King Christian 6. Johann Salomon Wahl · 1740 Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, Denmark

In 1721 he married Sophie Magdalene of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. In contrast to his father, who was very fond of traveling, the melancholy and religious Christian VI for the most part stayed at home. Except for a single visit to Norway and to the Duchies in southern Jutland, he mostly kept to his desk.

He was a shy and reserved man who kept his distance from the public, and in time life at the Court also settled into a state of rigid and boring monotony. The only music played at the Court was religious music, there was no dancing, and for health and religious reasons, Christian 6. only rarely participated in the traditional royal hunts.

Christian 6.s indignation over Frederik 4.s womanizing and bigamistic life caused him to – as one of his first acts as King – set aside his father's will. He dispossessed the Dowager Queen Anna Sofie, his father's second wife, of a large portion of the fortune she had inherited and banished her to Clausholm manor house, from where Frederik 4. had abducted her years earlier.

The King never became particularly popular because of the severe piety that was a result of his heavily religious upbringing; a piety that also showed in prohibitions against all types of amusement on Sundays.

In 1735, Christian 6. issued the notorious Sunday Observance Act about forced church attendance, and in 1736 he introduced compulsory confirmation.

In order to maintain the dignity of the absolute monarchy, Christian 6. kept an expensive court and built a series of very expensive castles, among the first being Christiansborg Castle, Hirchholm Palace, and the Hermitage Palace.

These costly projects were financed by a separate privy purse, where the income was primarily derived from the Sund Toll (at Elsinore). These large and prestigious building projects, which were carried out during times of financial crises, caused a certain amount of indignation among the population, and brought the royal house into financial difficulties.

The reign of Christian 6. was marked by financial decline. Agriculture suffered from crop failures and cattle plague, and the bad financial times contributed to the abolition of the militia in 1730. As long as the peasants were listed in the register for the militia, they had not been permitted to leave the estate where they lived, so now a large number of peasants took advantage of the new freedom to flee to the cities or other parts of the country in order to avoid having to endure the inhuman villeinage under tyrannical lords.

Under severe pressure from the large land owners, who were losing laborers, an act of adscription was introduced in 1733. Adscription prevented the peasants from fleeing the distressed farms and estates by prohibiting peasants between the ages of 14 and 36 from leaving the estate where they were born. It was only 55 years later that the peasants got rid of this hated and repressive system.

The law degree was introduced in 1736, as Christian 6. wanted to establish a class of public servants in Denmark. The same year the Kurantbanken, a note issuing bank, was established and was the forerunner of the present-day Nationalbanken.

Christian 6. was only 46 years old when he died on August 6, 1746. He was buried in Roskilde Cathedral and was succeeded by his son, Frederik 5.