What's So Old About an Oldenburg? (Oldenburg, Part 1)

House of Oldenburg Coat of Arms

 I have spent considerable time discussing extinct and dissolved dynasties but have not yet completed my survey of extant dynasties. There are primarily two remaining for Europe, and a few smaller singular ones as well. However, no other has been able to maintain such an expansionist vision as the House of Oldenburg.

The Kalmar Union

The Kalmar Union was in crisis in 1448. The precarious union of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway had never been strong and certainly was wavering when the former king, Christopher of Bavaria, died. His widow, the Dowager Queen Dorothea of Brandenburg, needed to keep the union together and the Danish courts turned to a distant descendant of a bygone king, Count Christian of Oldenburg, to reunify the three states. Sweden and Norway were caught unawares. Sweden elected its own king, Charles VIII, instead of returning to the union, while Norway was fought over by the two rivals. Norway first went to Sweden, but quickly an agreement was made that attached it to Denmark in perpetuity. At the same time, Christian I married Dorothea, solidifying his claim to the Danish throne. Political catastrophe befell Charles VIII and the Kalmar Union was reestablished under the rule of Christian I and the the House of Oldenburg. In 1460, Christian I added to his Oldenburg lands the duchy of Schleswig, in Denmark, and country of Holstein, in the Holy Roman Empire. Holstein was elevated to a duchy soon after, allowing Christian I to play in the realm of German politics.

Oldenburg power in Sweden declined steadily over the next 100 years until Christian II, in 1520, massacred 100 anti-Union protesters in the Stockhold Bloodbath. The subsequent withdrawl by Sweden from the Kalmar Union the next year was no surprise and the House of Vasa took power there for the next century or so. Norway suffered from the dissolution, and in 1536 was permanently made into a Danish province, with all its hereditary lands such as Greenland and Iceland being transferred to Danish control (Greenland remains a Danish possession today). Denmark then jumped headlong into the Reformation, with Frederick I declaring Denmark-Norway to be a Lutheran country in 1526. However, religious tolerance toward Catholics caused internal strife and external war. When Frederick I died, the Catholic members of the Danish courts refused to acknowledge Frederick's son, Christian III, as king. The Catholics raised up Count Christopher of Oldenburg, a distant cousin of Christian's, as a possible regent for Christian III, while other Catholics tried to return Christian II, who had been deposed in 1523, to the throne. All of it was for naught, though. Despite a thorough ravaging across his lands, Christian III survived it all, defeated all his enemies, and reestablished Danish control. Denmark has been Lutheran ever since.

Christian IV, King of Denmark

Denmark was now a power to be reckoned with. After watching the progress of the Thirty Years War, in 1625 King Christian IV built up an army and set out for Catholic possessions in Germany. Unfortunately, his allies were weak and distracted, unwilling to give him more than lip-service aid. The Catholic army of Emperor Ferdinand II, on the other hand, was strong and had the element of surprise, since Christian IV didn't know it existed. After many failures and the conquest of half of Denmark, Christian IV negotiated a treaty that removed Denmark from German politics in perpetuity. More failures in the Torstenson War against the Netherlands and Sweden resulted in the loss of duties from ships passing through Danish waters in the Baltic Sea. Sweden took control of a large chunk of southern Norway and the Dutch no longer had to pay transport taxes to trade with Sweden. When Christian died, Frederick III decided to get revenge on Sweden. The Second Northern War, as it was called, was yet another Danish failure. Denmark was ravaged by Sweden and the Swedes were even able to invade Copenhagen, with the ice connecting it to the mainland frozen over in a rare cold spell. Charles X of Sweden wished to remove Denmark from existance but Copenhagen held fast against the Swedish army, especially once Dutch help finally came. When Prussia, Poland, and Austria all joined the side of Denmark, Sweden finally capitulated. In the Treaty of Copenhagen, borders were agreed upon and the territorial borders of Denmark and Sweden have remained the same ever since.

Frederick III and his successors entered into the age of absolutism as monarchs with a cause but no power to do anything about it. Twice they tried to go to war with Sweden again in hopes of reclaiming lost lands, and twice they failed to do so. Over the course of the 18th century, Denmark centralized around Copenhagen even while the Danish nobles stole power from the king. This all ended in 1807. The Napoleonic Wars had forced most of Europe to take sides, but Denmark was resolute on remaining neutral. Nonetheless, Britain feared that France would invade Denmark and take their ships, so Britain captured the majority of the Danish navy and added it into their own. Denmark stayed out of the war until it joined with France against the Sixth Coalition. It won some victories but lost the war and, in 1814, was forced to cede Norway to Sweden despite strong Norweigan resistance.

Kingdom of Denmark-Norway

The age of revolutions followed and on June 5, 1849, Denmark became a constitutional monarchy. King Frederick VII was forced to cede some power to the courts although he still retained significant executive power. Meanwhile, the problem of what to do with the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, which was majority German, came to the forefront. Two wars took place from 1849 until 1864 to determine its rightful place in the Danish government. In the end, Prussia won out and annexed both duchies to Brandenburg-Prussia. Denmark had to reinvent itself after this, and in 1901, King Christian IX finally allowed the population to run itself by permitting the majority in parliament to run the government. Prior to this time, the nobles still controlled govenrment regardless of parliamentary majorities.

Queen Margarethe II of Denmark

King Christian X was the last king to truly use his executive power when he dismissed the government in 1920. This sparked an event known as the Easter Crisis, after which the king promised to not interfere in politics again, despite the constitution permitting royal interference. In 1918, Iceland became an independent country in personal union with Denmark, with Christian X remaining king of both. However, after Iceland's conquest by Britain during World War II, the union dissolved in 1944 with Iceland becoming a republic. Queen Margarethe II has been the ruler of Denmark since 1972 and when she dies, the House of Oldenburg will at last be at an end in Denmark, being replaced with the House of Laborde de Monpezat.

In Norway, despite Sweden's annexation of the state in 1814, the House of Oldenburg returned in 1905. Political unrest against the Swedes ended with Sweden renouncing their overlordship over Norway and Norway becoming an independent kingdom. The government rejected a republican government and instead elected Prince Charles of Denmark, second son of King Frederick VIII Denmark, as their new king. Charles took on the regnal name Haakon VII and led his country through a harsh neutrality during World War I. He attempted the same during World War II but was forced to flee in 1940 to London, where he set up his wartime headquarters to retake Norway.

Harald V, King of Norway

Since the war, the kings of Norway have been held in the highest esteem and are quite possibly the most highly favored monarchs in Europe. Both Haakon VII and his son, Olav V, had massive funeral ceremonies fully funded by the people with overwhelming public support. The current king, Harald V, is popular in both Norway and the United Kingdom, where he spent much of his youth. His powers are much weaker than those of his predecessors but he still retains some say in the Norwegian government.