3-016-771 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The War in Schleswig: the Chateau of Glücksburg, near Flensburg, 1864. Engraving from a photograph by M. Brandt. The castle '...is now occupied by a division of the Prussian army. This place stands on the southern shore of the Flensburg Fiord...It was there that the late King of Denmark died. The present King, as Duke of Sonderburg-Glücksburg, takes his family name from this estate...Gliicksburg was originally founded, in the thirteenth century, as a convent of Cistercian monks. This was broken up at the Reformation, and the place became the property of Duke John of Sonderburg. The elder branch of his lineage having expired in 1778, this domain lapsed to the Crown; but in 1825, it was restored to the younger branch - namely, that of Sonderburg-Beck, from which the present King is descended. The castle, which was built in 1662, is a square and massive pile, almost entirely surrounded with water, a deep moat having been dug in the ground formerly consecrated for the churchyard of the ancient monastery. It is approached by a stone bridge over the moat. At each of the four corners of the building is a hectagonal tower, with a conical roof...the whole house, both within and without, has a stern and forbidding appearance'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.