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King Christian V
Christian V (April 15, 1646 in Flensburg - August 25, 1699 in Copenhagen), was king of Denmark and Norway from 1670-1699.
The son of Frederick III of Denmark and Sophia Amelia of Brunswick-Lüneburg, was born at Flensburg.
He married Charlotte Amelia of Hesse-Cassel on May 14, 1667 at Nykøbing, and ascended the throne on February 9, 1670.
He was a weak despot with an exaggerated opinion of his dignity and his prerogatives. Almost his first act on ascending the throne was to publicly insult his wife by introducing his sixteen-year-old mistress, Amelia Moth (1654-1719), into court. She was the daughter of his former tutor (Paul Moth), and he made her countess of Samsø on December 31, 1677.
He had eight children by his wife and six by his mistress.
His personal courage and extreme affability made him highly popular among the people, but he showed himself quite incapable of taking advantage permanently of the revival of the national energy, and the extraordinary overflow of native middle-class talent, which were the immediate consequences of the revolution of 1660. He was poorly educated but his worst weakness was perhaps his dependency of others which made him relying on councillors of very various capabilities.
Under the guidance of his great chancellor Griffenfeldt, Denmark seemed for a brief period to have a chance of regaining her former position as a great power. But in sacrificing Griffenfeldt to the clamour of his adversaries, Christian did serious injury to the monarchy. He frittered away the resources of the kingdom in the unremunerative Swedish war of 1675-1679, (The Scanian War) and did relatively little for internal progress in the twenty years of peace which followed.
However some positive aspects of this period must be mentioned. One is the introduction of Danske Lov (Danish Code) 1683 which was the first law code for all of Denmark. It was succeeded by the similar Norske Lov (Norwegian Code) 1687. Another important event was the introduction of the land register of 1688 by which it was tried to work out the land value of the united monarchy in order to create a more just taxation. Also science had a golden age by the work of the astronomer Ole Rømer in spite of the king’s own lacking interest in culture.
He died from the after-effects of a hunting accident and was interred in Roskilde Cathedral.
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