1863 Christian was proclaimed King of Denmark with the name Christian
IX.

Towards the end of his reign, Frederik had accepted the demand of the
National Liberals for the full incorporation of Schleswig into the king-
dom; Schleswig would be separated from Holstein at the river Elde, and
in the so-called March Patent the Government had committed itself to the
Eider Programme. The German Confederation had, however, threatened
beforehand that it would intervene against what was regarded as a breach
of previous agreements for treating the Duchies as inseparable from each
other and incapable of incorporation into Denmark. King Frederik
having died only two days after the Government had published a joint
constitution for Denmark and Schleswig, King Christian was in no
position to avert the war which began on 28 December 1863, when the
Federal Diet authorised Prussia and Austria to occupy Schleswig. A fort-
night later their troops crossed the frontier and immediately came into
conflict with the Danes.

Denmark paid a high price for the overwhelming defeat which
followed. Christian's subjects did him an injustice in regarding him as
partly responsible for what happened, but many of them believed that his
German background made it difficult for him to adopt a sufficiently firm
attitude towards the mighty neighbour in the south. Another factor was
the conflict between the Government and the Folketing or lower house of
the Danish Parliament, which was continuous from 1870 until a compro-
mise was arranged in 1894. The King sided with the Government in this
struggle for power between the organs of state, so for a long time his
relations with the Folketing were cool. In reality it was not until about the
turn of the century that Christian IX achieved popularity -- in addition
to the respect which had always been accorded him. By then he was an old
man of eighty-two, but remarkably active and alert. His sociability and
paternal outlook were appreciated, and people knew him to be frugal and
upright.

The eldest of Christian's six children was Frederik, who married
Princess Louise, the daughter of Carl XV, King of Sweden and Norway;
this was in 1869, and she was only seventeen when she moved to
Copenhagen as Crown Princess of the two kingdoms. His daughter
Alexandra married Queen Victoria's son, Albert Edward Prince of Wales,
and another daughter married the Tsarevich Alexander, heir to the throne
of Russia. His son Wilhelm was elected King of the Hellenes with the
title of George I, and another son, Valdemar, was offered but refused
the throne of Bulgaria. His daughter Thyra married Ernst August, eldest
son of the last King of Hanover, who resided mainly in England, under
his English title, Duke of Cumberland. Thus it was not without reason
that King Christian was said to be the most influential father-in-law in
the world at the end of the nineteenth century, and there is no doubt that
he enjoyed playing the part of paterfamilias to the royal families of

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