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| Denmark’s Renaissance
king |
| Courtesy City of Copenhagen |
Most Danish rulers have been reasonably sensible
fellows, or by royal standards anyway. They spent
a lot of time and national energy warring with Sweden,
but they never produced an Ivan the Terrible or
a Caligula or even a King George. The closest they
could get to a “character” was Christian
IV, who ruled from 1588 to 1648. He was a big hearty
fellow, described as having a “woman in one
hand and a bottle in the other.”
He was a happy warrior, but a singularly unlucky
one. He got involved in Germany’s catastrophic
Thirty Years' War, a devastating slaughter that
has, for sheer wanton destruction of human life,
been compared unfavorably to the bubonic plague.
Christian’s involvement culminated in a chilling
defeat in 1626, which broke Denmark’s military
back. He had to sign a degrading peace treaty in
1629 while Gustav Adolf, King of Sweden, sailed
along with victories, making Sweden the dominant
power in the Baltic.
In the battle of Kelberger, Christian lost, at
67, his right eye, and then got back up to rejoin
the fight. Paintings, statues and plays have commemorated
this. The blood-spattered clothes that the king
wore during the battle are preserved at Rosenborg
castle.
Like Peter the Great, he was a builder and a spendthrift.
He imported a Brit named John Dowland as his songwriter
and lutist, paying him the same salary as the prime
minister. It took 2,000 oak trees to construct his
flagship for a trip to England in 1606.
“He built Copenhagen,” says Bo Lidegaard.
“He was our one Renaissance king.” He
built the Round Tower, in 1642, dedicated to Tycho
Brahe. He built the Church of the Trinity. He built
Holmen and then Rosenborg castle, his out-of-town
residence. France's Louis 14th is usually mentioned
by way of comparison. Christian also bankrupted
himself and the state doing it. But if he broke
the country financially, he reinforced its power.
And today, that Round Tower gets almost as many
visitors as the Little Mermaid.
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