| Frederick VI | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byFriedrich Carl Gröger, 1808 | |
| King of Denmark (more...) | |
| Reign | 13 March 1808 – 3 December 1839 |
| Coronation | 31 July 1815 Frederiksborg Palace Chapel |
| Predecessor | Christian VII |
| Successor | Christian VIII |
| Chief Ministers | |
| King of Norway | |
| Reign | 13 March 1808 – 7 February 1814 |
| Predecessor | Christian VII |
| Successor | Christian Frederick |
| Crown Prince-Regent of Denmark-Norway | |
| Tenure | 14 April 1784 – 13 March 1808 |
| Predecessor | Hereditary Prince Frederick |
| Monarch | Christian VII |
| Born | (1768-01-28)28 January 1768 Christiansborg Palace,Copenhagen |
| Died | 3 December 1839(1839-12-03) (aged 71) Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | |
| House | Oldenburg |
| Father | Christian VII of Denmark |
| Mother | Caroline Matilda of Great Britain |
| Signature |  |
Frederick VI (Danish andNorwegian:Frederik; 28 January 1768 – 3 December 1839) wasKing of Denmark from 13 March 1808 until his death in 1839 andKing of Norway from 13 March 1808 to 7 February 1814. He was the last king ofDenmark–Norway. From 1784 until his accession, he served asregent during his father's mental illness and was referred to as the "Crown Prince Regent" (Norwegian:kronprinsregent). For his motto he choseGod and the just cause (Danish:Gud og den retfærdige sag). Instead of the customaryLatin, he used Danish, which established a precedent for later Danish kings who used Danish as well.[1][2]
Born inChristiansborg Palace,Copenhagen,[3] Frederick VI was the eldest of two children and the only son ofChristian VII andCaroline Mathilde.[4] In 1790, Frederick VI marriedMarie Sophie. Together, they had eight children, though only two daughters,Princess Caroline andPrincess Wilhelmine, survived to adulthood. Additionally, He was the last Danish king to have an official mistress,Frederikke Dannemand, with whom he had five children.
His reign as regent is highlighted by the abolition ofserfdom, the end ofhanging as a capital punishment in the kingdom, and the withdrawal ofDano-Norwegian involvement in thetransatlantic slave trade. Other significant events during his time as regent include theBattle of Copenhagen of 1801 and theBattle of Copenhagen of 1807.[5] His later reign as king is highlighted by his patronage ofastronomy, the introduction of primary schools, the creation of the Assemblies of Estate, and the ensurement of full civil rights to theJews. Other significant events during his reign as king include the end of theNapoleonic Wars, theCongress of Vienna, the loss of Norway, and an economic depression.
With no surviving legitimate sons, Frederick VI was succeeded by his half-cousin,Christian.
The future King Frederick VI was born between 10 and 11 p.m. on 28 January 1768 in the Queen's Bedchamber atChristiansborg Palace, the royal residence in centralCopenhagen.[3] He was the first child born to KingChristian VII and QueenCaroline Mathilde ofDenmark and Norway.[4] He was born 15 months after his parents' wedding, the day before his father's 19th birthday, and while his mother was just 16 years old. The King had shown little interest in the Queen after the marriage and only reluctantly visited her in her chambers. The King's advisors had to step in, among other things with love letters written in the King's name, in an attempt to make the marriage lead to a pregnancy and thus an heir to the throne.[6]
The young prince was baptised already two days after the birth on 30 January atChristiansborg Palace by the royalconfessorLudvig Harboe,Bishop of Zealand, and was named after his late grandfather, KingFrederick V.[7] His godparents were King Christian VII (his father), the dowager queenJuliana Maria (his step-grandmother) and his half-uncle,Hereditary Prince Frederick.[7]
At the time of Crown Prince Frederick's birth, conditions at the Danish court were characterized by Christian VII's increasing mental illness, including suspectedschizophrenia expressed by catatonic periods. In the resulting intrigues and power struggles which followed, Christian's personal physician, the progressive and radical thinkerJohann Friedrich Struensee, became the King's advisor and rose steadily in power during the late 1760s, and from 1770 to 1772, Struensee was de facto regent of the country. Struensee soon also became the confidant of Queen Caroline Mathilde, Frederick's mother, partly because during asmallpox epidemic in the autumn of 1769, in which over 1,000 children died, he successfullyinoculated Crown Prince Frederick with good results. In doing so, Struensee won the gratitude and trust of the neglected Queen and soon became her lover as well. It is widely believed that Struensee was also the biological father of Prince Frederick's only sister PrincessLouise Augusta, who was born in 1771.[8]
Both the Queen and Struensee were ideologically influenced byEnlightenment thinkers such asVoltaire andJean-Jacques Rousseau. Therefore, the Queen also fully approved the harsh education recommended by Struensee for the Crown Prince, who was perceived as weak and needed to be strengthened physically and mentally. While Struensee was in power, the young Frederick was raised atHirschholm Palace following an interpretation of the educational approach advocated by Rousseau in his famous workÉmile. Instead of receiving direct instruction, Frederick was expected to learn everything through his own efforts through playing with two commoner boys as per Struensee's instructions.[9]
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The general ill will against Struensee found expression in a conspiracy against him in the name of the Queen Dowager Juliana Maria, and in the early morning of 17 January 1772 Struensee was deposed in apalace coup. Struensee was later executed, while the King and Queen were divorced. Queen Caroline Mathilde was exiled, and the four-year-old Frederick and his sister were left behind, never to see their mother again. After the revolt against Struensee, Frederick's 18-year-old half-uncleHereditary Prince Frederick was made regent. The real power, however, was held by Hereditary Prince Frederick's mother (Crown Prince Frederick's step-grandmother), Queen DowagerJuliana Maria, aided byOve Høegh-Guldberg. Frederick was raised under the supervision ofMargrethe Marie Thomasine Numsen and then under his chamberlain,Johan Bülow.
