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 As many of the old noble families had withdrawn from the capital, where they no longer exercised their old influence, and had retired to their estates, where they were still powerful on account of their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 [Pg 268]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.