Frederick VI of Denmark

Frederick VI
Frederick VI by Hans Hansen (1769–1828)
Preceded by	Christian VII
Succeeded by	Christian VIII
Preceded by	Christian VII
Succeeded by	Christian Frederick
Personal details
Born	(1768-01-28)28 January 1768 Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen
Died	3 December 1839(1839-12-03) (aged 71) Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen
Spouse(s)	Marie of Hesse-Kassel
Religion	Lutheranism

Frederick VI (Danish language: Frederik den Sjette

28 January 1768 – 3 December 1839) was King of Denmark from 13 March 1808 to 3 December 1839 and King of Norway from 13 March 1808 to 7 February 1814. From 1784 until his accession, he served as regent during his father's mental illness and was referred to as the "Crown Prince Regent" (kronprinsregent).

Frederick belonged to the House of Oldenburg and was the only son of Christian VII and Caroline Matilda of Great Britain.

For his motto he chose: God and the just cause (Danish language: Gud og den retfærdige sag ) and since the time of his reign, Danish monarchs have only used mottos in the Danish language instead of the usual Latin.

The Royal Frederick University in Oslo was named in his honour.

Early life

The newborn prince with his mother Queen Caroline Matilda.

Frederick was born at Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen on 28 January 1768. His parents were King Christian VII and Caroline Matilda of Great Britain. He was born after 15 months of marriage, just a day before his father's 19th birthday, when his mother was 16. As the eldest son of the ruling king, he automatically became crown prince at birth.

On 30 January of the same year, he was baptised at Christiansborg Palace by Ludvig Harboe, Bishop of Zealand. His godparents were King Christian VII (his father), the dowager queen Juliana Maria (his stepgrandmother) and Hereditary Prince Frederick (his half-uncle).

His father suffered from serious psychological problems, including suspected schizophrenia expressed by catatonic periods that resulted in his standing down from power for most of his reign, ceding power to his doctor Johann Friedrich Struensee. From 1770 to 1772 Struensee was de facto regent, as well as lover of Caroline Matilda, Frederick's mother. Struensee was ideologically influenced by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau. While Struensee was in power young Frederick was raised at Hirschholm Palace following the educational approach advocated by Rousseau in his famous work Émile. Frederick received no direct instruction in this period, but was expected to learn everything through his own efforts, through playing with two commoner boys who were his companions following Struensee's instructions.

On 8 January 1772, after the revolt against Struensee, his 18-year-old half-uncle Hereditary Prince Frederick (father of Christian VIII of Denmark) was made regent, although the real power was held by Queen Juliana Maria, who was aided by Ove Høegh-Guldberg. Finally, on 14 April 1784, the crown prince was declared of legal majority, and in a coup, where he actually engaged in a fistfight with his half-uncle over the king Christian VII, took the regency from his half-uncle. He continued as regent of Denmark under his father's name until the latter's death in 1808.

Crown prince's regency

19-year-old Crown Prince Frederick, surrounded by his staff. In the background Frederiksberg Palace. Painted by Christian August Lorentzen.

During the regency, Frederick instituted widespread liberal reforms with the assistance of Chief Minister Andreas Peter Bernstorff, including the abolition of serfdom in 1788. Crises encountered during his reign include disagreement with the British over neutral shipping. This resulted in two British attacks on Copenhagen, the Battle of Copenhagen of 1801 and the Battle of Copenhagen of 1807. The conflict continued in the Gunboat War between Denmark-Norway and the United Kingdom, which lasted until the Treaty of Kiel in 1814.

There was speculation that he was to marry a Prussian princess, a choice supported by his step-grandmother Juliana Maria and her brother-in-law Frederick the Great. To show his independence from advisors, he personally selected his first-cousin Marie Sophie of Hesse-Kassel, a member of a German family with close marriage links with the royal families of both Denmark and Great Britain. They married in Gottorp on 31 July 1790 and had eight children. The youngest of them, Princess Wilhelmine, became the wife of the future Frederick VII of Denmark. None of Frederick VI's sons survived infancy, however, and when he died, he was succeeded by his cousin Christian.

