Kirsten Munk

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Kirsten Munk with her three eldest daughters and their son on a painting by Jacob van Dort from 1623 ( Rosenborg Castle )

Kirsten Munk (born July 6, 1598 , † April 19, 1658 in Boller near Horsens , Jutland) was the second wife of the Danish King Christian IV from 1615 to 1630 .

Life

Kirsten Munk was the only daughter of the Danish nobleman Ludvig Munk (1537–1602) and Ellen Marsvin (1572–1649). At the time of his marriage to 17-year-old Ellen in 1589, her father was a feudal lord of Trøndelag . King Christian deposed him for abuse of power in 1596 and sentenced him to fines. Ludvig's brother Uncle Peder Munk was Reichsmarschall until 1608. Kirsten's mother married Knud Rud after his death and was widowed for the second time in 1611. She was one of the largest landowners in Jutland thanks to the inheritance of her parents and two husbands and her own business acumen. She mediated her daughter's acquaintance with Christian IV.

In 1615, Kirsten Munk became the second wife of the Danish king, who was 21 years his senior, in a morganatic marriage . As an equal, she could not become queen, but her mother managed to get the king to marry her - even if without a public church wedding - so that she received a marriage contract and a widow's pension was assured. The superstitious king also had his court astrologer calculate the date for the letter in which he declared Kirsten his wife. In the following 14 years, Kirsten Munk had twelve children, eight of whom reached adulthood. Kirsten has been described as an intelligent and independent personality. She accompanied the king on his travels and also during Denmark's participation in the Thirty Years War . Her political influence on him increased, which caused her opposition in the nobility to grow. In 1627 she was made Countess of Schleswig-Holstein . In 1621 Christian IV commissioned his mother-in-law to buy the goods Boller and Rosenvold as a straw man . The estate complex should serve Kirsten as a Wittum , but her mother should have the usufruct as long as the king lived.

In 1627/28 she began a relationship with Otto Ludwig Rheingraf zu Salm , whom she had met in 1626 as a mercenary leader in Christian's army, and moved further and further away from the king. After she denied him access to her bedroom on November 10, 1628, the couple broke up. Kirsten left Copenhagen and tried to follow her lover to Sweden. Christian's aversion to her seems to have been encouraged by his new mistress, Kirsten Munk's former servant Vibeke Kruse , under whose influence he refused to recognize her youngest daughter, who was born 10 months later. It is very likely that the relationship with Vibeke was initiated by Ellen Marsvin and Kirsten knew about it herself. In 1630 the king divorced Kirsten and she had to leave the court for good. She lived practically under house arrest on the Rosenvold and Boller estates, which her mother had to leave to her on the orders of the king. However, there are lists from which it can be inferred that she lived in great prosperity. According to a register drawn up by herself in 1661, the large property that her uncle Otte Marsvin managed for her included 225 farms and 46 craftsmen in the Harden Bjerre and Hatting.

Her children stayed close to their father under Vibekes care and received an excellent education. The youngest, Dorothea Elisabeth, called kasserede frøken (the rejected young lady), was given to her grandmother. In 1636 she was sent to a convent school in Cologne , where she converted to Catholicism and became a nun in 1646. Kirsten Munk's older daughters married Christian IV at a very young age to powerful Danish nobles, members of the Danish Imperial Council , whom he wanted to bind more closely through his marriage to his daughters. The "party of the sons-in-law", closely associated with Crown Prince Christian , who died in 1647 , exercised actual power in the country in the last years of Christian IV's life. Kirsten's repeated requests for mercy to the king were rejected, however. Christian IV did not send for her again until she was on his deathbed, but she appeared too late in Copenhagen. Shortly after his death in 1648, Kirsten's marriage to the late king and the legitimate birth of all of her children, including the youngest, were legitimized. Vibeke Kruse, whom Kirsten's children and sons-in-law had long opposed, was immediately removed from the court and died just weeks after the king.

After the fall of her son-in-law Corfitz Ulfeldt and his flight to Sweden, Kirsten Munk allegedly supported Karl X. Gustav's invasion of Denmark financially. In 1657, the Danish government withdrew the title of Count of Schleswig-Holstein from her and her children. When she fell ill in early 1658, her daughter Leonora Christina Ulfeldt was not allowed to visit her. But after her death, her body was transferred to the Swedish occupied Odense and buried in the Sankt Knudskirche with great splendor.

progeny

  • two stillbirths in 1616 and 1617
  • Anna Cathrine (born August 10, 1618 Frederiksborg; † August 20, 1633), engaged to court master Frants Rantzau (1604–1632), a grandson of Heinrich Rantzau
  • Sophie Elisabeth (born September 20, 1619 Skanderborg; † April 29, 1657), married on October 10, 1634 Christian von Pentz (1600-1651)
  • Leonore Christine (* July 8, 1621 Frederiksborg; † March 16, 1698 Maribo Monastery ), married on October 9, 1636 in Copenhagen Corfitz Ulfeldt
  • Waldemar Christian (born June 26, 1622 Frederiksborg; † February 26, 1656 Lubin), Count of Schleswig-Holstein
  • Elisabeth Augusta (born December 28, 1623 Kronborg; † August 9, 1677), married Hans Lindenov on October 27, 1639 in Copenhagen
  • Friedrich Christian (born April 26, 1625 - † July 17, 1627)
  • Christiane (born July 15, 1626 Haderslevhus (Hansborg); † May 6, 1670), married Hannibal Sehested on November 6, 1642 in Copenhagen
  • Hedwig (born July 15, 1626 Haderslevhus (Hansborg), † October 5, 1678 Kristianstad ), married on November 6, 1642 in Copenhagen Ebbe Ulfeldt
  • Marie Cathrine (May 29, 1628 - September 1, 1628)
  • Dorothea Elisabeth (born September 1, 1629 Kronborg; † March 18, 1687 Augustinian monastery in Cologne), since 1646 nun (probably not from Christian)

literature

Web links

Commons : Kirsten Munk  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Knut Gjerset: History of the Norwegian People , Volume 2, 1915, p 159. 185th
  2. ^ Hans Gregersen: Ellen Marsvin (1990), p. 53
  3. Annette Hoff: Boller Slot i 650 år: en godshistorie om mennesker, magt og muld ved Horsens Fjord , 2012, p. 127.
  4. Sune Dalgaard / Renate Böje / Klaus-Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt : A little bit about Wiebeke Kruse, translation from Danish 2007/2009 - New insights into the origin, family and life of Wiebeke Kruse ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2013 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alt-bramstedt.de
  5. Hoff: Boller Slot i 650 år , p. 135
  6. Klaus-J. Lorenzen-Schmidt: Wiebke Kruse - a Holstein farmer's daughter? ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alt-bramstedt.de