Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel | |||||
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Juliane Marie as queen dowager at the height of her influence by Vigilius Eriksen
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Queen consort of Denmark and Norway | |||||
Tenure | 8 July 1752 – 13/14 January 1766 | ||||
Born |
Wolfenbüttel |
4 September 1729||||
Died | 10 October 1796 Fredensborg Palace, Denmark |
(aged 67)||||
Burial | Roskilde Cathedral | ||||
Spouse | Frederick V of Denmark | ||||
Issue | Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark | ||||
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House | House of Welf | ||||
Father | Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel | ||||
Mother | Antoinette Amalie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel | ||||
Religion | Lutheranism |
Full name | |
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Juliane Marie |
Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern (Danish: Juliane Marie; 4 September 1729 – 10 October 1796) was queen of Denmark between 1752 and 1766, second consort of king Frederick V of Denmark and Norway, mother of the prince-regent Hereditary Prince Frederick of Denmark and Norway and herself de facto regent 1772–1784. King Christian VIII of Denmark descends from her.
Born as daughter of Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, she held the rank of a Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel with the style Princess.
Juliana Maria was given the simple but very strict upbringing usual at many of the smaller princely German courts. As a child, she appears to have stuttered.
She married King Frederick V of Denmark at Frederiksborg Palace on 8 July 1752, just over six months after the death of his first wife Louise of Great Britain, and was crowned the same day. The marriage was arranged by Count Moltke, who thought it best that the king remarried as soon as possible, in an attempt of stabilizing his behavior. The king was initially unwilling to remarry, unless it was with an English princess, which was not available at the time. However, he was convinced after seeing her portrait and having made some investigation about her.
Juliana Maria was personally described as good-looking and sensible, but the marriage was not popular in Denmark, where it was considered to have taken place too soon after the death of her predecessor, the popular former queen Louise, and it was a difficult task for her to replace her popular predecessor. She had several stepchildren by marriage, but she was given no influence over their upbringing.
She did her best to accustom herself to Denmark and make herself popular as queen, and although she never fully mastered the Danish language, she frequently used it both by speaking and writing it. She also had two Danes in succession, J. Schielderup Sneedorff and Guldberg, appointed governors responsible for the tutelage of her son, Hereditary Prince Frederick, who was thereby given the Danish language as his mother tongue. Despite these efforts, she never managed to make herself a popular queen.