Kirsten Munk
Kirsten Munk (sometimes "Christina Munk") (6 July 1598 – 19 April 1658) was a Danish noble, the second spouse of King Christian IV of Denmark, and mother to twelve of his children.
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[edit] Early life and Morganatic marriage
Kirsten Munck was the daughter of Ludvig Munck (1537–1602) and Ellen Marsvin (1572–1649), members of the wealthy but untitled Danish nobility. Her mother, widowed a second time in 1611, was the greatest landowner on Funen.
Prior to yielding Kirsten to the evident desires of King Christian, her mother negotiated that, as a noble, she would become his wife rather than his mistress, and that she receive properties in her own name as tokens of the king's honourable intentions. Thus, in 31 December 1615, she was married to the widowed king morganatically.[1] Nor did the marriage take place in a church. In 1627, she was given the title Countess of Schleswig-Holstein.[1] Kirsten bore the king twelve children, among them the famous Countess Leonora Christina Ulfeldt.
[edit] Children
She had 12 children. The youngest, Dorothea Elisabeth, was rumoured not to have been the king's child;
- Unnamed Stillborn child (b. & d. 1615)
- Unnamed infant (b. & d. 1617)
- Countess Anna Christiane of Schleswig-Holstein (10 August 1618 – 20 August 1633)
- Countess Sophie Elisabeth of Schleswig-Holstein (20 September 1619 – 29 April 1657); married Christian von Pentz
- Countess Leonora Christina of Schleswig-Holstein (8 July 1621 – 16 March 1698); married Corfitz Ulfeldt
- Count Valdemar Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (1622 – 26 February 1656)
- Countess Elisabeth Auguste of Schleswig-Holstein (28 December 1623 – 9 August 1677)
- Count Friedrich Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (26 April 1625 – 17 July 1627)
- Countess Christiane of Schleswig-Holstein (15 July 1626 – 6 May 1670); married Hannibal Sehested
- Countess Hedwig of Schleswig-Holstein (15 July 1626 – 5 October 1678)
- Maria Katharina of Schleswig-Holstein (29 May 1628 – 1 September 1628)
- Countess Dorothea Elisabeth of Schleswig-Holstein (1 September 1629 – 18 March 1687)
Her children intermarried with the nobility of Denmark, Corfitz Ulfeldt and Hannibal Sehested being among her ambitious sons-in-law.[1] From the king's death in 1648 to 1652, five of her daughters' husbands were known as the so-called Sons-in-law Party, wielding dominant influence in the Rigsråd. Previously, Kirsten's son Count Valdemar of Schleswig-Holstein, had shown promise, becoming engaged to Tsarevna Irina Mikhailovna Romanov, daughter of Michael I of Russia. The alliance was prevented by Danish objections to Valdemar's conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church, yet the king's disappointment on the betrothal's rupture was believed at the time to have hastened his death.
One of Kirsten's daughters, Countess Leonora Christina, distinguished herself by an internationally adventurous life, followed by imprisonment for decades in Denmark's royal dungeon, and by the posthumous publication of her memoirs, still well regarded both as Scandinavian prose and as early feminist literature. Despite the turmoil of her parents' marriage and the conflicts between her brothers and brothers-in-law, according to her own writings Leonora Christina's youth and early married years at the Danish royal court were happy.
[edit] Separation
As the king's health declined in 1625, so did his temperament and his marriage.
In 1627, Kirsten fell in love with a German cavalry captain in her husband's service, the Rhinegrave Otto Ludwig of Salm-Kyrburg (1597–1634). The couple are alleged to have had encounters where they met, at Funen, but also at Kronborg and Copenhagen. Eventually, word came to the king of his wife's illicit affair. The king did not accept Kirsten's last daughter, born in 1629, as his own, but called her "Miss Leftover". Supposedly after seeing two maids sleeping outside her locked door he got a footman to engrave the date on a stone and did not have sex with Kirsten again. Her last daughter was conceived 10 months after this which was why he denied her.[2] He accused Kirsten of adultery, of using witchcraft and of having contact with a magician in Hamburg[3].
Ellen Marsvin sought to mitigate her son-in-law's indignation so as to prevent vengeance and/or loss of her family's influence at court (several of her granddaughters were engaged to marry Denmark's leading nobles), by encouraging him to engage in an affair with her daughter's lady-in-waiting, Vibeke Kruse. Although the king did father children with Kruse (who later became political rivals of Kirsten Munck's children and sons-in-law), in 1629, he divorced Kirsten for adultery, and exiled her to Jutland.
She refused to admit adultery. After an interrogation, she was kept at Stjernholm in Horsens, and in 1637, she was placed under house arrest in Boller, and her confinement was continued in 1646. Vibeke Kruse is alleged to have encouraged the king to be strict. However, Kirsten was never actually put on trial, although the king repeatedly threatened to do so. She had a good relationship with her children and her sons-in-law, interceded with the king on her behalf. In 1647, her children convinced the king to end her house arrest.
[edit] Later life
On his deathbed in 1648, her husband sent for her, but by the time she arrived he was already dead. Kirsten and her children now had Vibeke Kruse banished from court. She also had her marriage and children confirmed as legitimate, although morganatic.
The Sons-in-law Party party spoke for her in the council 1648–51, and when it fell from power, she supported her son-in-law Corfitz Ulfeldt. Ulfeldt and her daughter Leonora sided with Sweden, and Kirsten Munk is alleged to have financed King Charles X of Sweden's invasion and occupation of Denmark. She died during the Swedish occupation and was given a grand funeral in Odense.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Huberty, Michel; Alain Giraud, F. and B. Magdelaine (1994) (in French). L'Allemagne Dynastique Tome VII Oldenbourg. France. pp. 54–55. ISBN 2-901138-07-1.
- ^ Herman, Eleanor (2005). Sex With Kings. 240: Harper Perennial. pp. 320. ISBN 0060585447.
- ^ * Alf Henrikson: Dansk historia (Danish history) 1989 (in Swedish)
