FREDERICK II. king of Denmark and Nor way, son of Christian III., was born at Hadersleben on July 1, His mother, Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg, was the elder sister of Catherine, the first wife of Gustavus Vasa and the mother of Eric XIV. The two little cousins, born the same year, were destined to be lifelong rivals. At the age of two Frederick was proclaimed successor to the throne at the Rigsdag of Copenhagen (Oct. 3o, 1536), and homage was done to him at Oslo for Norway in 1548. He married his cousin, Sophia of Mecklenburg, on July 20, 1S72.
The reign of Frederick II. falls into two well-defined periods, one of war, 1559-70; and the other of peace, 1570-88. The period of war began with the Ditmarsh expedition, when the independent peasant-republic of the Ditmarshers of West Hol stein, which had stoutly maintained its independence for centuries against the counts of Holstein and the Danish kings, was subdued by a Dano-Holstein army of 20,000 men in 1559, Frederick and his uncles John and Adolphus, dukes of Holstein, dividing the land between them. Frederick was also victorious in the Scan dinavian Seven Years' War. There were many causes of quarrel between Denmark and Sweden, but the detention at Copenhagen in 1563 of an embassy on its way to Germany, to negotiate a match between Eric XIV. of Sweden and Christina of Hesse, which King Frederick for political reasons was determined to prevent, precipitated hostilities. The war was very unpopular in Denmark, and the closing of the Sound against foreign shipping, in order to starve out Sweden, had exasperated the maritime powers and all the Baltic states. On New Year's Day, 1570, Frederick threatened to abdicate; but the peace of Stettin (Dec. 13, 1570) reconciled all parties, and though Frederick had now to relinquish his ambitious dream of re-establishing the Union of Kalmar, he had at least succeeded in maintaining the supremacy of Denmark in the north.
After the peace Frederick aspired to the dominion of all the seas which washed the Scandinavian coasts, and before he died he suppressed the pirates who for so long had haunted the Baltic and the German Ocean. He also erected the fortress of Kronborg, to guard the Sound. Frederick gave free scope to ministers whose superiority in their various departments he frankly recognized, rarely interfering personally unless absolutely called upon to do so. His influence, always great, was increased by his genial and unaffected manners as a host. He was one of the few kings of the house of Oldenburg who had no illicit liaison. He died at Antvors kov on April 4, 1588. No other Danish king was ever so beloved by his people.
See Lund (Troels), Danmarks og Norges Historie i Slutningen of det XVI. Aarh. (Copenhagen, 1879) ; Danmarks Riges Historie (Copen hagen, 1897-1905), vol. 3 ; R. N. Bain, Scandinavia, cap. 4 (Cambridge, 1905).