At the outset the Danish fleet was in great peril.  The Swedes fought gallantly as was their wont, and they were three or four against one, for most of the King’s ships came up slowly, some of them purposely, so it seems.  The King said after the battle of certain of his captains, “They used me as a screen between them and the enemy.”  His own ship and that of his chief admiral’s bore the brunt of the battle for a long time. Trefoldigheden fired 315 shots during the engagement, and at one time had four hostile, ships clustering about her.  King Christian was on the quarter-deck when a cannon-ball shivered the bulwark and one of his guns, throwing a shower of splintered iron and wood over him and those near him, killing and wounding twelve of the crew.  The King himself fell, stunned and wounded in twenty-three places.  His right eye was knocked out, two of his teeth, and his left ear hung in shreds.

The cry was raised that the King was dead and panic spread on board.  The story has it that a sailor was sent aloft to strike the flag but purposely entangled it in the rigging so that it could not fall; he could not bear to see the King’s ship strike its colors.  In the midst of the tumult the aged monarch rose to his feet, torn and covered with blood.  “I live yet,” he cried, “and God has left me strength to fight on for my country.  Let every man do his duty.”  Leaning on his sword, he led the fight until darkness fell and the battle was won.  Denmark was saved.  The danger of an invasion was averted.  In the palace of Rosenborg the priceless treasure they show to visitors is the linen cloth, all blood-stained, that bound the King’s face as he fought and won his last and biggest fight that day.

Half blind, his body black and blue and sore from many bruises, King Christian yet refused to sail for Copenhagen to have his wounds attended.  Three weeks he lay watching the narrow inlet behind which the beaten enemy was hiding, to destroy his ships when he came out.  Then he gave over the command to another and hastened to the province of Skaane on the Swedish mainland, from which he expelled a hostile army.  But when his back was turned, the men he had set to watch fell asleep and let the Swedish admiral steal out into the open.  There he found and joined the Dutch ships that had slipped around the Skaw during the rumpus.  Together they overwhelmed the Danish fleet, being now three to one, and crushed it.  The slothful admiral paid for it with his life, but the harm was done.  It was the last and heaviest blow.  The old King sheathed his sword and set his name to a peace that took from Denmark some of her ancient provinces, with the bitter sigh:  “God knows I had no share in this,” and he had not.  Even at the last he appealed to the country to try the fortunes of war with him once more.  The people were willing, but the nobles wanted peace, “however God send it,” and he had to yield.  The treaty was made at Broemsebro, where a bridge crossed