Louise of Hesse-Kassel - Converging The Succession Rights

Converging The Succession Rights

Denmark's crown was hereditary, according to the Lex Regia, among the descendants of Frederick III of Denmark (who was the first hereditary monarch of Denmark – before him the kingdom was officially elective). The agnatic descendants of Frederick III became extinct when Frederick VII died, and at that point, the succession law promulgated by Frederick III provided for succession by male-preference primogeniture. Different camps, within and without Denmark, supported different candidates for the throne. The question was solved by an election and a separate law to confirm the new successor.

Some rights belonged also to the line of Glucksburg, a cadet branch of the royal Oldenburg dynasty. They were also heirs of Frederick III through an ancestress who was a daughter of King Frederick V of Denmark. Moreover they were eligible to succeed to the Duchy of Holstein, which meant the twin duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. Prince Christian was of this lineage, but not the eldest son, nor did the claim of this branch to either Denmark or Holstein place them first in line for any throne.

Still, Prince Christian had been a foster "grandson" of the sonless royal couple Frederick VI and his queen, Marie (Marie Sophie Frederikke of Hesse), thus he was known to the royal court and familiar with the traditions of recent monarchs. Christian was a great-nephew of Queen Marie and a descendant of a first cousin of Frederick VI. He was brought up as Danish, having lived in Danish-speaking lands of the royal dynasty, and was not attached to Germany. Although these factors meant nothing legally, they made Christian an attractive potential candidate for the throne from the Danish viewpoint.

Louise's father, Landgrave Frederick of Hesse-Kassel, a non-reiging German prince, had chosen to become a Danish military officer. He had been one (and perhaps the foremost) of the candidates considered by Christian VIII of Denmark to succeed to the Danish throne if the latter's male line died out. Landgrave Frederick was of nearly Danish upbringing, having lived all his life in Denmark.

When Christian wed Louise, daughter of one of the closest female relatives of Frederick VII, the marriage combined two potential claims to Denmark's throne and strengthened both. As a niece of King Christian VIII, Louise was not the rightful heir to his crown, but had a stronger claim to it than either Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg or the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. As Louise and Christian had married, Louise's mother, brother, and elder sister, all princes and princesses of Hesse, renounced their Danish succession rights in favour of Louise and her husband. Prince Christian's wife thus became the closest female heiress of Christian VIII, and later of Frederick VII.

In 1847, Prince Christian was, with the approval of Europe's Great Powers, chosen as successor to the Danish throne by Christian VIII (who did not expect his only surviving son, the future Frederik VII, to father dynastic sons). This choice of heir was made more dynastically palatable by the fact that, thanks to the mass renunciations of the Hesses, Christian's wife Louise became the heiress eventual to the crown, meaning that the couple's children would be heirs to the throne both by right of international treaty and by compliance with the Lex Regia. This resolved the succession to the Danish crown, but not Denmark's claim on the twin duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. German Holstein's historic law of succession was Salic and could not so easily be reconciled with Christian's claim so long as the Augustenborgs survived and Prussia offered itself as the international champion of German nationalism. The result of this conflict was the (Second War of Schleswig).

When Frederick died in 1863, Christian took the throne as Christian IX