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Already in 1782, Crown Prince Frederick came in contact with the ministerAndreas Peter Bernstorff, who had been dismissed two years earlier. Later the Crown Prince entered into a conspiracy with other disaffected persons who were in opposition to the government. Despite the Crown Prince's age, the government deliberately postponed hisconfirmation that would confirm his adult status.[10] But in 1784, as Crown Prince Frederick turned 16, it could no longer be postponed, and he was finally confirmed on 4 April, and was declared of legal majority. Already, on 14 April 1784, he proceeded to seize the full powers of the regency, dismissing the ministers loyal to the Queen Dowager. It is said that during the coup, he engaged in a fistfight with his half-uncle over the regency. He continued as regent of Denmark-Norway under his father's name until the latter's death in 1808.[11]
During the first years of the regency, Frederick instituted widespread liberal reforms in the spirit ofenlightened absolutism with the assistance of Chief MinisterAndreas Peter Bernstorff, including the abolition ofserfdom in Denmark in 1788 and hanging as a capital punishment was abolished in 1789 in both Denmark and Norway. In 1803,Dano-Norwegian involvement in theTransatlantic slave trade was abolished by government decree.
After Crown Prince Frederick was declared of legal majority and assumed the regency in 1784, the Danish royal court started to make inquiries to arrange a marriage for him. There was speculation that he was to marry aPrussian princess, a choice supported by his step-grandmother Juliana Maria and her brother-in-lawFrederick the Great. To demonstrate his independence, however, he personally selected his first-cousinMarie Sophie of Hesse-Kassel, a member of a German family with close marriage links with the royal families of both Denmark-Norway andGreat Britain. They married inGottorp on 31 July 1790 and had eight children. Their eldest daughter,Princess Caroline married her father's first cousin,Ferdinand, Hereditary Prince of Denmark. The youngest,Princess Wilhelmine, became the wife of the futureFrederick VII of Denmark.
On 13 March 1808, Christian VII died at the age of 59 atRendsburg during a stay in theDuchy of Holstein. At the death of his father, Frederick finally ascended the thrones of Denmark and Norway in name also as their seventh absolute monarch at the age of 40. When the throne ofSweden seemed likely to become vacant in 1809, Frederick was interested in being elected there as well. Frederick actually was the first monarch of Denmark and Norway to descend fromGustav I of Sweden, who in the 1520s had led Sweden out of theKalmar Union with the other Scandinavian countries. However, Frederick's brother-in-law, PrinceChristian Augustus of Augustenborg, was first elected to the throne of Sweden, followed by the FrenchMarshal Bernadotte.[12]
In order to maintain neutrality, and avoid the Franco-British conflict, Denmark-Norway joined theSecond League of Armed Neutrality and continued shipping. However, a disagreement occurred with theBritish over said neutral shipping as well as refusing to withdraw from the alliance. The English, led by Vice-AdmiralHoratio Nelson, then attacked the Danish fleet in theBattle of Copenhagen of 1801.