King of Denmark and loss of Norway

The anointment of King Frederick VI at Frederiksborg Palace on 31 July 1815. The ceremony was postponed due to the Napoleonic Wars.

Frederick VI by Wilhelm Bendz c. 1830

Frederick became King of Denmark on 13 March 1808. When the throne of Sweden seemed likely to become vacant in 1809, Frederick was interested in being elected there, too. Frederick actually was the first monarch of Denmark and Norway to descend from Gustav I of Sweden, who had secured Sweden's independence in 1520s after a period of union with other Scandinavian countries. However, Frederick's brother-in-law, Prince Christian Augustus of Augustenborg, was first elected to the throne of Sweden, then the French Marshal Bernadotte.

He made Denmark the most loyal ally of Napoleon. After the French defeat in Russia in 1812, the Allies again and again asked him to change sides. He refused. Many Danish historians portray the king as stubborn, incompetent, and motivated by a misconceived loyalty towards Napoleon. However some historians in recent years have provided a different interpretation that sheds a better light on the king. He stayed with Napoleon in order to protect the exposed situation of Norway, which was dependent on grain imports and had become the 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 Denmark's interests, especially in Norway.

After his defeat in the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 and the loss of Norway, Frederick VI carried through an authoritarian and reactionary course, giving up the liberal ideas of his years as a prince regent. 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 "patriarch" and a well-meaning autocrat. From the 1830s the economic depression was eased a bit and from 1834 the king reluctantly 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 in Schleswig, whose regional assembly became a forum for constant bickering between the two national groups.

Later life

Bust of Frederick VI, modelled by Bertel Thorvaldsen

Frederick VI was known as a patron of astronomy 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 the First War of Schleswig.

After the discovery of the Haraldskær 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 Queen Gunnhild. Later this identification proved incorrect, but the action suited his political agenda at the time.

Frederik VI died at the age of 71, on 3 December 1839 at Amalienborg Palace and was buried in Frederick V's chapel in Roskilde 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 the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain and the 654th Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1822.

Descendents

The surviving children of Frederick VI and Marie of Hesse-Kassel were their two daughters. Their children were:

• Christian (Copenhagen, 22 September 1791 – Copenhagen, 23 September 1791)
• Marie Louise (Copenhagen, 19 November 1792 – Frederiksborg, 12 October 1793)
• Caroline (Copenhagen, 28 October 1793 – Copenhagen, 31 March 1881), married to her father's first cousin Frederick Ferdinand of Denmark, (d. 1863). Childless.
• Louise (Copenhagen, 21 August 1795 – Copenhagen, 7 December 1795)
• Christian (Copenhagen, 1 September 1797 – Copenhagen, 5 September 1797)
• Juliana Louise (Copenhagen, 12 February 1802 – Copenhagen, 23 February 1802)
• Frederikke Marie (3 June 1805 – 14 July 1805)
• Vilhelmine Marie (Kiel, 18 January 1808 – Glücksburg, 30 May 1891), firstly married to her second cousin Prince Frederik of Denmark, the future Frederick VII of Denmark, but they divorced, and she married secondly Karl, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, who was eldest brother of the future Christian IX of Denmark. Both her marriages were childless.

By his mistress Frederikke Dannemand (Bente Mortensdatter Andersen (Rafsted)), King Frederick VI had the following children:

• Lovisa, Countess of Dannemand (16 April 1810 – 28 December 1888), married in 1836 Wilhelm von Zachariae (6 June 1807 – 16 August 1871), and had issue
• Karoline, Countess of Dannemand (1812–1844), married in 1837 Adolf Frederik Schack von Brockdorff (Vejle, 7 February 1810 – 18 October 1859), and had issue
• Frederik, Count of Dannemand (20 July 1813 – 12 March 1888), married firstly in 1840 Franziska von Scholten (1820–44), without issue, married secondly in 1845 Lovisa Grefvinde Schulin (1815–1884), without issue, and married thirdly in 1884 Wilhelmina Laursen (1840–1886), without issue
• Waldemar, Count of Dannemand (6 June 1819 – 4 March 1835)