war exhausted Denmark’s economic resources without securing any gains.

After the Scanian War, his sister, Princess Ulrike Eleonora of Denmark, married Swedish King Carl XI, whose mother was a stout supporter of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. In spite of the family ties, war between the brothers-in-law was close again in 1689, when Carl XI of Sweden nearly provoked confrontation with Denmark-Norway by his support of the exiled Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp in his claims to the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp in Schleswig-Holstein.

Like Carl XI of Sweden, who had never been outside Sweden, Christian V spoke only German and Danish and was therefore often considered poorly educated due to his inability to communicate with visiting foreign diplomats.

Marriage

King Christian’s future spouse, Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Cassel, was born in Cassel, Hesse, in the Holy Roman Empire. Her parents were Landgrave Wilhelm VI of Hesse-Cassel and his consort Hedwig Sophia of Brandenburg.

Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Cassel

On June 15, 1667 in Nykøbing Slot, Charlotte Amalie married Crown Prince Christian of Denmark and Norway. The marriage was arranged by Christian’s mother, Queen Sophie Amalie of Denmark and Norway, who desired a daughter-in-law that she could control and expected this to be the case for a princess of Hesse elevated to the status of queen, and a member of the reformed church, who would be religiously isolated in Lutheran Denmark.

Christian was sent to meet her in Hesse already in 1665, but the negotiations were drawn out because of religious concerns. Charlotte Amalie was raised in the Reformed faith, Calvinism (also called the Reformed tradition, Reformed Christianity, Reformed Protestantism, or the Reformed faith) a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians.

In the marriage contract, she was not required to convert and she secured the right to keep her faith after her wedding to Christian, who as ruler of Denmark would become the head of the state Lutheran Church, a term which was contested and met some resistance before it was accepted. Charlotte Amalie did keep her faith after wedding.

King Christian V did not wish his wife to play a political role in government similar to his domineering mothers role during his father’s reign, and further more Christian disliked his mothers Pro-Brandenburg sympathies, and therefore took care to remove Charlotte Amalie from exerting any influence in state affairs.

The relationship between Charlotte Amalie and Christian V are described as a mutually respectful friendship, and while not a love affair, they enjoyed each others company and seemingly coexisted harmoniously. Christian V had eight children by his wife and six by his Maîtresse-en-titre, Sophie Amalie Moth (1654–1719), whom he took up with when she was sixteen in 1672, the year in which Christian publicly introduced Sophie at court.

Sophie was the daughter of his former tutor Poul Moth. After the fall of Minister Peder Griffenfeld Christian made Sophie Amalie Moth the official mistress in Denmark, a move which insulted his wife, and made her countess of Samsø on December 31, 1677. This public adultery caused an embarrassing situation for Queen Charlotte Amalie. Nevertheless, “no mistress could deprive her of her position as queen, and she understood to defend it”.

Sophie Amalie Moth

As mention Christian V and his mistress Sophie Amalie Moth Together they had five acknowledged illegitimate children, all of whom bore the surname Gyldenløve. The still-existing Danish noble family of Danneskiold-Samsøe is descended from her. Their son, Christian Gyldenløve (1674-1703) became the Danish Count Danneskiold-Samsøe and all members of the Danneskiold-Samsøe noble family descend from his second marriage to Dorothea Krag. One descendent of the Danneskiold-Samsøe family was Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, German Empress, consort of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

During his reign, science witnessed a golden age due to the work of the astronomer Ole Rømer in spite of the king’s personal lack of scientific knowledge and interest. King Christian V died from the after-effects of a hunting accident at aged 53 and was interred in Roskilde Cathedral. Christian V’s eldest son succeeded him as King Frederik IV of Denmark and Norway.

November 30, 1718: Death of King Carl XII of Sweden.

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Carl XI of Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick I of Sweden, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, Kingdom of Sweden, The Great Northern War, Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden

Carl XII (June 17, 1682 – November 30, 1718) was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach. Carl XII was the only surviving son of Carl XI and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder, the daughter of King Frederik III of Denmark and Norway and his spouse Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Carl XII assumed power, after a seven-month caretaker government, at the age of fifteen.

King Carl XII of Sweden, aged 15.

In 1700, a triple alliance of Denmark–Norway, Saxony–Poland–Lithuania and Russia launched a threefold attack on the Swedish protectorate of Holstein-Gottorp and provinces of Livonia and Ingria, aiming to draw advantage as the Swedish Empire was unaligned and ruled by a young and inexperienced king, thus initiating the Great Northern War.

Carl never married and fathered no children of whom historians are aware. In his youth he was particularly encouraged to find a suitable spouse in order to secure the succession, but he would frequently avoid the subject of sex and marriage. Possible candidates included Princess Sophia Hedwig of Denmark and Princess Maria Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp – but of the latter he pleaded that he could never wed someone “as ugly as Satan and with such a devilish big mouth”.

Carl was an exceptionally skilled military leader and tactician as well as an able politician, credited with introducing important tax and legal reforms. As for his famous reluctance towards peace efforts, he is quoted by Voltaire as saying upon the outbreak of the war; “I have resolved never to start an unjust war but never to end a legitimate one except by defeating my enemies”.

