Christian ix wife

From to , he was concurrently Duke of Schleswig , Holstein and Lauenburg. Although having close family ties to the Danish royal family , he was originally not in the immediate line of succession to the Danish throne. Following the early death of his father in , Christian grew up in Denmark and was educated at the Military Academy of Copenhagen.

After unsuccessfully seeking the hand of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in marriage, he married his double second cousin, Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel , in In , Christian was chosen as heir presumptive to the Danish throne in light of the expected extinction of the senior line of the House of Oldenburg. The beginning of his reign was marked by the Danish defeat in the Second Schleswig War and the subsequent loss of the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg which made the king immensely unpopular.

The following years of his reign were dominated by political disputes, for Denmark had only become a constitutional monarchy in and the balance of power between the sovereign and parliament was still in dispute. In spite of his initial unpopularity and the many years of political strife, in which the king was in conflict with large parts of the population, his popularity recovered towards the end of his reign, and he became a national icon due to the length of his reign and the high standards of personal morality with which he was identified.

Christian's six children with Louise married into other European royal families, earning him the sobriquet "the father-in-law of Europe ".

Frederick viii of denmark

Christian IX was born between 10 and 11 a. Together with his wife, Caroline Amalie of Augustenborg , he had traveled from Augustenborg to Gottorp so that he could hold his godson at the christening, which was held at the end of May in the chapel of Gottorp Castle. Prince Christian's father was the head of the ducal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck , a junior male branch of the House of Oldenburg.

Prince Charles had made a career in Denmark, where he was a Danish field marshal and Royal Governor of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. As such, Prince Christian was eligible to succeed in the twin duchies of Schleswig-Holstein , but not first in line. Through his mother, he was thus a great-grandson of Frederick V, great-great-grandson of George II of Great Britain and a descendant of several other monarchs, but had no direct claim to any European throne.

Initially, the young prince grew up with his parents and many brothers and sisters at his maternal grandparents' residence at Gottorf Castle , the habitual seat of the royal governors of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.