Søg
Home >
About Denmark >
History >
Reformation & Absolutism >
The Introduction of Absolutism
ABOUT DENMARK
ABOUT DENMARK
History
Reformation & Absolutism
The Population, Agriculture & Trade
Aristocratic Government
The Introduction of Absolutism
Denmark as a Modern Bureaucracy
The Spiritual Life
Danish Sovereignty
The Dano-Swedish Wars
The Peace between Denmark and Sweden
Print
Subscribe
Send
The Introduction of Absolutism
Absolutism was a result of the lengthy political crisis and the acute state of emergency which resulted from the last of the Karl Gustav wars against Sweden in 1657-1660.
Despite his weak position when elected king in 1648, Frederik III’s political skill allowed him to succeed in ousting two of his main adversaries in the Rigsråd as early as the 1650s.
The two were the seneschal Corfitz Ulfeldt and the governor of Norway Hannibal Sehested, who were both Frederik’s brothers-in-law.
The king’s heroic conduct during the siege of Copenhagen in the winter of 1659 had, in addition, made him widely popular at a time when the nobility and the Rigsråd were increasingly being discredited. In October 1660, these events led the estates – the nobility only reluctantly – to create a hereditary monarchy.
The new system meant that the king was no longer dependent on the Rigsråd, and he immediately used his new power to introduce absolutism, which was temporarily established on 10 January 1661 in the Hereditary Monarchy Act before being fully set out in Kongeloven (the Royal Law) of 1665, the basic law of Danish absolutism.
Wilhelm Marstrand's Christian IV on the Trefoldigheden; oil painting, approximately 1864. The picture shows the king during the naval battle of Kolberger Heide on 1 July 1644 where he lost his right eye
The change of system in 1660-1661 introduced a hectic period of reforms which culminated during the reign of Christian V (1670-1699), and lasted until the reign of his successor, Frederik IV.
The aim was to consolidate the new system of government and to ensure that Denmark became a well-organised, hierarchical society with the absolute monarch as its focal point.
Knud J.V. Jespersen, Gyldendal Leksikon
