Everything about Frederick Iv Of Denmark totally explained
Frederick IV (
11 October 1671 –
12 October 1730) was the king of
Denmark and
Norway from
1699 until his death. Frederick was the son of
Christian V and
Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel.
Foreign affairs
For much of Frederik IV's reign Denmark was engaged in the
Great Northern War (1700-1721) against Sweden. A first short-lived encounter
1700 ended with a Swedish invasion and threats from Europe's western naval powers. In
1709 Denmark again entered the war encouraged by the Swedish defeat at
Poltava. Frederick IV commanded the Danish troops at the
battle of Gadebusch in
1712. Although Denmark emerged on the victorious side, she failed to reconquer lost possessions in southern Sweden. The most important result was the destruction of the pro-Swedish
duchy of Holstein-Gottorp re-establishing Denmark's domination in
Schleswig-Holstein.
Domestic rule
His most important
domestic reform was the abolition in
1702 of the so-called
vornedskab, a kind of
serfdom which had fallen on the peasants of
Zealand in the later
Middle Ages. His efforts were largely in vain because of the introduction of
adscription in
1733.
After the war, trade and culture flowered. The
First Danish theatre, Lille Grönnegade was created and the great dramatist
Ludvig Holberg began his career. Also the colonisation of
Greenland was started by the missionary
Hans Egede. Politically this period was marked by the king's connection to the
Reventlows, the
Holsteiner relatives of his last queen, and by his growing suspicion toward the old nobility.
During Frederick's rule
Copenhagen was struck by two disasters: the
plague of
1711, and the great
fire of October
1728 which destroyed most of the
medieval capital. Although the king had been persuaded by
Ole Rømer to introduce the
Gregorian calendar in Denmark-Norway in
1700, the
astonomer's observations and calculations were among the treasures lost to the fire.
Frederik IV, having twice visited Italy, had two pleasure
palaces built in the Italian
baroque style:
Frederiksberg Palace and
Fredensborg Palace, both considered
monuments to the conclusion of the
Great Northern War.
Character
Frederick was deemed a man of responsibility and industry — often regarded as the most intelligent of Denmark's
absolute monarchs. He seems to have mastered the art of remaining independent of his
ministers. Lacking all interest in
academic knowledge, he was nevertheless a
patron of culture, especially in art and architecture. His main weaknesses were probably pleasure-seeking and
womanising (he is the only Danish king known to have committed
bigamy), which sometimes distracted him.
Family and private life
His mother was Charlotte, daughter of William VI,
Landgrave of
Hesse-Kassel. Without divorcing his first queen,
Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow whom he'd wed
5 December 1695, Frederick married twice more; in 1703, he married
Elisabeth Helene von Vieregg (d.1704), and the second time, Frederick carried off the 19 year-old Countess
Anne Sophie Reventlow from her home in Clausholm near
Randers on
26 June 1712 and secretly wed her at
Skanderborg. At that time he accorded her the title "Duchess of Schleswig" (derived from one of his own subsidiary titles). Three weeks after Queen Louise's death in Copenhagen on
4 April 1721, he married her again, this time declaring her queen (the only wife of an hereditary Danish king to bear that title who wasn't a princess by birth). Of the eight children born to him of these three wives, only two survived to adulthood,
Christian VI and the spinster princess, Charlotte-Amalia, both from the first marriage.
Nonetheless, much of the king's life was spent in strife with kinsmen.
Charles XII of Sweden and
Frederick IV, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp were his
first cousins
and had waged war upon his father jointly. Initially defeated by the Swedes and forced to recognize the independence of Holstein-Gottorp, Frederick finally drove
Duke Charles Frederick out of Schleswig in 1713, and avoided the revenge contemplated by the duke's mother-in-law,
Catherine I of Russia.
The Reventlows took advantage of their kinship to the king to . The sister of Anna, the salonist
Christine Sophie Holstein, was nicknamed Madame Chancellor becaues of her influence. Within a year of conferring the
crown matrimonial on Countess Reventlow, Frederick also recognized as
dynastic the issue of the
morganatic marriages of two of his kinsmen, Duke Philip Ernest of Schleswig-Holstein-Glucksburg (1673–1729) and Duke Christian Charles of Schleswig-Holstein-Plön-Norburg (1674-1706), to non-royal noblewomen. The other Schleswig-Holstein dukes of the
House of Oldenburg perceived their interests to be injured, and Frederick found himself embroiled in their complicated lawsuits and petitions to the
Holy Roman Emperor. Also offended by the countess's elevation were King Frederick's younger, unmarried siblings, Princess Sophia Hedwig (1677–1735) and Prince Charles (1680–1729, who withdrew from Copenhagen to their own rival court at the handsomely re-modelled
Vemmetofte Cloister (later a haven for
dowerless damsels of the nobility.
During King Frederick's last years he was afflicted with weak health and private sorrows that inclined him toward
Pietism. That form of faith would rise to prevalence during the reign of his son. On his death in
1730, Frederick IV was interred in
Roskilde Cathedral.
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