Early Life and Morganatic Marriage
Kirsten Munck was the daughter of Ludvig Munck (1537–1602) and Ellen Marsvin (1572–1649), members of the wealthy but untitled Danish nobility. Her mother, widowed a second time in 1611, was the greatest landowner on Funen.
Prior to yielding Kirsten to the evident desires of King Christian, her mother negotiated that, because Kirsten was a member of the nobility and not a commoner, she would become his wife rather than his mistress, and that she receive properties in her own name as tokens of the king's honourable intentions. On 31 December 1615, she was married morganatically to the widowed king, but not within a church. Some sources suggests that the wedding took place at Lundegård on Funen. In 1627, she was given the title Countess of Schleswig-Holstein. Kirsten bore the king twelve children, among them the Countess Leonora Christina Ulfeldt.
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“From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers.... In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”
—James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)
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