ABSTRACT
The Danish Crown might descend in the female line, but agnatic succession applied in the duchies. The male line of the Danish royal house, however, was about to become extinct, and unless the duchies were joined to the kingdom they would pass to one of three collateral families of Dukes of Augustenburg and Glucksburg and the Grand Duke of Oldenburg. Schleswig and Holstein, bound to each other by essential community of race, language, and institutions, were also bound by personal union to the Danish Crown; the Danish rulers were kings in Denmark and dukes in the duchies. The Danish Government had for a long time been illiberal in its treatment of the German population of Schleswig, and the intolerant restrictions upon the right of public worship and the use of the German language had, in particular, created great bitterness. The Queen’s known German leanings made the sympathies of the Government and nation more Danish than they might otherwise have been.
