ULRIKE ELEONORA OF DENMARK

'Ulrike Eleonora' (1656 - 1693) (the name ''Ulrike'' is a Danish version of the name, in Swedish she is called 'Ulrika Eleonora'), was the daughter of King Frederick III of Denmark and his wife Queen Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. On May 6, 1680, she married to King Charles XI of Sweden. She had seven children, of whom only three survived her, a son Charles, and two daughters, Hedvig Sofia and Ulrika Eleonora.
Queen Ulrike Eleonora is in Sweden often called "the elder" to separate her from her daughter, the future queen regnant. She was promised to Charles XI very young. During the Scanian War between Denmark and Sweden 1675-1679 she was encouraged to break the engagement, and was even considered as a possible wife by the German-Roman Emperor, but she refused to break the engagement. She gained a reputation for exhibiting kindness to Swedish prisoners during the war.

Contents

Life as queen

Family

Reference

Life as queen

Ulrike Eleonora was described as beautiful and kind and was received with enthusiasm in Stockholm, and according to legend, her husband was never unfaithful to her, which was unusual for a king during this era; when he died, he told his mother he had not been happy since his wife died. However, he was also said to have been by nature cold and unable to show her the love he felt for her, and above all, he was forever under the strong influence of his mother, Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, who never surrended the position of queen to her daughter-in-law. Her husband referred to her as simply "My wife" and called his mother "The Queen". When the foreign ambassadors paid their respects, they always came to Hedwig Eleonora first, and then to Ulrike Eleonora.
Neglected by her husband and under the shadow of her mother-in-law in the court, she is reputed to have been mostly unhappy; her happiest days were when her brother-in-law and sister the duke and duchess of Holstein-Gottorp came to visit, and the days when she and her husband and children visited the simple manor Karlberg that her husband used as a relaxation place; here she enjoyed a simple life away from the court, and developed an interest in painting. She was also interested in theatre and dance, and performed plays with the ladies at court; among the nobles participating in her amateur-perfomances were the famous beauty Aurora Köningsmarck with her sister.
She had no politicall influence; she did try, during the reduction, to speak on the behalf of the people whos property he confiscated, but he simply told her that he had not married her for that; she then helped the people whose property had been confiscated by compensating them economically in secret.
In 1690, her husband named her as possible regent if he should die during his son's minority, but her health declined due to frequent childbirth and she died three years later. She was completely in the shadow of her husband's mother, and is remembered in Swedish history mostly for this sad fact. Only after her death, her husband referred to her as Queen.

Family

#Hedvig Sofia, later Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp (1681-1708)
#King Charles XII (1682-1718)
#Gustaf (1683-1685)
#Ulrik (1684-1685)
#Fredrik (1685-1685)
#Carl Gustaf (1686-1687)
#Queen Ulrika Eleonora (1688-1741)

Reference

★ Herman Lindquist; "'History of the queens of Sweden'".