Augusta of Denmark


Princess Augusta of Denmark was the third daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark and Sophia of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, and Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp as the wife of Duke John Adolf. She was politically influential during the reign of her son, Duke Frederick III.

Life

In August 1594 there were negotiations for Augusta to marry Maurice, Prince of Orange, involving her sister the Queen of Scotland, but the plan was abandoned.

Duchess consort of Holstein-Gottorp

She was married on 30 August 1596 in Copenhagen to her parents' cousin Duke John Adolf of Holstein-Gottorp and had eight children. The marriage was tense as the spouses disagreed on religious matters. When in 1610 John Adolf fired the Lutheran vicar Jacob Fabricius the Elder, general provost for Holstein and Schleswig ducal share, and replaced him with a Calvinist, Philipp Caesar, as the official vicar of the ducal court in 1614, Augusta refused to attend service and went by foot to the Lutheran church in Schleswig.
In September 1603 she sent one of her ladies-in-waiting to the court of her sister Anne of Denmark to learn English manners and customs. The lady met Arbella Stuart and Henry Wotton and visited Basing House, Woodstock Palace, and Oxford.

Widowhood

As widow, she fired the Calvinist court vicar and reinstated Jacob Fabricius in 1616. She was politically influential during the reign of her son. She governed Husum castle as her dowry and there promoted arts and culture, music and gardening and schools. She supported and recommended the persecuted writer Anna Ovena Hoyer, when she fled from Holstein-Gottorp to the Swedish queen, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg in 1632. In 1631 she came in conflict with her ruling brother Christian IV of Denmark over the inheritance of their wealthy mother.

Issue

Her marriage to John Adolf produced eight children, four boys and four girls. Her last child, a son, did not survive infancy.
  1. Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp.
  2. Elisabeth Sofie, married on 5 March 1621 to Duke Augustus of Saxe-Lauenburg.
  3. Adolf.
  4. Dorothea Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, married in 1633 to Joachim Ernest, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön, son of John II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg.
  5. Hedwig, married on 15 July 1620 to Augustus, Count Palatine of Sulzbach.
  6. Anna.
  7. John.
  8. Christian.

    Ancestry