Kingdom of Livonia

Infobox Former Country
native_name =
conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Livonia
status = Client Kingdom of the Muscovian Tsardom
common_name = Livonia
capital = None
continent = Europe
region = Nordic countries
year_start = 1570
year_end = 1578
date_start =
date_end =
event_start = Livonian War
event_end = Livonian War
p1 =
flag_p1=
s1 =
flag_s1=

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image_map_caption = Livonia, as shown in the map of 1573 of Joann Portantius.
religion=
government_type = Declared titular monarchy, no territorial control or sovereignty ever established
legislature =
title_leader= King of Livonia
leader1 = Magnus of Livonia
year_leader1 =
title_deputy =
deputy1 =
year_deputy1 =
common_languages=

The Kingdom of Livonia was a nominally declared state by Ivan IV during the Livonian War. On June 10 1570 the Danish Duke Magnus of Holstein arrived in Moscow where he was crowned as King of Livonia. Magnus took the oath of allegiance to Ivan as his overlord and received from the corresponding charter for the vassal kingdom of Livonia in what Ivan termed his patrimony. The treaty between Magnus and Ivan IV was signed by an oprichnik and by a member of the "zemskii" administration, the d'iak Vasiliy Shchelkalov. The territories of the new kingdom still had to be conquered. The new king Magnus of Livonia left Moscow with 20,000 Russian soldiers on the conquest of Swedish controlled Reval. Ivan’s hope of the support of Frederick II of Denmark, the older brother of Magnus, failed. By the end of March 1571 Magnus gave up the struggle for Reval and abandoned the siege. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=xdFVn1v3FMUC&dq Ivan the Terrible By Isabel De Madariaga ISBN 0300119739] ]

In 1577 having lost Ivan's favor and getting no support from his brother, Magnus called on the Livonian nobility to rally to him in a struggle against foreign occupation. He was attacked by Ivan's forces and taken prisoner. On his release he renounced his royal title. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=wPXEp45wAeQC&dq War and Peace in the Baltic, 1560-1790 By Stewart Philip Oakley ISBN 0415024722] ] Magnus spent the last six years of his life at the castle of Pilten in the Bishopric of Courland where he died as a pensioner of the Polish crown. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=PTJgzidcXNkC&dq Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark's Role in the Wars of Religion By Paul Douglas Lockhart Page 38 Page 39] ]

External links

* [http://www.gladsaxegymnasium.dk/2/artikler/sejerest.htm Danske mønter i Estland] da icon
* [http://www.gladsaxegymnasium.dk/2/jpg/pm/magnus00.htm Die Münzen von Herzog Magnus] de icon

References