King Christian 2. Michel Sittow · 1515 National Museum of Art, Copenhagen, Denmark

As a young man, Christian experienced his father's conquest of Stockholm in 1497 and four years later the Swedes’ termination of the Union agreement with Denmark. These were experiences which contributed to creating the suspicious mind and the hard line which would later characterize his actions. He had the will to strike hard when he struck. As he himself said, the toughest medicine best cures the illness.

Before Christian acceded to the throne, he spent some time in Norway as Vice King in 1502 and during the period 1506-12. In Norway, he won a few quick and easy victories over the opposition, including the jailing of Bishop Carl of Hamar, who was sympathetic to the Swedes, and installed his friend Erik Valkendorf as Archbishop in the chair where the greatest enemies of the Union had previously sat. At a town hall festivity in Bergen, Christian met and danced with a Dutch woman named Dyveke. This meeting, where he also met her mother Sigbrit Willoms, was to have great significance in his life all the way up to seventeen years later when he fled Copenhagen with Sigbrit Willoms.

When King Hans died, the Danish nobles used the negotiations over the transfer of the royal powers to limit the power of the monarchy in any way they could think of.

Christian 2. was now King during one of the shortest and most eventful periods in the history of the monarchy.

Christian 2.s ten-year reign as King can be divided into three periods, separated by two catastrophes: The fall of Torben Oxe, and the Stockholm Blood Bath.

King Christian 2. P. van Coninxloo · 1521 Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, Denmark

In 1517 Dyveke died, and the cause of her sudden death was never discovered. Christian II charged Torben Oxe, the Lord Lieutenant of Copenhagen Castle, with having caused Dyveke's death, and in spite of the fact that the Privy Council and the court, led by the Queen, interceded, the King had Torben Oxe beheaded in Sct. Gertrude’s Monastery, approximately at the spot where Kultorvet Square is located in present-day Copenhagen. After the execution of Torben Oxe, Christian 2. got into a strongly adversarial relationship with the nobles and the Privy Council, and from then on relied almost exclusively on the counsel of Sigbrit Willoms, Dyveke's mother.

In 1520 Christian 2. attacked Sweden with a large army, commanded by Otto Krumpen. In the battle on the frozen-over Åsunden Lake, Sten Sture was mortally wounded and after battles in Upland with the Swedish peasant army, Christian laid siege to Stockholm. Sten Sture's widow, Christina, was persuaded to give up Stockholm Castle in exchange for complete amnesty for the Swedes. On November 4, Christian let himself be hailed as hereditary King at a legislative council meeting at Brunkeberg, and during the following days there was great festivity at Stockholm Castle to celebrate this violation of an old Swedish entitlement. On the fourth day of the festivities, he ordered that the gates to the castle be closed and jailed a large number of the festively dressed bishops and noblemen who had arrived, confident of the promised amnesty.

With Archbishop Gustav Trolle as the prosecutor, the former opponents were charged with heresy, and upwards of ninety of the accused were sentenced to death. Already the next day the executions took place at the Stortorvet Square in Stockholm, with a great display of brutality. The corpses were later burned on a bonfire outside the city gates.

Nobody knows what Dyveke looked like - this is how Wilhelm Rosenstand imagined her and Christian 2. The painting is from 1885 and is privately owned.

These events caused the dissatisfaction with Christian 2. to break out in the open both in Denmark and abroad. In 1521 Lübeck declared war, and the following year, under the leadership of Gustav 1. Vasa, Sweden broke away. In 1523 Christian put together a large army for a new attack against Sweden. But the garrisoning of the mercenaries on Funen stirred up anger among the peasants, and the imposition of heavy taxes caused the dissatisfaction to flare up, in particular among the population in Jutland, who allied themselves with Count Frederik of Gottorp and Southern Jutland.

The previously so decisive Christian 2. lost his resolve in this situation. Legend has it that on February 10 he had his men row him back and forth twenty times across the Little Belt between Funen and Jutland, only to flee towards the east without any attempt at assembling troops against the uprising in Jutland. On April 13 the King, the Queen and their three children boarded the warship Løven (The Lion) and fled to the Netherlands to spend the next eight years in exile.

In 1531 Christian conducted a landing in Norway, where he was hailed as King, but indecisiveness again prevented him from taking advantage of the situation. The following year he allowed himself to be lured to Copenhagen for negotiations, having received a promise of safe conduct. His father’s brother, King Frederik 1., broke the promise and led Christian away as a prisoner to Sønderborg Castle. In 1549 the now 68-year-old Christian 2. was transferred to Kalundborg Castle in Zealand, where he lived until his death in 1559. He lies buried in Sct. Knud's Church in Odense.