page_title: Herluf Trolle
section_title: Military career
hierarchical_section_title: Herluf Trolle / Military career
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Herluf Trolle and Birgitte Gøye carved in wood. Photo was taken near Herlufsholm, the boarding school they founded.
context_page_description: Herluf Trolle was a Danish naval hero, Admiral of the Fleet and co-founder of Herlufsholm School, a private boarding school at Næstved on the island of Zealand in Denmark.
context_section_description: In 1559, Trolle was appointed Admiral and Inspector of the Fleet, a task which occupied all his time and energy. In 1563 he superseded the aged Peder Skram as admiral in chief in the Northern Seven Years' War. On 20 May he went to sea with twenty-one ships of the line and five smaller vessels and, after uniting with a Lübeck squadron of six line ships, encountered, off the isle of Öland, a superior Swedish fleet of thirty-eight ships under Norwegian born, Swedish admiral Jakob Bagge (1502–1577). Supported by two other Danish ships, Trolle attacked the Swedish flagship Mars (also known as Makalös or  Jutehataren), then the largest warship in northern waters, but was beaten off at nightfall. The fight was renewed at six o'clock the following morning, when the Makalös was again attacked and forced to surrender, but blew up immediately afterwards, no fewer than 300 Lübeck and Danish sailors perishing with her. But the Swedish admiral was captured and the remnant of the Swedish fleet took refuge at Stockholm. 
  Despite the damage done to his own fleet and flagship Fortuna by this great victory, Trolle, on 14 August, fought another but indecisive action with a second Swedish fleet under Finnish born, Swedish nobleman and Naval Admiral Klas Horn (1517–1566), Lord of Joensuu, his distant kinsman, and kept the sea until 13 October. Trolle spent the winter partly at his castle of Herlufsholm completing his long-cherished plan of establishing a school for all classes, and partly at Copenhagen equipping a new fleet for the ensuing campaign. On 1 June 1565 he set sail with twenty-eight liners, which were reinforced off Fehmarn by five Lübeck vessels. Horn had put to sea still earlier with a superior fleet and the two admirals encountered off Fehmarn on 4 June. The fight was severe but indecisive, and both commanders finally separated to repair their ships. Trolle had been severely wounded in the thigh and shoulder, but he would not let the ship's surgeon see to his injuries until every one else had been attended to. This characteristic act of unselfishness was his undoing, for he died at Copenhagen on 25 June, seventeen days after they had put him ashore.
caption: Statue of Herluf Trolle and Birgitte Gøye near Herlufsholm
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