Frederick VI of Denmark

Frederick VI Frederick VI painted by F.C. Grøger c. 1808. King of Denmark Reign 1808–1839 Predecessor Christian VII Successor Christian VIII King of Norway Reign 1808–1814 Predecessor Christian VII Successor Christian Frederick Consort Marie Sophie of Hesse-Kassel Issue Caroline, Hereditary Princess of Denmark Vilhelmine, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg House Oldenburg Father Christian VII of Denmark Mother Caroline Matilda of Great Britain Born 28 January 1768(1768-01-28) Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen Died 3 December 1839(1839-12-03) (aged 71) Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen Religion Lutheranism

Danish Royalty House of Oldenburg Main Line Frederick VI Children    Prince Christian    Princess Marie Louise    Hereditary Princess Caroline    Princess Louise    Prince Christian    Princess Juliana Louise    Princess Frederikke Marie    Vilhelmine Marie, Duchess of Glücksburg

Frederick VI (28 January 1768 – 3 December 1839) reigned as King of Denmark (13 March 1808 – 3 December 1839), and as king of Norway (13 March 1808 – 7 February 1814). The Royal Frederick University in Norway was named in his honour.

Regent of Denmark

Frederick's parents were King Christian VII and Caroline Matilda of Wales. 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. On 8 January 1772, 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 the Regent's mother and Frederick's step-grandmother, the Queen dowager Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who was aided by Ove Høegh-Guldberg. Finally, on 14 April 1784, the crown prince was declared of legal majority, and in a coup, 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.

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 and the Battle of Copenhagen (1807), The second gave rise to the Gunboat War between Denmark-Norway and the United Kingdom, which lasted until the Treaty of Kiel in 1814.

Frederick's wife was 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

Frederik as King in coronation robes

Frederic was crowned King of Denmark on 13 March 1808. When the throne of Sweden showed signs of becoming unoccupied in 1809, Frederick was interested in becoming 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, the Prince Augustus of Augustenborg, was first elected to the throne of Sweden, then the French Marshal Bernadotte.

After his defeat in the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 and the loss of Norway, Frederick VI carried through an authoritatarian and reactionary course, giving up the liberal ideas of his years as a prince regent. Censorship and suppression of all opposition together with bad economic terms of the country 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).

Issue

The surviving children of King Frederick VI and Queen Marie Sophie Frederikke 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) some months before his nephew Frederick VII of Denmark, Hereditary Prince of Denmark, son of Christian VIII of Denmark. 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 (Copenhagen, 3 June 1805 – Copenhagen, 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 – Copenhagen, 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)

Legacy

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 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 identity proved incorrect, but the action suited his political agenda at the time.

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.

External links

• Royal House of Denmark
• Landgravial House of Hesse-Kassel

Frederick VI House of Oldenburg Born: January 28 1768 Died: December 3 1839
Regnal titles
Preceded by Christian VII	King of Norway 1808–1814	Succeeded by Christian VIII
	King of Denmark Duke of Holstein and Schleswig 1808–1839
Vacant Napoleonic Wars Title last held by George III	Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg 1814–1839