Dyveké

Dyveké ('the little dove'), called by the Latin chroniclers Columbula, the famous mistress of Christian II. of Denmark. Born at Amsterdam in 1488, she was but nineteen when she first met her lover at Bergen, where her mother had settled as an innkeeper. She followed him to Denmark, where her mother acquired such political influence as to become hated by the nobles. Dyveke, who herself took no interest in affairs, died suddenly in 1517, almost certainly from poison. Christian avenged his favourite's death by executing a young noble, Torben Oxe, whom he suspected at least of having himself aspired to her favour. The unhappy fate of Dyveke has been the subject of dramas in Danish or in German by Samsøe (1796), H. Marggraff (1839), and Riëkhoff (1843); and of romances by L. Schlefer, Tromlitz, Carsten Hauch, and Ida Frick. See Müinch's Biographisch-historische Studien (1836).