Due to a treaty betweentsar Alexander I andNapoleon bonaparte, a promise was made to extend theContinental System to include Denmark-Norway and Sweden. In response, England sent an ultimatum to Denmark; become England's ally, or hand over their fleet. Frederik VI was in Holstein at the time. He did return to the Capital, but then returned to Holstein the next day- without responding to the British. The British then bombarded Copenhagen for three days during theBattle of Copenhagen of 1807.[13] This caused Frederik VI to declare war on England and enter an alliance with France.[14]
The conflict continued in theGunboat War between Denmark-Norway and the United Kingdom, which lasted until theTreaty of Kiel in 1814. After theFrench defeat in Russia in 1812, the Allies asked him to change sides, but he refused.[15] Many historians portray the King as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. However, this narrative has changed over the recent years and some historians have provided a new perspective on the King; Frederick VI stayed with Napoleon in order to protect the exposed situation with his kingdom's territory in nowadays Norway, which was dependent on grain imports and had become a target of Swedish territorial ambitions. He expected the wars would end with a great international conference in which Napoleon would have a major voice, and would help protect the crown's interests, especially towards the Norwegian kingdom.[16][17]
After the French defeat in the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 and the loss of the Norwegian crown (as a result of theTreaty of Kiel), Frederick VI carried through an authoritarian and reactionary course, giving up the liberal ideas of his years as a princeregent.[citation needed] Censorship and suppression of all opposition together with the poor state of the country's economy made this period of his reign somewhat gloomy, though the King himself in general maintained his position of a well-meaning autocrat. From the 1830s the economic depression was eased a bit and from 1834 the King accepted a small democratic innovation by the creation of the Assemblies of the Estate (purely consultative regional assemblies); this had the unintended result of later exacerbating relations between Danes and Germans inSchleswig, whose regional assembly became a forum for constant bickering between the two national groups.[18]
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Frederick VI was known as a patron ofastronomy and in 1832 offered gold medal prizes to anyone who discovered a comet using a telescope. His successors continued this until 1850. The prize was terminated in the aftermath of theThree Years' War. On 23 February 1827,[19] he granted aRoyal Charter[20] givingSerampore College inDanish India the status of a university to confer degrees. It became the third Danish University after those inCopenhagen andKiel.[21] After the discovery of theHaraldskær Woman in a peat bog in Jutland in the year 1835, Frederick VI ordered a royal interment in an elaborately carved sarcophagus for the Iron Age mummy, decreeing it to be the body of QueenGunnhild. Later this identification proved incorrect, but the action suited his political agenda at the time.[22]
Frederick VI died at the age of 71 atAmalienborg Palace and was buried in Frederick V's chapel inRoskilde Cathedral. Frederick reigned over Denmark for a total of 55 years; 24 years as crown prince regent and 31 years as king. He was the 894th Knight of theOrder of the Golden Fleece inSpain and the 654th Knight of theOrder of the Garter in 1822. The Royal Frederick University (nowUniversity of Oslo) inOslo was named in his honour.
As Frederick VI had no surviving sons to succeed him, so he was succeeded on the throne of Denmark by his paternal half-first cousinChristian.
Frederick VI and his wifeMarie of Hesse-Kassel were the parents of eight children, six of whom died in infancy. Two daughters grew to adulthood and neither of them had children. The eight children of Frederick and Marie were:
By hismistressFrederikke Dannemand (Bente Mortensdatter Andersen (Rafsted)),[23] King Frederick VI had these four children:[24]
He received the following orders and decorations:[25]
Denmark:
Austrian Empire:Grand Cross of St. Stephen,1814[28]
Kingdom of Bavaria:Knight of St. Hubert,1814[29]
French Empire: Grand Eagle of theLegion of Honour,1810[30]
Kingdom of France:Knight of the Holy Spirit,1818[31]
Kingdom of Prussia:Knight of the Black Eagle,15 September 1814[32]
Russian Empire:[33]
Spain:Knight of the Golden Fleece, 14 July 1818[34]
Sweden:Knight of the Seraphim,3 July 1786[35]
Two Sicilies:Grand Cross of St. Ferdinand and Merit
Kingdom of Portugal: Grand Cross of theSash of the Three Orders,21 May 1824[36]
United Kingdom:Knight of the Garter,13 February 1822[37]
Württemberg:Knight of the Golden Eagle| Ancestors of Frederick VI of Denmark[38] |
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{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Frederick VI Born: 28 January 1768 Died: 3 December 1839 | ||
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| Preceded by | King of Norway 1808–1814 | Succeeded by |
| King of Denmark Duke of Holstein andSchleswig 1808–1839 | ||
| Vacant | Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg 1814–1839 | |
The generations are numbered from the implementation of hereditary monarchy byFrederick III in 1660. | ||
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1 Also prince of Norway 2 Also prince of Greece 3 Also prince of Iceland 4 Also prince of the United Kingdom 5 Not Danish prince by birth, but created prince of Denmark Princes that lost their title are shown in italics | ||
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