Duke Magnus of Holstein

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Duke Magnus of Holstein (26 August 1540 – 18 March 1583) was a Prince of Denmark, the son of King Christian III of Denmark and Queen Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg, brother of Frederick II of Denmark. Magnus was born in Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen to the House of Oldenburg.

During the Livonian war on June 10 1570 Duke Magnus of Holstein arrived in Moscow where he was crowned as King of Livonia by Ivan IV. Magnus took the oath of allegiance to Ivan as his overlord and received from the corresponding charter for the vassal kingdom of Livonia in what Ivan termed his patrimony. The treaty between Magnus and Ivan IV was signed by an oprichnik and by a member of the zemskii administration, the d’iak V. Shchelkalov.The territories of the new kingdom still had to be conquered. The new king Magnus of Livonia left Moscow with 20000 Russian soldiers on the conquest of Swedish controlled Reval. Ivan’s hope of the support of Frederick II of Denmark, the older brother of Magnus, failed. By the end of March 1571 Magnus gave up the struggle for Reval and abandoned the siege.

In 1577 having lost Ivan’s favor and getting no support from his brother, Magnus called on the Livonian nobility to rally to him in a struggle against foreign occupation. He was attacked by Ivan’s forces and taken prisoner. On his release he renounced his royal title. Magnus spent the last six years of his life at the castle of Pliten in Courland where he died as a pensioner of the Polish crown.

References

See also

• List of Rulers of Schleswig-Holstein
• Livonian War

External links

• The Role of Duke Magnus of Holstein in the Baltic Sea Region during the Livonian War, by Andres Adamson
• Livonian Wars, by Kara Broughton
• Die Münzen von Herzog Magnus

Ancestors

Magnus's ancestors in three generations

Duke Magnus of Holstein	Father: Christian III of Denmark	Paternal Grandfather: Frederick I of Denmark	Paternal Great-grandfather: Christian I of Denmark
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Dorothea of Brandenburg
		Paternal Grandmother: Anna of Brandenburg	Paternal Great-grandfather: John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Margaret of Thuringia
	Mother: Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg	Maternal Grandfather: Magnus I, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg	Maternal Great-grandfather: John V, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Dorothea of Brandenburg
		Maternal Grandmother: Catherine	Maternal Great-grandfather: Henry IV, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Catherine of Braunschweig-Lüneburg

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