Frederick Ferdinand, Hereditary Prince of Denmark ( da, Arveprins Ferdinand) (22 November 1792 – 29 June 1863) was grandson of
King Frederick V and
heir presumptive
An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent or a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question.
...
to the throne from 1848 until his death. Had he lived five months longer, he would have outlived his nephew,
King Frederick VII, and become
King of Denmark.
Early life
![Principe Federico Fernando de Dinamarca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Principe_Federico_Fernando_de_Dinamarca.png)
Prince Ferdinand was born at
Christiansborg Palace in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
on 22 November 1792 as the youngest child of
Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark and Norway
Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark ( da, Frederik; 11 October 1753 – 7 December 1805) was heir presumptive to the thrones of Denmark and Norway. He was the only surviving son of King Frederick V by his second wife, Juliana Maria of Braunsc ...
and
Sophie Frederikke of Mecklenburg, thus being a grandson of late King
Frederick V of Denmark and Norway
Frederick V (Danish and Norwegian: ''Frederik V''; 31 March 1723 – 14 January 1766) was King of Denmark–Norway and Duke of Schleswig-Holstein from 6 August 1746 until his death in 1766. He was the son of Christian VI of Denmark and Sophie Ma ...
.
His uncle
King Christian VII being mentally unstable, his father had acted as regent after the fall of
Johann Friedrich Struensee
Lensgreve Johann Friedrich Struensee (5 August 1737 – 28 April 1772) was a German-Danish physician, philosopher and statesman. He became royal physician to the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark and a minister in the Danish governmen ...
in 1772. But after the coup of 1784, when the king's son
Crown Prince Frederick took power and regency, Hereditary Prince Frederick had been without influence at the court. However, Crown Prince Frederick being without male heirs, Hereditary Prince Frederick and his sons were in the immediate line of succession to the throne.
When Christiansborg Palace was destroyed by fire in 1794, the young Prince and his family moved to
Amalienborg Palace
Amalienborg () is the official residence for the Danish royal family, and is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. Queen Magrethe ll lives here in winter and autumn. It consists of four identical classical palace façades with rococo interiors arou ...
where he was brought up, spending the summers at
Sorgenfri Palace
Sorgenfri Palace ( da, Sorgenfri Slot; lit. "Sorrow free", a direct calque of Sans Souci) is a royal residence of the Danish monarch, located in Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality, on the east side of Lyngby Kongevej, in the northern suburbs of Copenhag ...
.
Marriage
![Arveprins Ferdinand (by Georg Emil Hansen) – Royal Danish Library – unframed](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Arveprins_Ferdinand_%28by_Georg_Emil_Hansen%29_%E2%80%93_Royal_Danish_Library_%E2%80%93_unframed.jpg)
Prince Ferdinand married at
Frederiksberg Palace
Frederiksberg Palace ( da, Frederiksberg Slot) is a Baroque residence, located in Frederiksberg, Denmark, adjacent to the Copenhagen Zoo. It commands an impressive view over Frederiksberg Gardens, originally designed as a palace garden in the ...
on 1 August 1829 his
first cousin once removed
Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...
,
Princess Caroline of Denmark
Princess Caroline of Denmark (28 October 1793 – 31 March 1881), was the eldest surviving daughter of King Frederick VI of Denmark. She was unofficially known as "Kronprinsesse Caroline" (English: Crown Princess Caroline) prior to her marriage, a ...
(1793–1881). She was the eldest daughter of the above-mentioned sonless Crown Prince Frederick, now
King Frederick VI of Denmark. When Frederick VI died in 1839, because of the
Salic Law Caroline did not succeed to the throne, which was inherited by the closest male relative, Ferdinand's elder brother Prince
Christian Frederick
Christian VIII (18 September 1786 – 20 January 1848) was King of Denmark from 1839 to 1848 and, as Christian Frederick, King of Norway in 1814.
Christian Frederick was the eldest son of Hereditary Prince Frederick, a younger son of King Frederic ...
.
Later life
The number of male members of the Royal House was so low in those decades that Ferdinand himself was always very close to the succession. At the death of his brother Christian VIII in 1848, the aged Ferdinand became
heir presumptive
An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent or a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question.
...
.
Ferdinand died childless, which was one of the reasons why the
main branch of the Danish Royal House soon became extinct, triggering the
second war of Schleswig.
Ancestry
External links
The Danish Monarchy* http://runeberg.org/dbl/5/0127.html
{{Authority control
1792 births
1863 deaths
Danish princes
Norwegian princes
House of Oldenburg in Denmark
Grand Commanders of the Order of the Dannebrog
Burials at Roskilde Cathedral