Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp - History

History

In 1544 the so-called "one-third duchy" was ceded to Adolf, third son of King Frederick I of Denmark and the youngest half-brother of King Christian III of Denmark. Thus the surviving House of Holstein-Gottorp is a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg. The Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp shared the uneasy rule of Schleswig and Holstein with the Kings of Denmark. As such, they were often allies (practically clients) of the Swedes, enemies of the Danes. This longtime alliance was sealed by several dynastic marriages: Christina of Holstein-Gottorp married Charles IX of Sweden, Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp married Charles X Gustavus, Duke Frederick IV married the eldest daughter of King Charles XI of Sweden, and ultimately Prince Adolf Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp ascended to the Swedish throne in 1751, founding the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty of Sweden (ruled 1751–1818).

By the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) and the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660), Denmark released Gottorp from its feudal bonds and recognized the sovereignty of its dukes over the Gottorp portions of the duchy of Schleswig. In fact, these Schleswigers had been relatively independent already for more than a century. Although the duchy of Holstein remained officially a fief of the Empire, in fact by treaty its dukes co-governed both duchies with their formal overlord, the Danish king.

In the Great Northern War the duchy sided with Sweden and was defeated after Danish troops occupied the northern portions of Holstein-Gottorp. According to the 1720 Treaty of Frederiksborg Swedish support for Gottorp ceased, making it impossible for the dukes to regain their lost territories in Schleswig and prolonging their feud with the king of Denmark. Following the peace settlement of 1721, Duke Charles Frederick fled to the court of Peter the Great of Russia, and for some time the Russians intrigued to restore Charles Frederick to his lands in Schleswig. Charles Frederick himself was married to Grand Duchess Anna, Peter's daughter. Peter's successors abandoned his policy of backing the claims of the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp. But from this marriage was born Charles Peter Ulrich, who succeeded to Holstein-Gottorp in 1739, and became heir to the Russian throne upon the accession of his childless aunt Elizabeth in 1741.

Charles Peter Ulrich, who acceded to the Russian throne as Peter III in 1762, was determined to conquer Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark–Norway. When he became emperor in 1762, he immediately signed a generous peace with Prussia and withdrew Russia from the Seven Years' War in order to concentrate fully on an attack upon Denmark. This move angered Russian opinion, since it was considered a betrayal of Russia's sacrifices in the war, as well as placing national interests in jeopardy. At the same time, the Danish army had hastily moved across the border into Mecklenburg, to avoid an invasion of Holstein, and prepared for battle. The two armies stood less than 30 kilometres apart when news from Saint Petersburg suddenly reached the Russian army that Russia's emperor had been overthrown by his wife, who had now acceded to the throne as Empress Catherine II. One of her first actions was to call off the war against Denmark and restore normal relations.

Peter III's son, Paul, the new Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, was a minor under the regency of his mother, the empress. In 1773 she agreed to cede the territorial claims of her son to the Holstein-Gottorp lands still held by Denmark, obtaining in exchange the German countships of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, elevated in 1776 into the duchy of Oldenburg within the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy was given to Paul's grandfather's cousin, the aged Prince-Bishop of Lübeck, head of a younger branch of the Holstein-Gottorp family. This put an end to the Gottorp question, which had generated so many conflicts between the Nordic powers.

The House of Holstein-Gottorp acceded to several European thrones. The dynastic policy of the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp resulted in its cadet branch, the Swedish line, ruling Sweden from 1751 until 1818 and Norway from 1814 to 1818. In 1863, the related House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg — descended from King Christian III of Denmark — became Kings of Denmark and Greece and, in 1905, of Norway.

The Lübeck branch became first dukes and later grand dukes of Oldenburg from (1773 until 1918), while the senior branch ruled Russia briefly in 1762 and then again from 1796 until 1917.