Christian II., king of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, was born at Nyborg, in the island of
Fünen, in 1481, and mounted the throne of Norway and Denmark in 1513. His marriage in 1515 to a sister of the Emperor Charles V. did not extinguish his love for his mistress Dyveke (q.v.), whose sudden death he avenged with his native savagery. In 1520 he overthrew at Bogesund the brave regent of Sweden, Sten Sture the younger, and thereafter was crowned king. But his ferocious passions, and especially his treacherous massacre in the Stockholm 'blood bath' of the foremost men in Sweden (November 8-10, 1520), roused such a spirit of opposition in that country that he was speedily driven out by the young national leader, Gustavus Vasa, himself the son of one of his victims. In Denmark also a popular revolt drove Christian for refuge to the Netherlands, and placed his uncle Frederick I. upon the throne. Encouraged, however, by the Catholic party in the Netherlands, and assisted by Charles V., Christian landed in Norway in 1531, but at the battle of Aggerhuus next year was totally defeated, and spent his remaining years in imprisonment at Sonderburg and Kallundborg, where he died in 1559.