After unsuccessfully seeking the hand of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in marriage, he married his double second cousin, Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel, in 1842.

In 1852, Christian was chosen as heir presumptive to the Danish throne in light of the expected extinction of the senior line of the House of Oldenburg.

The family descended from King Christian III of Denmark's younger son, John the Younger, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, whose grandson Duke August Philipp severed his ties with Denmark and emigrated to Germany where he acquired the manor of Haus Beck in Westphalia, after which the lineage was named Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck.

Prince Charles had made a career in Denmark, where he was a Danish field marshal and Royal Governor of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

Through his mother, he was thus a great-grandson of Frederick V, great-great-grandson of George II of Great Britain and a descendant of several other monarchs, but had no direct claim to any European throne.

Initially, the young prince grew up with his parents and many brothers and sisters at his maternal grandparents' residence at Gottorf Castle, the habitual seat of the royal governors of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

Subsequently, the family moved to Glücksburg Castle, where Prince Christian was raised with his siblings under their father's supervision.

The Duke wrote to a friend: I raise my sons with rigor, that these may learn to obey, without, however, failing to make them available to the requirements and demands of the present.

[9] That same year, Prince Christian wanted to be educated as a naval officer, but during King Frederick VI's visit to Gottorp in 1831, shortly after Duke Wilhelm's funeral, the king agreed with his mother that Prince Christian would be sent to Copenhagen to receive an army officer training.

Also, in 1838, Prince Christian's eldest brother, Duke Karl of Glücksborg, married the king and queen's youngest daughter, Princess Vilhelmine Marie, which further strengthened the bonds between them.

There he lived under simple conditions until King Frederick VI in 1839 granted him a home in the Yellow Palace, an 18th century town house at 18 Amaliegade, immediately adjacent to the Amalienborg Palace complex, the principal residence of the Danish royal family in the district of Frederiksstaden in central Copenhagen, where he came to live until 1865.

On the way home, he paid a visit to the court in Berlin, where he rejected an otherwise flattering offer from King Frederick William IV of Prussia to join the Prussian Army.

[11] As a young man, in 1838, Prince Christian, representing Frederick VI, attended the coronation of Queen Victoria at Westminster Abbey.

[12] The bride and groom took their bridal tour to Kiel in the Duchy of Holstein, where they visited Prince Christian's older brother, Duke Karl of Glücksburg, and his wife, Frederick VI's daughter Duchess Vilhelmine, who had not been able to attend the wedding.

[16] King Frederick VII's childlessness presented a thorny dilemma and the question of succession to the Danish throne proved complex, as the rules of succession in the different parts of the Danish monarchy united under the king's rule, the Kingdom of Denmark proper and the three duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg, not being the same, the possibility of a separation of the crown of Denmark from its duchies became probable.

There were, however, several ways to interpret to whom the crown could pass, since the provision was not entirely clear as to whether a claimant to the throne could be the closest female relative or not.

The closest female relatives of Frederick VII were his paternal aunt, Princess Louise Charlotte of Denmark, who had married a scion of the cadet branch of the House of Hesse, and her children.

Along with another childless daughter, Vilhelmine Marie of Denmark (1808–1891), Duchess of Glücksburg; the next heir was Louise, sister of Frederick VI, who had married the Duke of Augustenburg.

Familiar with the royal court and the traditions of the recent monarchs, their young ward Prince Christian was a nephew of Queen Marie and a first cousin once removed of Frederick VI.

He had been brought up as a Dane, having lived in Danish-speaking lands of the royal dynasty and not having become a German nationalist, which made him a relatively good candidate from the Danish point of view.

It was not before 1856 that the politician Carl Christoffer Georg Andræ, to whom Prince Christian always felt close, secured him a seat in the Council of State.

On 10 March, his eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra married the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom).

During the last years of the reign of King Frederick VII, his health was increasingly poor, and in the autumn of 1863, during a visit to the Dannevirke fortification, he contracted a severe cold, which after his return to Glücksburg Castle turned into erysipelas.

Frederick of Augustenburg (as he was commonly known) had become the symbol of the nationalist German independence movement in Schleswig-Holstein after his father (in exchange for money) renounced his claims as heir to the throne of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.

The Peace Conference broke up without having arrived at any conclusion; the outcome of the war was unfavorable to Denmark and led to the incorporation of Schleswig into Prussia in 1865.

Christian IX's negotiations were not publicly known until published in the 2010 book Dommedag Als by Tom Buk-Swienty, who had been given access to the royal archives by Queen Margrethe II.

This unpopularity was worsened as he sought unsuccessfully to prevent the spread of democracy throughout Denmark by supporting the authoritarian and conservative prime minister Estrup, whose rule 1875–94 was by many seen as a semi-dictatorship.

The King approved of Holbøll's idea and subsequently the Danish post office produced the world's first Christmas seal, which generated more than $40,000 in funding.

Instead, two completely different artists were assigned the task, the Dano-Icelandic sculptor Edvard Eriksen and the Danish architect Hack Kampmann.

They created a large sarcophagus in white marble flanked by three graceful sculptures symbolizing Remembrance, Love and Grief.