The constitution was formulated by the constitutional national assembly, which was comprised of a series of royal appointees and a number of publicly elected men. With the new constitution the male population of Denmark were granted political influence, and the freedom and rights of Danish citizens were secured.

In 1848 Christian VIII died and was succeeded by Frederik VII, who thus became Denmark's first democratic monarch. He was inspired by a strong sense of national pride and gained great popularity throughout the nation.

The prevailing national currents of the time nourished a growing dispute about the nationality of the duchies. National consciousness intensified during this conflict, which culminated in the outbreak of the Three Year War in 1848.

Tivoli – A Fairytale Garden in Copenhagen

In 1843 Georg Carstensen (1812-1857) opened the gates to his amusement park 'Tivoli and Wauxhall' on an old military ground beyond the city ramparts. The architect Conrad Stilling (1815-1891) designed a series of imaginative glass and wood buildings yellow painted exteriors and Pompeian interiors.

Carstensen and Stilling thus realised the dream they shared of a popular romantic garden where the people of the city could relax, hear popular music, see firework displays and forget all their daily troubles. Amusements, bars and restaurants were spread between the trees and flowers of the beautifully landscaped gardens.

The concert hall lay at the heart of the gardens, reflecting the importance of music to the spirit of Tivoli. Here Hans Christian Lumbye's (1810-1874) cheerful waltzes, galops and mazurkas could be heard, conducted for the first 29 years by the composer himself. Lumbye's music was vastly popular, especially his 'Champagne Galop' of 1845.

Tivoli's roller coaster, the first of its kind in Denmark, was one of the most outstanding constructions in the gardens. The largest complex was the Chinese style Bazaar housing 15 shops, a printer's workshop and Tivoli's largest restaurant.

Carlsberg – An Exemplary Modern Brewery

In 1835 the brewer Jacob Christian Jacobsen (1811-1887) inherited his father's brewery in Brolæggerstræde, Copenhagen. Jacobsen had tasted Bavarian beer at a wine merchant's, and decided to experiment with brewing this kind of beer. Until this time the brewery had only produced common household or ‘white' beer.

During several trips to Germany Jacobsen studied the production of slowly fermented beer, but it was not until he brought some yeast home from Munich that his brewing experiments were successful. Jacobsen realised the importance of science in brewing at an early stage of his career. He attended H.C. Ørsted's lectures, and strove continuously to improve his products.

The new beer was matured for longer at low temperatures, and production soon outgrew the city brewery. In 1846 Jacobsen purchased a large plot beyond the city ramparts at Valby Bakke. Here he built the first Bavarian beer brewery in Denmark, which he called Carlsberg after his son Carl.

Jacobsen's visionary attitude to new technology enabled the brewery to develop along exemplary lines. He was a national liberal, and fully conscious of his responsibilities as a citizen of the newly democratic Denmark. When the national treasure Frederiksborg Palace burnt down in 1859, it was Jacobsen who funded the rebuilding of the blackened ruin.

Star Gazing

Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860) was the Golden Age's leading literary critic and arbiter of taste, and his satirical pen was feared by many. Heiberg wrote a large number of vaudevilles, which were performed at the Royal Theatre where he was appointed director in 1849. His most famous piece was the national festival play 'The Elf Hill' of 1828.

During his youth, Heiberg had been interested in astronomy, and during the 1840's the desire to gaze at the stars blazed anew. After his marriage to the popular actress Johanne Luise Heiberg in 1844, the couple moved to Søkvæst House in Christianshavn, where he built a small observatory in the attic.

Heiberg's greatest interest was determining the position of the stars, and he gathered a large collection of telescopes for this purpose. In 1844 Heiberg founded the journal Urania .  He wrote for the journal himself and one of his articles was on Tycho Brahe's observatory on the island of Hven, which he visited in 1845.

Heiberg was an amateur. His astronomical studies were not based on any formal scientific training, but he approached his studies seriously. Even though the conclusions he reached may not have contributed to any real breakthrough in the field of astronomy, the intensity with which he approached his hobby reflected the general absorption with science at the time.

Kirkegaard – The Castigator of Science

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) did not share H.C. Andersen's enthusiasm for the sciences, although as a youth he had considered substituting his theological studies with studies in the field of science. In 1835 he wrote of these considerations to P.W. Lund, whose brothers were married to two of Kirkegaard's sisters.

Despite his short life, Kierkegaard left an impressive volume of literary work to posterity. In 1838 he published his first book, Early Polemical Writings, a critical review of H.C. Andersen's Only a Fiddler. Two years later he was awarded a Masters of Theology. His real breakthrough as a writer came in 1843, with Either/Or, a work inspired by his unhappy love affair with Regine Olsen.

Kierkegaard saw himself as a religious writer, attacking the preaching of established Christianity. He wanted to see an end to hypocrisy and illusion, in order to reach an understanding of the one true Christ. He also attempted to illuminate life's existential questions, as he wrote himself : ' to clarify and solve the mystery of life'.

When Kierkegaard wrote to Lund in 1835 his attitude to the sciences was still positive. Later, however, he became more disapproving, comparing the exact sciences with base curiousity. For Kierkegaard, the researchers' attempts to explain everything scientifically was sheer blasphemy.

Schouw – Between Botany and Politics

Professor Joachim Frederik Schouw (1789-1852) was both a botanist and a politician. He sat his university finals in law, but he also studied botany simultaneously and was awarded a doctorate in the subject in 1816. Throughout Europe plant geography was developing as an independent science represented, among others, by the German researcher Alexander von Humboldt.

