Birth and family and
Hereditary Prince Frederick with their three eldest children. Prince Christian stands next to his father. Portrait by
Jens Juel, 1790. Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark and Norway was born late in the morning on 18 September 1786 at
Christiansborg Palace, the principal residence of the
Danish Monarchy on the island of
Slotsholmen in central
Copenhagen. He was officially the eldest son of
Hereditary Prince Frederick of Denmark and Norway and Duchess
Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. His father was a younger son of the deceased King
Frederick V of Denmark-Norway and his second wife, Duchess
Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and his mother was a daughter of
Duke Louis of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. On 28 September 1786, the young prince was baptized with the names
Christian Frederick in his mother's chamber at Christiansborg Palace by the royal confessor Christian Bastholm. His godparents were
King Christian VII (his uncle), the dowager queen
Juliana Maria (his grandmother),
Crown Prince Frederick (his cousin),
Princess Louise Augusta (his cousin), and
Hereditary Prince Frederick Christian of Augustenburg. In a letter written by
Crown Prince Frederick to his brother-in-law
Duke Frederick Christian II of Augustenburg in 1805, he thus mentions the Hereditary Prince's goodwill towards his hofmarschall and continues: When Prince Christian Frederick was born, his father's half-brother,
Christian VII, was the King of
Denmark-Norway, but due to the king's mental illness, he was not able to rule himself. From 1772, Hereditary Prince Frederick had ruled together with his mother, the Dowager Queen
Juliane Marie, and their adviser
Ove Høegh-Guldberg. In 1784, however, the king's only son, the young Crown Prince Frederick (later King
Frederick VI), had seized power in a
palace revolution and was now the real ruler. In Prince Christian Frederick's childhood, his family had a strained relationship with the Crown Prince and his family as a result of these power struggles, but gradually the relationship between the two branches of the royal family was normalized.
Childhood and education , 1802. Prince Christian Frederick spent the first years of his life with his siblings in the vast and magnificent
Baroque Christiansborg Palace. As the family's summer residence, Hereditary Prince Friedrich in 1789 bought the smaller and elegant
country house,
Sorgenfri Palace, on the banks of the small river
Mølleåen in
Kongens Lyngby, north of Copenhagen. On 26 February 1794, the family lost their Copenhagen home, as Christiansborg Palace was devastated by a fire. Instead the Hereditary Prince bought the ''
Levetzau's Palace'', an 18th-century
town house which forms part of the
Amalienborg Palace complex in the district
Frederiksstaden in central
Copenhagen. In november of the same year, when he was eight years old, his mother, who had long suffered from a fragile health, died at Sorgenfri the age of just 36 years. Christian Frederick was raised conservatively according to the guidelines of minister
Ove Høegh-Guldberg, who had been ousted from government in 1784 along with the hereditary prince. His upbringing was marked by a thorough and broad-spectrum education with exposure to artists and scientists who were linked to his father's court. He inherited the talents of his highly gifted mother, and his love of science and art was instilled at an early age and would follow him throughout his life. His physical appearance is said to have made him very popular in
Copenhagen. He was
confirmed on 22 May 1803 in the chapel of
Frederiksberg Palace together with his sisters Princess Juliane Sophie and Princess Louise Charlotte. A year and a half later, on 7 December 1805, the children's father, Hereditary Prince Frederick, died at the age of 52, and the nineteen-year-old Prince Christian Frederik inherited his place as second-in-line in the succession as well as the two residences, Levetzau's Palace and Sorgenfri Palace. As King Christian VII died on 13 March 1808, Crown Prince Frederick became king of Denmark and Norway as Frederick VI. Since the new king still had no male descendants, Christian Frederick thus became
heir presumptive to the throne.
First marriage by
Carl Frederik von Breda 1806. On a visit to his mother's relatives in
Mecklenburg, Prince Christian Frederick stayed at his uncle's court in Schwerin, where he fell in love with his cousin, Duchess
Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Charlotte Frederica was a daughter of the reigning Duke
Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and
Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. They married two years later, on 21 June 1806, at
Ludwigslust. The young couple first settled at
Plön Castle in the
Duchy of Holstein. It was here, that Charlotte Frederica gave birth to their first-born son, Prince Christian Frederick, who was born and died on 8 April 1807. From 1808 the couple lived in Copenhagen, where they took residence partly at Levetzau's Palace at Amalienborg, and partly at Sorgenfri Palace. On 6 October 1808, their second son and only surviving child was born, Prince Frederick Carl Christian, the future King
Frederick VII of Denmark. Nonetheless, their married life was unhappy. Charlotte Frederica was described as very beautiful in her youth, but her character was thought to be moody, capricious, frivolous and mythomaniac, qualities that were later said to recur in her son, Frederick VII. Her alleged affair with her singing teacher, Swiss-born singer and composer
Édouard Du Puy, led to her removal from the court. For this reason, her husband divorced her in 1810, sent her into internal exile in the town of
Horsens, and prohibited her from ever seeing her son again.{{cite web|url= http://denstoredanske.dk/Danmarks_geografi_og_historie/Danmarks_historie/Danmark_1536-1849/Charlotte_Frederikke ==King of Norway==