Carl XII of Sweden

Death.

While in the trenches close to the perimeter of the fortress on November 30, 1718, Carl was struck in the head by a projectile and killed. The shot struck the left side of his skull and exited from the right. The shock of the impact caused the king to grasp his sword with his right hand, and cover the wound with his left hand, leaving his gloves covered in blood.

The definitive circumstances around Carl’s death remain unclear. Despite multiple investigations of the battlefield, Carl’s skull and his clothes, it is not known where and when he was hit, or whether the shot came from the ranks of the enemy or from his own men. There are several hypotheses as to how Carl died, though none can be given with any certainty. Although there were many people around the king at the time of his death, there were no known witnesses to the actual moment he was struck.

A likely explanation has been that Carl was killed by the Dano-Norwegians as he was within easy reach of their guns. There are two possibilities that are usually cited: that he was killed by a musket shot, or that he was killed by grapeshot from the nearby fortress.

From the autopsy of Charles XII in 1917

More sinister theories claim he was assassinated: One is that the killer was a Swedish compatriot and asserts that enemy guns were not firing at the time Carl was struck. Suspects in this claim range from a nearby soldier tired of the siege and wanting to put an end to the war, to an assassin hired by Carl’s own brother-in-law, who profited from the event by subsequently taking the throne himself as Frederick I of Sweden, that person being Frederick’s aide-de-camp, André Sicre. Sicre confessed during what was claimed to be a state of delirium brought on by fever but later recanted.

It has also been suspected that a plot to kill Carl may have been put in place by a group of wealthy Swedes who would benefit from the blocking of a 17% wealth tax that Charles intended to introduce. In the Varberg Fortress museum there is a display with a lead filled brass button – Swedish – that is claimed by some to be the projectile that killed the king.

He was succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora, who in turn was coerced to hand over all substantial powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and opted to surrender the throne to her husband, who became King Frederick I of Sweden, the son of Karl I, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and Princess Maria Amalia of Courland.

On this date in History: February 13, 1660. Death of King Carl X Gustav and the accession of King Carl XI of Sweden.

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1660, Carl X Gustav of Sweden, Carl XI of Sweden, House of Wittelsbach, Kings and Queens of Sweden

Carl X Gustav (Swedish: Karl X Gustav; 8 November 1622 – 13 February 1660), was King of Sweden from 1654 until his death. He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. After his father’s death he also succeeded him as Pfalzgraf. He was married to Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, who bore his son and successor, Charles XI. Carl X Gustav was the second Wittelsbach king of Sweden after the childless king Christopher of Bavaria (1441–1448) and he was the first king of the Swedish Caroline era, which had its peak during the end of the reign of his son, Carl XI. He led Sweden during the Second Northern War, enlarging the Swedish Empire. By his predecessor Christina, he was considered de facto Duke of Eyland (Öland) before ascending to the Swedish throne.

His numbering as Charles X derives from a 16th-century invention. The Swedish king Carl IX (1604–1611) chose his numeral after studying a fictitious history of Sweden. This king was the fourth actual King Carl but has never been called Carl IV.

Soon after the estates opened on January 4, 1660, Carl X Gustav fell ill with symptoms of a cold. Ignoring his illness, he repeatedly went to inspect the Swedish forces near Gothenburg, and soon broke down with chills, headaches and dyspnoea. On January 15, court physician Johann Kösterarrived, and in medical error mistook Carl X Gustav’s pneumonia for scorbut and dyspepsia. Köster started a “cure” including the application of multiple enemata, laxatives, bloodletting and sneezing powder. While after three weeks the fever eventually was down and the coughing was better, the pneumonia had persisted and evolved into a sepsis by February 8.

On February 12, Carl X Gustav signed his testament: His son, Carl XI of Sweden, was still a minor, and Carl X Gustav appointed a minor regency consisting of six relatives and close friends. Carl X Gustav died the next day at the age of 37.

Family

Charles X had one legitimate child by Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp: his successor Charles XI (1655–1697, reigned 1660–1697). By Märta Allertz he had an illegitimate son: Gustaf Carlson (1647–1708), who became Count of Börringe and Lindholmen Castle in Scania. He also had a number of other children, by different women, before his marriage.

Carl XI (November 24, 1655  – April 5, 1697 was King of Sweden from 1660 until his death, in a period of Swedish history known as the Swedish Empire (1611–1718).

Charles was the only son of King Carl X Gustav of Sweden and Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp. His father died when he was five years old, so Charles was educated by his governors until his coronation at the age of seventeen. Soon after, he was forced out on military expeditions to secure the recently acquired dominions from Danish troops in the Scanian War. Having successfully fought off the Danes, he returned to Stockholm and engaged in correcting the country’s neglected political, financial and economic situation, managing to sustain peace during the remaining 20 years of his reign. Changes in finance, commerce, national maritime and land armaments, judicial procedure, church government and education emerged during this period. Carl XI was succeeded by his only son Carl XII, who made use of the well-trained army in battles throughout Europe.