Hans Ulrik Gyldenløve

Hans Ulrik Gyldenløve (10 March 1615 – 31 January 1645) was the illegitimate son of King Christian IV of Denmark and his mistress, Karen Andersdatter.

In 1629 Hans went with another half-brother, Duke Frederik, the future King Frederick III of Denmark, to France.

While the King was making a courtier and diplomat out of Christian Ulrik, he thought that the future for his other son would be in the Royal Navy.

[3] So Hans Ulrik was sent in 1634 to Karen Andersdatter's brother-in-law in Copenhagen, Laurits Andersen Hammer, the grocer, for his apprenticeship in the shipping yards.

Ten days later, his father received from a certain innkeeper a bill totaling almost two thousand rigsdaler, which had not been paid by Hans.

In 1640, Hans Ulrik became an unteradmiral (Rear admiral) aboard the ship “Norske Løve” [Norwegian Lion].

Dr. Otto Sperling, the physician who was on that trip to Spain, wrote that Hans Ulrik had “intet Hoved eller Ingenium derail” [neither the head or the wit].

[5] Instead, Hans Ulrik went ashore at Corunna with the Ambassador and had a very good time at the Court of King Philip IV in Madrid.

He was buried at the Vor Frue Kirke [The Church of Our Lady], the National and Royal Cathedral of Denmark in Copenhagen, but, by 1889, his tombstone was destroyed.

[7] Six years later, she won the lawsuit against the heirs of a certain Ruderne over the burials at the Vor Frue Kirke but, in 1678, she was accused of complicity in the attempted murder of the Countess Parsberg and banished to the island of Bornholm for the rest of her life.