King of Denmark
The death of his elder brother Christian in June 1647 opened the possibility for Frederick to be elected heir apparent to the Danish throne. However, this issue was still unsettled when Christian IV died on 28 February 1648. After long deliberation among the Danish Estates and in the Rigsraadet royal council, he was finally accepted as king Frederick III of Denmark. On 6 July, Frederick received the homage of his subjects, and he was crowned on 23 November. However, due to misgivings about the rule of Christian IV, as well as Frederick's previous confrontational administrations in Bremen and Verden and his quarrels with Anders Bille, he was only elected after he had signed a Haandfæstning charter. The Haandfæstning included provisions curtailing the already diminished royal prerogative in favour of Rigsraadet receiving increased influence.
In the first years of his reign, Rigsraadet was the main power center of Danish politics. However, Frederick wielded more power than what was instituted by the Haandfæstning and eventually succeeded in removing the two most influential members of Rigsraadet from office in 1651: his brothers-in-law Corfitz Ulfeldt and Hannibal Sehested. Ulfeldt went into exile in Sweden where he turned traitor, while Sehested was restored to favour in 1660.
Read more about this topic: Frederick III Of Denmark
Famous quotes containing the words king of and/or king:
“When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology told him all the vices were enclosed in Pandora’s box. “What! all!” said the Prince. “Yes, all.” “No,” said the Prince; “curiosity must have been without.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromwell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)