Josephine de la Marck was the Queen Consort of Denmark from 1549 until 1570, during the reign of her husband, King George I of Denmark, and then Queen Dowager and Regent for her sons. Her effective rule over Denmark was known as "the Long Regency" or "the Josephine era", and spanned approximately from 1549 or 1570 until 1603.
She was born the daughter of Edmund de la Marck, the Duke of Saxe-Jessen, a devout Catholic from the Jungist House of La Marck. She was initially thought to be a boy, and although the doctor later corrected this assessment, by the next year her parents were still receiving gifts and congratulations from other rulers who still thought she was a boy. When she was a girl, the Wittenberg Christmas Massacre occurred, resulting in a huge backlash against Catholics in the Duchy of Saxony. Her uncles (her father's brothers) including the Elector and Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg, Wolfgang I, Duke of Saxony forcibly removed her father Edmund from power in the Duchy of Saxe-Jessen. He would later become the second Pope of the Northern Catholic Church. In the meantime, her uncle Wolfgang decided to marry Edmund's two daughters off to Jungist noblemen: her elder sister was married to Issichar von Jenagotha, later the Duke of Thuringia, while she was married to George de la Marck, a distant kinsman, and heir to the Danish throne.
Upon the death of his father, George ascended the throne of Denmark as King George I. Wolfgang, the Duke of Saxony attended George's father's funeral, and gravely and philosophically remarked that George was weak and easily dominated by his wife. This proved to be true: although George was known for his military prowess, he had little appetite for governance, and his wife began to build a following within the Danish government. During the Eight Years' War, she had an extramarital affair with Frederick Henriksson, one of her husband's best generals, that resulted in his imprisonment. She planned to later release him after her husband had died, but one of his last orders was for Henriksson to be executed immediately following his death.
Indeed, George died soon, or at least not long, after this incident as well as the loss of the Eight Years' War. Josephine immediately managed to take control and secure her position as Queen Regent for her son, King Henry II of Denmark, who had been abducted by pirates as a teenager and sold to the Swedish government, who refused to give him back. During the entirety of Henry II's reign, his mother governed the realm with help from her second son, who later became King Olaf V of Denmark, following negotiations with the Swedish government that resulted in King Henry II renouncing his claim to the throne.
After a strenuous argument with his mother, in which he attempted to assert his authority as King, her son King Olaf V had a heart attack and abruptly died, leaving her only surviving, third son, George, to take the throne, be crowned and become King George I of Denmark. King George became increasingly frustrated with his mother's control over the country, and feeling shunned, moved to England with his wife the English princess, later Queen Elizabeth I. There, he managed to gather support from Jungist English nobles, and upon the death of his sister-in-law Queen Margaret I (his wife's sister), they crowned him and his wife as King and Queen of England as well as of Denmark. This pleased Josephine, who was now free to govern Denmark as she wished, and now had influence over the Kingdom of England as well. However, they were ousted by the distantly related but more popular and Catholic King Stephen III. Continuing to encourage her son to take an interest in foreign affairs, perhaps because she resented his interfering with her plans for Denmark, Queen Josephine sent George to the Duchy of Saxony, on the pretext that he might be able to gather support among his Jungist relatives which would help him win back his English throne. Instead, George I found himself caught up in the Imperial Election of the 1590s and the crisis that followed, ultimately being elected the Holy Roman Emperor by the Jungist electors in opposition to the Catholics' candidate, following the defeat of the Jungists' first emperor, Joktan, Holy Roman Emperor.
George's reign would be cut short yet again when he left the office of Holy Roman Emperor after reigning only briefly, and Denmark would later withdraw from the War. Josephine continued to have considerable influence over Danish internal and foreign affairs until 1603, when her son died, and her grandson, the new king, decided to remove her from power. In her later years, she lost her grip on reality and her sanity. One time she was found in the duckpond gulping down a live frog, under the impression that she was a stork. Another time she managed to travel to England where she claimed to be Lady Godiva and attempted to ride through the streets of Coventry naked, until a number of English soldiers spotted and surrounded her, handing her over to the English government who ransomed her back to Denmark. In 1612, an old woman, she accidentally set fire to Roskilde Cathedral, and could be heard crying out "Frederick!" and was found to have perished in the flames.
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