Hannibal Sehested was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 statesman

Statesman

A statesman is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...

 and Governor of Norway.

He was born at Arensborg

Kuressaare

Kuressaare is a town and a municipality on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the capital of Saare County. The current population is about 14,706 Kuressaare is a town and a municipality on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the capital of Saare County. The current population is about 14,706...

 Castle on Øsel

Saaremaa

Saaremaa is the largest island in Estonia, measuring 2,673 km². The main island of Saare County, it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island, and belongs to the West Estonian Archipelago...

, Son of Claus Maltesen Sehested. After being educated abroad, he returned to Denmark in 1632 and was attached to the court of King Christian IV

Christian IV of Denmark

Christian IV was the king of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death. With a reign of more than 59 years, he is the longest-reigning monarch of Denmark, and he is frequently remembered as one of the most popular, ambitious and proactive Danish kings, having initiated many reforms and projects...

. Two or three years later he was sent to Wismar

Wismar

Wismar , is a small port and Hanseatic League town in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,about 45 km due east of Lübeck, and 30 km due north of Schwerin. Its natural harbour, located in the Bay of Wismar is well-protected by a promontory. The...

 to negotiate a treaty with the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna

Axel Oxenstierna

Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna af Södermöre , Count of Södermöre, was a Swedish statesman. He became a member of the Swedish Privy Council in 1609 and served as Lord High Chancellor of Sweden from 1612 until his death. He was a confidant of first Gustavus Adolphus and then Queen Christina.Oxenstierna...

, and, if possible, to bring about the marriage of Christian's son Frederick and Gustavus Adolphus

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden

Gustav II Adolf has been widely known in English by his Latinized name Gustavus Adolphus Magnus and variously in historical writings also as Gustavus, or Gustavus the Great, or Gustav Adolph the Great,...

's daughter Christina. Though failing in both particulars, he retained the favor of the king, who had marked him out as a son-in-law, one of seven by whose influence he hoped to increase the influence of the crown. Accordingly, in 1636 he was betrothed to one of the daughters, the countess Christine

Christiane Sehested

Christiane Christiansdatter Sehested was the daughter of king Christian IV of Denmark and his morganatic spouse, Kirsten Munk. She shared the title Countess of Schleswig-Holstein with her mother and siblings. She was the twin of her sister Hedevig Ulfeldt. Christiane was engaged by her father...

, then aged nine, whom he married in 1642.

In May 1640, Sehested became a member of the Rigsråd. He believed that the proper field for the exercise of his talents was diplomacy

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

, and he openly aspired to be minister of foreign affairs. Despite a successful embassy to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 in 1640-1641, he did not obtain the coveted post, but was appointed governor of Norway (April 1642). He now had the opportunity of displaying his administrative and organizing abilities, united with a remarkable zeal for reform. He made it his main objective to develop Norway's material resources, reorganize her army, fortifications and fiscal system; and he aimed at giving her a more independent position in the union with Denmark.

During Christian IV's second war with Sweden (1643–1645), Sehested, as governor of Norway, assisted his father-in-law materially. He invaded Sweden four times; successfully defended Norway from attack; and, though without any particular military talent, won an engagement at Nysaker in 1644. After the war he renewed his reforming efforts, and during the years 1646-1647 strove to withdraw his governorship from the benumbing influence of the central administration at Copenhagen, and succeeded with the help of Christian IV in creating a separate defensive fleet for Norway and giving her partial control of her own finances. He was considerably assisted in his endeavours by the fact that Norway was regarded as the hereditary possession of the kings of Denmark.

At the same time, Sehested freely used his immense wealth and official position to accumulate for himself property and privileges of all sorts. His successes finally excited the envy and disapprobation of the Danish Rigsraad, especially of his rival, Korfits Ulfeldt

Corfitz Ulfeldt (1606-1664)

Count Corfits Ulfeldt , Danish statesman, was the son of the chancellor Jacob Ulfeldt. After a careful education abroad, concluding with one year under Cesare Cremonini at Padua, he returned to Denmark in 1629 and quickly won the favor of King Christian IV...

, also one of the king's sons-in-law. The quarrel became acute when Sehested's semi-independent administration of the finances of Norway infringed upon Ulfeldt's functions as lord treasurer of the whole realm. In November 1647, Ulfeldt carried his point, and a decree was issued that henceforth the Norwegian provincial leaders should send their rents and taxes direct to Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

.

On the accession of Frederick III

Frederick III of Denmark

Frederick III was king of Denmark and Norway from 1648 until his death. He instituted absolute monarchy in Denmark and Norway in 1660, confirmed by law in 1665 as the first in western historiography. He was born the second-eldest son of Christian IV of Denmark and Anne Catherine of Brandenburg...

 (1648), Sehested strove hard to win his favor, but an investigation into his accounts as governor conducted by his enemies brought to light such wholesale embezzlement and peculation that he was summoned to appear before a herredag, or assembly of notables in May 1651 to give an account of his whole administration. Unable to meet the charges brought against him, he compromised matters by resigning his governorship and his senatorship, and surrendering all his private property in Norway to the crown.

Throughout his trial, Sehested had shown prudence. He gave back three times what he had embezzled. Calculating on the sympathy of Frederick III for a man of his monarchical tendencies, he had nothing to do with the projects of revenge which were the ruin of Korfits Ulfeldt. From 1651 to 1660, he lived abroad. At the end of 1655, he met the exiled Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 at Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 and lived a part of the following year with him in the Spanish Netherlands.

In the summer of 1657, he returned to Denmark, but Frederick III refused to receive him, and he hastily quit Copenhagen. During the crisis of the Second Northern War

Second Northern War

The Second Northern War was fought between Sweden and its adversaries the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , Russia , Brandenburg-Prussia , the Habsburg Monarchy and Denmark–Norway...

 of 1658, he was at the headquarters of Charles X of Sweden. In seeking the help and protection of the worst enemy of his country, Sehested approached the very verge of treason, but he never quite went beyond it. When, at last, it seemed probable that the war would not result in the annihilation of Denmark, Sehested strained every nerve to secure his own future by working in the interests of his native land while still residing in Sweden.

In April 1660, he obtained permission from Frederick III to come to Copenhagen and was finally instructed by him to negotiate with the Swedes. The Treaty of Copenhagen, which saved the honour of Denmark and brought her repose, was very largely Sehested's work. He was one of the willing abettors of Frederick III in the revolution of 1660, when he re-entered the Danish service as lord treasurer and councillor of state. Both at home and on his frequent foreign missions, he displayed all his old ability. He was challenged by new rivals like Kristoffer Gabel

Kristoffer Gabel

Christoffer Gabel was a Danish statesman.He was born on January 6, 1617, at Glückstadt. 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...

 and his influence seems to have been somewhat fading during his last years but he remained in office until his death.

As a diplomat, he in some ways anticipated the views of Peter, count Griffenfeldt, supporting the policy of friendship with Sweden and a French alliance. He died suddenly in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he was conducting important negotiations. His political testament is perhaps the best testimony to his liberal and statesmanlike views.