The Royal Danish CollectionRosenborgPeder Schumacher Griffenfeld

Peder Schumacher Griffenfeld

Peder Schumacher was the son of pub-owner Joachim Schumacher but attained the rank and position of Count and Chancellor.

Peder Schumacher, who was unusually intelligent, studied in Copenhagen, Rostock, Dresden, Leiden and Oxford. He was Frederik III’s secretary and in 1668 he became councillor; he prepared the Danish Act of Succession, the constitution of the absolutist monarchy. In 1673 he was appointed Count with the name Griffenfeld, and the year after he became Chancellor, as such the highest ranking official in the Kingdom.

Griffenfeld had many enemies in the Administration and he also came into conflict with Christian V. In 1676 he was arrested and condemned to death for bribery and treason, after it was disclosed that he had worked against official Danish foreign policy. On the scaffold he was reprieved with lifetime imprisonment. He was jailed at Holmen in Copenhagen until he was transferred to a fortress at Trondheim in Norway in 1680. In 1698 he was allowed to live in Trondheim. Griffenfeld was the most able Danish politician of his time, but his great ambitions and arrogance became his downfall.

 

Relations

Count Griffenfeld

Peder Schumacher, Count Griffenfeld (1635-99). Painting by Abraham Wuchters.

Christian V

Christian V was the King of Denmark-Norway from 1670; son of Frederik III and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was married to Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Kassel in 1667. He was the father of Frederik IV.

Crowns and coronets

Crowns and coronets of royalty and the nobility, arranged in order of precedence in 1671, during the Absolutist period.

Griffenfeld, 1675

Portrait of Count Peder Schumacher Griffenfeld. Enamelled miniature made by Paul Prieur 1675.

6: Christian V's Hall

This was originally the living room of Christian IV's morganatic (left-hand) wife, Kirsten Munk. During the reign of Frederik III, it became a part of the King's suite as an antechamber to the Marble Room.

Paul Prieur

Paul Prieur was a painter of miniatures and enameller. He was born in Paris and was trained there and in Geneva as a goldsmith and enameller. Between 1659 and 1681 he lived in Denmark, working for the Royal Court.

1675-1700

From 1675 to 1679 the Scanian War was fought with Sweden. But the final goal, to win back Scania, was not reached as no European state would allow both sides of Øresund to be ruled by the same power again.

1650-1675

The wars of Charles Gustavus (1657-1658 and 1658-1660) were the important events in foreign politics of the period. The loss of Scania, Halland and Blekinge at the Peace of Roskilde in 1658 was a nadir of power politics in Danish history.