Ellen Marsvin
Ellen Marsvin ( born February 1, 1572 Landskrona slot ( Landskrona ); † November 11, 1649 at Castle Ellensborg (now Holckenhavn ) at Nyborg ) was a Danish nobleman, who won because of their wealth and influence as a mother at the court of Christian IV.
Life
Ellen Marsvin was one of ten children of the Imperial Council Jørgen Marsvin (about 1527-81 ) and his wife Karen Gyldenstierne (ca. 1542-1589 ). My father came from the Danish nobility Marsvin whose heraldic animal of the porpoise (Danish: Marsvin ) is. As a young man he served in the Danish royal court. He appears in 1548 in the sources below the wake of Princess Anne to her wedding to Saxony and in 1551 as a courtier of the deposed King Christian II In Three crown war he proved himself and was awarded the 1564 Lehnsmannschaft the strategically important castle Helsingborg. 1567/68 he assisted Daniel Rantzaus winter campaign and in the same year vassal of Landkrona. In 1570 he was admitted to the Imperial Parliament in 1576 and granted tenure Odensegård on Funen, where he in 1577 near Odense the mansion Hollufgard had built himself.
About Ellen Marsvins youth nothing is known. As a 17 -year-old orphan, she married in 1589 the 52 -year-old vassal of Trøndelag Ludvig Munk, who had previously been governor of Norway. Also on Funen and in Himmerlands ( North Jutland ), he owned several estates. With him she had a daughter Kirsten Munk. After his death on April 8, 1602, she married in 1607 Knud Rud (* March 11, 1556 ), which was a successor to her father as a vassal to Odensegård. He owned the estate sandy Holt on Funen. He already died on 22 July 1611. With a strong, inherited from father and husbands business sense they increased the inherited wealth and became the richest landowner in Denmark. In 1625 it had 7600 hectares alone on Funen.
1615 the widowed king became aware of their 17 - year-old daughter Kirsten. Although Kirsten Munk came on as a member of the gentry no par with marriage with the king in question, but Ellen Marsvin prevented that her daughter was just another mistress of King Christian IV. They negotiated a marriage contract, the wife of the king to Kirsten made with secure income and claims. The superstitious king had also the date of the letter in which he explained to his wife Kirsten, calculated from his court astrologers. They even benefited from the close relationship with the court, both economically and as a counselor of the king. She bought the land indebted nobleman and bought, among other agricultural goods Boller at Vejle and Rosenvold in Randers, with their products, the Danish fleet was equipped. They built several mansions, such as Schloss Ellensborg she had in 1616 the Chancellor Jacob Ulfeldt bought, expanded spacious and exquisitely furnished. Also Taasinge where Christian IV the Valdemar for his son Waldemar Christian had built, they had sold him. Also in the area of the church she worked and gave her in 1616 chaplain and tutor Kirsten Hans Mikkelsen, the diocese of Funen. 1620 was even administrator of the monastery Dalum in Odense, where she lived most of the time, before she lost the fief in 1639.
As 1628 was the ratio of their daughter to the king in the fractures, Ellen Marsvin sought to bring about a reconciliation. But when their failure was to be expected, they threaded already in 1629, ie before the beginning of 1630, the divorce was pronounced, the relationship between the king and Vibeke Kruse, a maid, she had taken over at Kirsten Munk's banishment from the court in their own services, a. On April 7, 1630 Vibeke gave birth to the son Ulrik Christian. Until his death in 1648 she remained Christian's mistress, while Kirsten Munk was on the estates of their mother under house arrest. Ellen Marsvins persistent attempts to have the youngest, born after the separation granddaughter recognize as legitimate, meant that they lost their political influence in the following years. The education of their grandchildren, who grew up in accordance with the former tradition of maternal grandmother, was withdrawn from her. The youngest granddaughter Dorothea Elizabeth, who had not recognized Christian King was taken from her in 1636. The seven- year-old was sent to a convent in Cologne. After Ellen Marsvin was replaced in 1639 as administrator of the monastery Dalum by her grandson Waldemar Christian, she retreated to her castle Ellensborg, where she died in 1649. She is buried in the church of Thurø, which was built in 1639 under their auspices, and where they had the coffins of their husbands from the church Nørre Broby be patient transfer. Your property fell to her daughter and later her granddaughters, before the family was in 1663, expropriated because of the betrayal of the husband of the granddaughter Leonora Christine, Corfitz Ulfeldt.