He was the last Danish monarch of the older Royal branch of the House of Oldenburg and the last king of Denmark to rule as an absolute monarch. During his reign, he signed a constitution that established a Danish parliament and made the country a constitutional monarchy. The king's first two marriages both ended in scandal and divorce.
They separated in and divorced in On 7 August in Frederiksborg Palace , he morganatically married Louise Christina Rasmussen , whom he created Lensgrevinde Danner in , a milliner and former ballet dancer who had for many years been his acquaintance or mistress , the natural daughter of Gotthilf L. This marriage seems to have been happy, although it aroused great moral indignation among the nobility and the bourgeoisie.
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Rasmussen was denounced as a vulgar gold digger by her enemies, but viewed as an unaffected daughter of the people by her admirers and seems to have had a stabilizing effect on him.
She also worked at maintaining his popularity by letting him meet the people of the provinces. The expectation that Frederick would not likely produce offspring, despite numerous affairs, was widespread, but sources rarely state the reasons. Some speculate that Frederick was infertile. See below: Succession crisis. It has been claimed that Frederick did indeed father a son, Frederik Carl Christian Poulsen, born on 21 November , as a result of his relationship with Else Maria Guldborg Pedersen also referred to as Marie Poulsen , which took place after his first two unhappy marriages.
This was first asserted in Maaloe possesses four letters from Frederick to Marie Poulsen acknowledging paternity; these are quoted in her book, published in It has been claimed Frederick had a same-sex relationship with his friend, Carl Berling โ , publisher and owner of the newspaper Berlingske Tidende. Carl Christian was much liked by the King, to the extent that he insisted on signing the new constitution on Carl Christian's 8th birthday on 5 June To retain a tinge of decency, the King married Louise Rasmussen and the trio then moved into the royal castle, where Berling was appointed Chamberlain and remained until The public indignation within higher circles over Frederick's morganatic marriage is well-known, but reasons have rarely been explained in detail.