Schouw's started to focus on plant geography between 1816 and 1820, during a tour of Italy and Sicily where he studied native plants. With the theses Fundamental Characteristics of a Standard Plant Geography and An Atlas of Plant Geography from 1822-23 Schouw attained a central position in the world of plant geography

Alongside this scientific work, Schouw's responsibilities as a politician were also expanding, and in 1848 he was elected president of the constitutional assembly.

From 1845 until his death Schouw was also director of the Botanical Gardens in Copenhagen. It was during his time as director that his daughter Georgia married the painter P.C. Skovgaard (1817-1875).

Georgia Skovgaard (1828-1868) embroidered patterns designed by her husband, and was a pioneer in the art of embroidery in Denmark. Schouw also used some of his son-in-laws illustrations in one of his last theses. This collaboration was a fine example of the perfect union between art and botanical science.

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Denmark

When the Danish constitution was drawn up in 1849 a war was raging over Southern Jutland and the duchies to the south. Since the early 1840s, large sections of the Danish population had united in their demand for a free constitution and a Denmark extending to the River Ejder. As a result of these strong popular movements the new state system was very democratic.

 Already during the elections to the constituent assembly the male population were granted the vote – a radical departure from the limited ballot of the feudal system. It was becoming increasingly untenable to demand military service of the lower classes without granting them political rights in return.

The resulting assembly consisted of three almost equally large main groups: The Conservatives, the National Liberals and the Danish agricultural reform party Bondevennerne. The government presented a draft of the constitution to this assembly before its final adoption in 1849.

Legislative power was granted to a popularly elected parliament divided into two chambers – a lower and upper house. Danish citizens were only entitled to vote for those sitting in the lower house. Judicial power was in the hands of the courts. The king and his ministers had executive powers, and also a degree of legislative power because all laws had to be signed by the king. The king's decisions were, however, only valid if countersigned by one or more ministers.

The Galathea Expedition, 1845-1847

In 1845 the corvette Galathea, captained by Steen A. Billes, set out on the first Danish circumnavigation of the globe. In the same year the Danish colonies in East India were sold to England, and Galathea's captain was authorised to make the official transfer to the British East Indian Company.

At the time Denmark was also considering a new colony - the Nicobar Islands. These, it was imagined, could become a centre for trade and shipping in the East. There was, however, one condition for success of this plan - the existence of coal reserves. Investigating whether there was coal on the islands was thus one of the tasks granted the expedition.

The Galathea expedition had both state and scientific aims. Four scientists joined the expedition including, at the suggestion of H.C. Ørsted, the young geologist and mineralogist Hinrich Rink. His investigations soon revealed that the geological deposits of the Nicobar Islands were of little significance from an economic point of view.

Rink almost lost his life to the dreaded Nicobar fever. He left Galathea and returned to Denmark in 1846. The geological samples he had collected were handed over to the University Museum, and in 1847 he published the book Die Nicobarischen Inseln.

The Arrival of the Railway

The importance of the railway was immeasurable, not only for travellers but also for trade and industry. New industries and small towns – so-called station towns - soon sprouted along the railways, granting this new technological advance significance on a number of levels. The first English railway was opened in 1825, and was initially greeted with scepticism in the rest of Europe.

The advantages, however, soon became apparent, and in 1835 a railway commission was established in Denmark. In 1844 a railway between Altona and Kiel was opened – the first of its kind on Danish land. As early as 1840 the technician Søren Hjorth and bookkeeper Gustav Schram published a small pamphlet arguing for the usefulness of a railway between Copenhagen and Roskilde.

It was not until 1847 that this railway became a reality, and Christian VIII opened the section on July 26th. The rolling stock, including the steam engine Odin, was purchased in England. Travelling to Roskilde became a popular day-trip for people from Copenhagen, and the station housed a fine restaurant offering light entertainment, including H.C. Lumbye's Railway Steam Galop.

 The Three Year War interrupted the extension of the Danish railway network. Once the war was over the Roskilde railway was extended all the way to Korsør, and new railways were soon being built throughout the country. Denmark had become a railway nation.

The Three Year War, 1848-1851

During the 1840s a number of national liberal movements emerged within the kingdom of Denmark - in both the Danish and German parts of the country. One of the most pressing problems was the internal German-Danish conflict over the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg.

The ministry declared that Holstein and Lauenburg should have a separate constitution as an independent German federal state. Schleswig, however, was to remain under the control of the Danish constitution. In March 1848 the Schleswig-Holsteiners protested by seizing  Rendsborg Fortress, marking the beginning of a civil war which was to last several years.

The army was recruited exclusively from the farming class, and according to the law of 1842 soldiers were to serve four years on the front line, and four years in the reserves. The Three Year War has gone down in Danish history as a victory. In strictly military terms this may have been true, although the war cost endless lives and caused terrible suffering.

Politically Denmark achieved nothing. The question of Schleswig's nationality remained unresolved. It was not until the Battle of Schleswig in 1864 that resolution finally came in the form of a bloody defeat for Denmark.

Epilogue

The end of the Three Year War in 1851 marked the end of an epoch - the Golden Age. Around the middle of the century a series of key individuals, who had played a crucial role in this major period of Danish philosophical history, died.

In the realms of politics, science and art new individuals came to the fore, catalysing widespread cultural change. Even though the national romantic currents which had emerged in the broader political context of the 1840s were strengthened during the 1850s, they were characterised by a fundamentally different attitude.

The cult personalities of the Golden Age were both for the better and the worse influenced by the period in which they lived, the last period of absolutism. After the introduction of democracy a new perception of reality came to dominate.

With its wealth of scientific and cultural life the Golden Age stands as one of the most vigorous epochs of Danish modern history, the cultural inheritance of which cannot be overestimated.