The Age of Enlightenment created dramatic societal changes across Europe, changes that are still being felt and interpreted to this day. This period, part and parcel of the late Renaissance, created a rash of authors and thinkers who spoke of logic and philosophy, calling upon the ancient, classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. It saw the rise among a growing middle class of the belief that the power of government should at least include the will of the people, the governed, the people who paid taxes. As a result, revolutions occurred across the western world, revolutions that ranged from the wild and bloody French Revolution (in the late 1700s) to the relatively mild and conservative American Revolution (France also had another revolution in the 1840s as well) Monarchies were toppled. Congresses and Parliaments were set up, old nations died, and new nations were born. Kings and regents slowly began to give up some of their power and relinquish it to the people.

One such revolution happened in the Kingdom of Denmark in 1848. The people of the Scandinavian nation saw the power that the population of other nations were gaining, and they decided it was time to rise up and demand that the Danish monarch share power with them. Denmark had been one of the kingdoms who had a good middle class population who had made money on trade in the North Sea and the Baltic. Denmark sits smack in the middle of one of the most important trade routes in northern Europe. And the king of Denmark at the time was a young-ish 39 year old man named King Frederick VII who had acceded to the throne in January of that year.

Frederick had come into a dicey situation regarding Denmark’s southern border with Germany and German claims of land in that area. In addition, some incremental democratic changes had occurred in Denmark. However, those agreements had been made under the previous monarch. And because of the border situation, man people were afraid that this new king would, in an effort to consolidate his power, renege on the gains that the people had made and rule with an even stronger hand. And Frederick hadn’t made concrete statements as to his intentions regarding the continued loosening of the power of the crown. Thus (and this description is a gross oversimplification), the people of Denmark decided that a public revolution was needed to force the new king’s hand.

In March, 1848, a demonstration made up of over 20,000 Danes marched for several days to the Royal Palace in Copenhagen and demanded that King Fredrick VII give up absolute power and allow a guaranteed Constitutional Monarchy be established. There were some violent street confrontations, but, generally, the demonstrations were calm. What the demonstrators didn’t realize at first was that Frederick had fired all his cabinet ministers who were against the increase in democracy. And, so, hearing the news that Frederick had moved to guarantee an increase in public power, the Danish revolutionaries did an unusually peaceful thing for a band of revolutionaries.

They cheered.

And then they went home.

And that, for the most part, was Denmark’s revolution. The people made demands, and the king acquiesced. Incredibly efficient. Remarkably unbloody. And positively Danish.

Oh, and what the good Danish folk didn’t realize until much later in Danish history was that King Frederick VII really didn’t want to govern. It frankly didn’t interest him, and the work in the government took him away from his other pursuits–drinking, acting, and women among them. So, Denmark’s revolution certainly happened because of the people’s demands, but it also was helped by the complete disinterest of the country’s king to govern.