page_title: Frederick III of Denmark
section_title: Assault on Copenhagen repelled
hierarchical_section_title: Frederick III of Denmark / Reign / Assault on Copenhagen repelled
caption_attribution_description: English: King Frederick III of Denmark painted at the Battle of Nyborg in November 1659 by Wolfgang Heinbach. However, the king was not actually present at the battle.
context_page_description: Frederick III was king of Denmark and Norway from 1648 until his death in 1670. He also governed under the name Frederick II as diocesan administrator of the Prince-Bishopric of Verden, and the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen.
  He instituted absolute monarchy in Denmark-Norway in 1660, confirmed by law in 1665 as the first in Western historiography. He also ordered the creation of the Throne Chair of Denmark. He was born the second-eldest son of Christian IV and Anne Catherine of Brandenburg. Frederick was only considered an heir to the throne after the death of his older brother Prince Christian in 1647.
  In order to be elected king after the death of his father, Frederick conceded significant influence to the nobility. As king, he fought two wars against Sweden. He was defeated in the Dano-Swedish War of 1657–1658, but attained great popularity when he weathered the 1659 Assault on Copenhagen and won the Dano-Swedish War of 1658–1660. Later that year, Frederick used his popularity to disband the elective monarchy in favour of absolute monarchy, which lasted until 1848 in Denmark. He married Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg, with whom he fathered Christian V of Denmark.
context_section_description: But Charles's insatiable lust for conquest and his ineradicable suspicion of Denmark induced him to endeavour to despatch an inconvenient neighbour without any reasonable cause or declaration of war in defiance of all international standards of acceptable behavior on the part of rulers. Terror was the first feeling produced at Copenhagen by the landing of the main Swedish army at Korsør on Zealand on 17 July 1658. None had anticipated the possibility of such a sudden and brutal attack, and everyone knew that the Danish capital was very inadequately fortified and garrisoned.
  During this war, Frederick attained great popularity in the general public, as he rebuked the advice of his counsellors to flee Copenhagen with the memorable words "I will die in my nest" and actively led the defense of the city. On 8 August, representatives from all Estates in the capital urged the necessity of a vigorous resistance, and the citizens of Copenhagen, headed by the mayor Hans Nansen, protested their unshakable loyalty to the king and their determination to defend Copenhagen to the uttermost. The Danes had only three weeks of warning of the approaching danger, and the vast and dilapidated line of defence had at first only 2,000 regular defenders. But the government and the people displayed a memorable and exemplary energy under the constant supervision of the king and queen and mayor Nansen. By the beginning of September, all the breaches were repaired, the walls bristled with cannons, and 7,000 men were under arms.
  So strong was the city by this time that Charles X, abandoning his original intention of carrying the place by assault, began a regular siege. This he also was forced to abandon when an auxiliary Dutch fleet reinforced and reprovisioned the garrison and defeated him on 29 October in the Battle of the Sound. The Dutch then assisted in the liberation of the Danish Isles in 1659. Thus, the Danish capital had saved the Danish monarchy. The war was ended by the Treaty of Copenhagen in May 1660, which confirmed the cession of Scania, Halland, and Blekinge from the Treaty of Roskilde, while Bornholm and parts of Schleswig reverted to Denmark.
caption: Frederik III during the battle of Nyborg. Painted by Wolfgang Heimbach, 1659. However Frederik III did not himself attend the battle, making this an effective piece of propaganda
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