to negotiate a match between Eric and Christina of Hesse, which King Frederick for political reasons was determined to prevent, precipitated hostilities. During the war, which was marked by extraordinary ferocity throughout, the Danes were generally victorious on land owing to the genius of Daniel Rantzau, but at sea the Swedes were almost uniformly triumphant. By 1570 the strife had degenerated into a barbarous devastation of border provinces; and in July of the same year both countries accepted the mediation of the Emperor, and peace was finally concluded at Stettin on Dec. 13, 1570. During the course of this Seven Years’ War Frederick II. had narrowly escaped the fate of his deposed cousin Eric XIV. The war was very unpopular in Denmark, and the closing of the Sound against foreign shipping, in order to starve out Sweden, had exasperated the maritime powers and all the Baltic states. On New Year’s Day 1570 Frederick’s difficulties seemed so overwhelming that he threatened to abdicate; but the peace of Stettin came in time to reconcile all parties, and though Frederick had now to relinquish his ambitious dream of re-establishing the Union of Kalmar, he had at least succeeded in maintaining the supremacy of Denmark in the north. After the peace Frederick’s policy became still more imperial. He aspired to the dominion of all the seas which washed the Scandinavian coasts, and before he died he succeeded in suppressing the pirates who so long had haunted the Baltic and the German Ocean. He also erected the stately fortress of Kronborg, to guard the narrow channel of the Sound. Frederick possessed the truly royal gift of discovering and employing great men, irrespective of personal preferences and even of personal injuries. With infinite tact and admirable self-denial he gave free scope to ministers whose superiority in their various departments he frankly recognized, rarely interfering personally unless absolutely called upon to do so. His influence, always great, was increased by his genial and unaffected manners as a host. He is also remarkable as one of the few kings of the house of Oldenburg who had no illicit liaison. He died at Antvorskov on the 4th of April 1588. No other Danish king was ever so beloved by his people.
See Lund (Troels), Danmarks og Norges Historie i Slutningen af det XVI. Aarh. (Copenhagen, 1879); Danmarks Riges Historie (Copenhagen, 1897–1905), vol. 3; Robert Nisbet Bain, Scandinavia, cap. 4 (Cambridge, 1905). (R. N. B.)
FREDERICK III. (1609–1670), king of Denmark and Norway,
son of Christian IV. and Anne Catherine of Brandenburg, was
born on the 18th of March 1609 at Hadersleben. His position
as a younger son profoundly influenced his future career. In his
youth and early manhood there was no prospect of his ascending
the Danish throne, and he consequently became the instrument of
his father’s schemes of aggrandizement in Germany. While still
a lad he became successively bishop of Bremen, bishop of Verden
and coadjutor of Halberstadt, while at the age of eighteen he
was the chief commandant of the fortress of Stade. Thus
from an early age he had considerable experience as an administrator,
while his general education was very careful and thorough.
He had always a pronounced liking for literary and scientific
studies. On the 1st of October 1643 Frederick wedded Sophia
Amelia of Brunswick Lüneburg, whose energetic, passionate
and ambitious character was profoundly to affect not only
Frederick’s destiny but the destiny of Denmark. During the
disastrous Swedish War of 1643–1645 Frederick was appointed
generalissimo of the duchies by his father, but the laurels he won
were scanty, chiefly owing to his quarrels with the Earl-Marshal
Anders Bille, who commanded the Danish forces. This was
Frederick’s first collision with the Danish nobility, who ever
afterwards regarded him with extreme distrust. The death of his
elder brother Christian in June 1647 first opened to him the prospect
of succeeding to the Danish throne, but the question was
still unsettled when Christian IV. died on the 28th of February
1648. Not till the 6th of July in the same year did Frederick III.
receive the homage of his subjects, and only after he had signed
a Haandfaestning or charter, by which the already diminished
royal prerogative was still further curtailed. It had been doubtful
at first whether he would be allowed to inherit his ancestral
throne at all; but Frederick removed the last scruples of the
Rigsraad by unhesitatingly accepting the conditions imposed
upon him.
The new monarch was a reserved, enigmatical prince, who seldom laughed, spoke little and wrote less—a striking contrast to Christian IV. But if he lacked the brilliant qualities of his impulsive, jovial father, he possessed in a high degree the compensating virtues of moderation, sobriety and self-control. But with all his good qualities Frederick was not the man to take a clear view of the political horizon, or even to recognize his own and his country’s limitations. He rightly regarded the accession of Charles X. of Sweden (June 6th, 1654) as a source of danger to Denmark. He felt that temperament and policy would combine to make Charles an aggressive warrior-king: the only uncertainty was in which direction he would turn his arms first. Charles’s invasion of Poland (July 1654) came as a distinct relief to the Danes, though even the Polish War was full of latent peril to Denmark. Frederick was resolved upon a rupture with Sweden at the first convenient opportunity. The Rigsdag which assembled on the 23rd of February 1657 willingly granted considerable subsidies for mobilization and other military expenses; on the 15th of April Frederick III. desired, and on the 23rd of April he received, the assent of the majority of the Rigsraad to attack Sweden’s German provinces; in the beginning of May the still pending negotiations with that power were broken off, and on the 1st of June Frederick signed the manifesto justifying a war which was never formally declared. The Swedish king traversed all the plans of his enemies by his passage of the frozen Belts, in January and February 1658 (see Charles X.. of Sweden). The effect of this unheard-of achievement on the Danish government was crushing. Frederick III. at once sued for peace; and, yielding to the persuasions of the English and French ministers, Charles finally agreed to be content with mutilating instead of annihilating the Danish monarchy (treaties of Taastrup, February 18th, and of Roskilde, February 26th, 1658). The conclusion of peace was followed by a remarkable episode. Frederick expressed the desire to make the personal acquaintance of his conqueror; and Charles X. consented to be his guest for three days (March 3–5) at the castle of Fredriksborg. Splendid banquets lasting far into the night, private and intimate conversations between the princes who had only just emerged from a mortal struggle, seemed to point to nothing but peace and friendship in the future. But Charles’s insatiable lust for conquest, and his ineradicable suspicion of Denmark, induced him, on the 17th of July, without any reasonable cause, without a declaration of war, in defiance of all international equity, to endeavour to despatch an inconvenient neighbour.
Terror was the first feeling produced at Copenhagen by the landing of the main Swedish army at Korsör in Zealand. None had anticipated the possibility of such a sudden and brutal attack, and every one knew that the Danish capital was very inadequately fortified and garrisoned. Fortunately Frederick had never been deficient in courage. “I will die in my nest” were the memorable words with which he rebuked those counsellors who advised him to seek safety in flight. On the 8th of August representatives from every class in the capital urged the necessity of a vigorous resistance; and the citizens of Copenhagen, headed by the great burgomaster Hans Nansen (q.v.), protested their unshakable loyalty to the king, and their determination to defend Copenhagen to the uttermost. The Danes had only three days’ warning of the approaching danger; and the vast and dilapidated line of defence had at first but 2000 regular defenders. But the government and the people displayed a memorable and exemplary energy, under the constant supervision of the king, the queen, and burgomaster Nansen. By the beginning of September all the breaches were repaired, the walls bristled with cannon, and 7000 men were under arms. So strong was the city by this time that Charles X., abandoning his original intention of carrying the place by assault, began a regular siege; but this also he was forced to abandon when, on the 29th of October, an auxiliary Dutch fleet, after reinforcing and reprovisioning the garrison, defeated, in conjunction with the Danish fleet, the
