_Christian V. (1670-1699)_
Christian V., who succeeded his father, Frederick III., in 1670, was
the first Danish-Norwegian king who mounted the throne by hereditary
right, and was not obliged to sign a charter, dictated by the nobles,
in order to be elected. He was a brave and vigorous young man; but
he early disappointed those who had placed great hopes in him, as he
wasted his time and strength on hunting and other amusements, and left
the government to the care of his favorites, who were often incapable
and selfish men. He loved pomp and splendor, and sought to imitate
the extravagant Louis XIV. of France, spending much more money than
the treasury could afford. He especially fancied everything that was
German, and surrounded himself with indigent German noblemen, whom
he helped to make their fortunes in Denmark. At court the language
spoken was the German, the ministers preached in German, actors played
in German, and the highest officers were Germans. As many of the old
noble families had withdrawn from the capital, where they no longer
exercised their old influence, and had retired to their estates, where
they were still powerful on account of their wealth, King Christian,
determined to secure other support for the throne, created a new and
higher nobility, and established the titles and ranks recognized
in Germany. Thus he filled his court with counts and barons, and
adopted the strict etiquette and ceremonies of the French court. He
also established two orders of knighthood, the order of Dannebrog
and the order of the Elephant. In Norway, the earldom (county) of
Laurvik was established (1671) for the benefit of the king's friend
and half-brother, Ulrik Frederick Gyldenlöve, whose descendants, the
Counts of Danneskiold-Laurvik, and later Ahlefeldt-Laurvik, for a long
time owned this beautiful county. The old royal estate Sem, together
with the deanery of Tunsberg, was made into another earldom (1673)
for the then very powerful Minister of State Griffenfeld, who called
himself Count of Griffenfeld and Tunsberg; after he had fallen from
grace, this county was transferred to his rival, Gyldenlöve, who,
with the permission of the king, sold a part of it--afterward called
Jarlsberg--to the German-born field-marshal of Norway, Gustav Wilhelm
Wedel, the progenitor of the family of Wedel-Jarlsberg. Rosendal, the
only barony in Norway, was founded, in 1678, by Ludvig-Rosenkrands, a
Danish nobleman, who, by marriage, had come into possession of large
estates in Bergen Stift.
King Christian's adviser was, for some years, the eminent Danish
statesman, Peter Griffenfeld. His original name was Peter Schumacher,
and he was the son of a wine-seller in Copenhagen. His father died in
poverty, after which Bishop Brochmann took him into his home. Here King
Frederick saw him and had him sent abroad for six years at his expense.
After his return he became librarian to the king, and occasionally
assisted the king in state affairs. On his death-bed the king asked
his son to take care of Peter Schumacher, saying: "Make a great man
of him, but not too rapidly." Christian did not exactly follow this
advice: in the following year he made him Count of Tunsberg, with the
name of Griffenfeld, and appointed him great chancellor of the realm.
Griffenfeld became greatly renowned. The emperor made him an imperial
count, and Louis XIV. called him one of the greatest statesmen in the
world. But, on account of this, he soon had many jealous rivals at
the court, who aroused the king's suspicions as to his loyalty; he
was deposed and accused of several great crimes, although some of the
acts construed as crimes were acts of statesmanship for which he had
deserved the greatest praise. He was condemned to death and brought
to the scaffold; but, at the last moment, a message arrived from the
king, that the sentence had been commuted to imprisonment for life.
"This mercy is more cruel than death," exclaimed Griffenfeld. He was
first imprisoned in the castle of Copenhagen, and remained there for
four years; but as the king missed his able services, and his enemies
feared that he might again be put in power, they caused him to be
removed to the fortress of Munkholmen at Throndhjem, where he remained
for eighteen years. At first he whiled away the time by reading and
writing; but later they cruelly took away pen and ink. He wrote
numerous apothegms in the margins of his books with little bits of
lead, which he tore from the window-panes, or with coals on the wall.
He was given his liberty in 1698, but died the following year (March
11, 1699), in Throndhjem, at the age of sixty-four years.
As the ally of the Elector of Brandenburg, but principally in the
hope of recovering the lost provinces, King Christian, against the
advice of Griffenfeld, commenced war against the Swedish king, Charles
XI. This war, which lasted from 1675 to 1679, was called the Scania
War, because that province was the principal scene of action. The
Danes captured Wismar and some places in Scania, but lost the battles
of Halmstad, Lund, and Landskrona. At sea, however, the Danes were
generally successful. Admiral Kort Adeler had put the navy in good
condition and had a worthy successor in the naval hero, Niels Juel,
who won victories at Oeland and Kolbergerheide, and especially in the
great naval battle of Kjögebugt (October 4, 1677). As Griffenfeld
had foreseen, however, the Danes could accomplish little against the
allies of France, and Christian was obliged to accede to peace proposed
by Louis XIV. The peace was concluded at Lund (1679), and all that
Christian V. obtained, for his efforts during an expensive four years'
war, was permission to take with him ten cannons from each of the
conquered fortresses.
During this war, which the Norwegians called the Gyldenlöve Feud, after
their leader, the brave Ulrik Frederick Gyldenlöve, the Norwegians
several times defeated the Swedes. In February, 1676, Gyldenlöve
marched into Bahus Len with 11,000 men, conquering Udevalla and
Wenersborg. The following year he took the fortified town of Marstrand
by storm and compelled the fortress of Carlsten to surrender. In
order to prevent the Norwegians from making further progress, the
Swedish chancellor, Magnus de la Gardie, hastened into Bahus Len with
8,000 men, but was defeated by a much smaller Norwegian army, under
Major-General Hans Lövenhjelm, at Udevalla, August 28, 1677. About
1,500 Swedes were slain and two hundred were captured, together with
fourteen pieces of artillery and all the supplies. The following year
the ever-active Gyldenlöve attacked Bahus Castle, which, however,
he was unable to capture, as it was defended with great heroism and
perseverance. The war ended, on the part of Norway, with an incursion
by Gyldenlöve into Sweden in 1679, in order to avenge a similar
expedition which the Swedish General Sparre had made into the region
of Throndhjem the previous year, on which occasion the copper works at
Röros had been burned.
The Norwegian code of laws, which is yet partly in force, was
elaborated by direction of Christian V., dated April 15, 1687, and
published April 14, 1688. He abolished Latin singing in the churches,
introduced a new church ritual and a Danish hymn-book.
Christian V. visited Norway only once (1685). On Dovre Mountain he
laid the foundation for a monument, with an inscription in the German
language. He died August 25, 1699, leaving a debt of 1,110,000 Danish
dollars, although he had tried to replenish his treasury by hiring out
Norwegian and Danish soldiers as mercenaries to other countries. He was
married to the gentle Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Cassel.