Magnus, Duke of Holstein - King of Livonia

King of Livonia

During the Livonian War, on 10 June 1570, Duke Magnus arrived in Moscow, where he was crowned King of Livonia by Ivan IV. Magnus took the oath of allegiance to Ivan as his overlord and received from the corresponding charter for the vassal kingdom of Livonia in what Ivan termed his patrimony. The treaty between Magnus and Ivan IV was signed by an oprichnik and by a member of the zemskii administration, the dyak Vasily Shchelkalov. The territories of the new kingdom still had to be conquered.

The newly-crowned king Magnus of Livonia left Moscow with 20,000 Russian soldiers with the intention of conquering Swedish-controlled Reval. Ivan’s hope of the support of Frederick II of Denmark, the older brother of Magnus, failed. By the end of March 1571, Magnus gave up the struggle for Reval and abandoned the siege.

In 1577, having lost Ivan’s favor and receiving no support from his brother, Magnus called on the Livonian nobility to rally to him in a struggle against foreign occupation. He was attacked by Ivan’s forces and taken prisoner. On his release, he renounced his royal title. Magnus gave the rights to the throne to the genus of Stefan Batory.

Magnus spent the last six years of his life at the castle of Pilten in the Bishopric of Courland, where he died as a pensioner of the Polish crown.

In 1662, Magnus' body was returned to Denmark and was reburied in the Roskilde Cathedral.