Christian IV. did a great deal to promote the industries and commerce
of Norway. The Hanseatic office in Bergen was held in check, and
Norwegian trading enterprises were encouraged. The mining industry,
which had heretofore been neglected, became quite active. When silver
had been discovered in Sandsvaer, in 1623, he founded the mining-town
of Kongsberg. He also established the copper-works at Röros, where
copper was accidentally discovered by the peasant, Hans Aasen, in
1640. Oslo having been destroyed by fire, King Christian requested
the inhabitants to move across the bay, closer to the fortress of
Akershus, where he laid out the new town, the present capital of
Christiania (1624). At the mouth of the Otter River he founded the town
of Christianssand (1643), which afterward became the seat of the bishop
instead of Stavanger.
King Christian was very often in Norway. The last time was during the
year following the Peace of Bromsebro. After a pleasant sojourn of
seven weeks he returned to Denmark, where, shortly afterward, he died
(February 28, 1648), in the seventy-first year of his life.
Christian IV. was first married to Anna Katherina of Brandenburg,
who died in 1612. In 1615 he entered into a morganatic marriage with
Kristine Munk, a lady of noble family, to whom he gave the title of
Countess of Schleswig-Holstein, and with whom he lived happily many
years. They had several children, among whom was the highly gifted
Eleonora Kristine, who was married to the Danish nobleman, Corfitz
Ulfeld, and who, with her ambitious husband, exerted a great influence
over the king during the latter years of his life.
CHAPTER XLVII
_Frederick III. (1648-1670)--Absolutism Introduced (1660)_
After the death of Christian IV. some months elapsed before the Council
of State would agree to elect his son, Frederick III., to the throne.
He was finally elected toward the end of the year 1648, after having
given the nobility still greater power, by signing a more humiliating
charter than any king had yet granted; but it also became the last one.
The conditions were such that he could not exercise any of the powers
of a king without the consent of the council.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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