[1][2] His father, Wulbern or Waldemar Gabel, originally a cartographer and subsequently recorder of Glückstadt, was killed at the siege of the fortress there, by the German Imperial Army, in 1628.

[5][6] During the brief interval of peace between King Charles X's first and second attack upon Denmark, Gabel was employed in several secret missions to Sweden;[5] and he took part in the conspiracies that resulted in the autocratic revolution of 1660.

While not the originator of the revolution, he was certainly the chief intermediary between Frederick III and the Conjoined Estates in the mysterious conspiracy which established absolutism in Denmark-Norway.

[6] During the early and mid 1660s there was an influential circle around Hannibal Sehested, Frederik Ahlefeldt, Peter Bülche, Hans Svane, Jacob Petersen and Theodor Lente, who became increasingly opposed to Gabel.

[12] When, on 18 April 1670, he was dismissed, there was no public sympathy for a man who had grown wealthy in a time of widespread poverty.