Anne of Denmark - mother of King Charles I - was born - On this day in history

Anne of Denmark, queen consort of Scotland and mother of King Charles I was born on 12 December 1574 at Skanderborg Castle in the Kingdom of Denmark. Anne was married to King James VI by proxy at the age of fourteen and the couple had seven children together, three of whom survived to adulthood.

Anne’s coronation at the Abbey Church in Holyrood in 1590 was the first Protestant coronation in Scotland. Anne was said to have been a Protestant at her death in 1619, but may have converted to Catholicism at some point during her life, as she reportedly abstained from Anglican communion many times.

The union between Queen Anne and James VI was a stormy one, with James describing marriage as 'the greatest earthly felicitie or miserie, that can come to a man'. The pair were particularly at loggerheads over who should care for their children, with Anne resenting the fact that their first son, Henry, was cared for by members of the royal court, rather than in her own household. At one stage, she stormed Stirling Castle where Henry was held, after seeing little of him for five years, but she was turned away and was said to have suffered a miscarriage as a result.

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