Peder Munk of Estvadgård (22 April 1534 – 1623), was a Danish navigator, politician, and ambassador, who was in charge of the fleet carrying Anne of Denmark to Scotland. The events of the voyage led to witch trials and executions in Denmark and Scotland.Gareth Russell, Queen James: The Lives and Loves of Britain's First King (London: William Collins, 2025), pp. 134, 151.
Career Peder Munk was the son of Ludvig Munk (d. 1537) and Kirstin Pedersdatte Lykke. He was born at Lønborggård, Lønborg, Ringkøbing, Denmark, on 22 April 1534. Peder's younger brother Ludvig Munk was also a sailor and a soldier, whose daughter Kirsten Munk married Christian IV of Denmark in 1615.
Peder Munk's main estate from 1566 was Estvadgård in Skive Kommune.Henry Ellis, Original Letters, series 2 vol. 3 (London, 1827), p. 155.
In 1575, Peder Munk was made Admiral of Denmark, the Admiral of the Realm or 'Rigsadmiral'; in 1588, he was made one of the council, the Rigsraadet of regents for Christian IV.Henry Ellis, Original Letters, series 2 vol. 3 (London, 1827), p. 155. Peder Munk is said to have provided a miniature warship for the young king in a Jutland lake.
On 20 August 1589, Peder Munk and others accepted an agreement at Helsingør over the rule of the islands Orkney from the Scottish ambassador George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, as part of the marriage arrangements of James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark, a sister of Christian IV.Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1881), pp. 822-4.
Mission to Scotland In August 1589, the Danish council decided that Peder Munk, Breide Rantzau, Dr Paul Knibbe, and Niels Krag would accompany Anne of Denmark, the bride of James VI, to Scotland. Peder sailed on 5 September with Henrik Knudsen Gyldenstierne, admiral of the fleet, and 18 ships.Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Birlinn, 2023), p. 134: Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 150, 164. Munk and Henrik Gildenstern sailed with a Danish fleet including the Gideon, Josaphad or Josafat their flagship, Samson, Joshua, Dragon, Raphael, St Michael, Gabriel, Little Sertoun (Lille Fortuna), Mouse, Rose, the Falcon of Birren, the Blue Lion, the Blue Dove (Blaa Due) and the White Dove (Hvide Due).Kancelliets brevbøger vedrørende Danmarks indre forhold i uddrag (Copenhagen, 1908), pp. 242-3: Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 289.
Winter in Norway There were two accidents on the ships at Copenhagen involving exploding cannons.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (John Donald: Edinburgh, 1997), p. 136. The fleet was delayed by adverse and contrary winds. They first stopped at a safe haven in Norway, "Gamel Sellohe", where the leaking Gideon was repaired, then at Flekkerøy. The Samson, St Michael, and the Joshua returned to Copenhagen.
In Scotland, James waited for his bride at Seton Palace in East Lothian.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 164 no. 231. He worked up his feelings into a sonnet, A complaint against the contrary wyndes that hindered the Queene to com to Scotland from Denmarke.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (John Donald: Edinburgh, 1997), p. 27: Sebastiaan Verweij, The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland (Oxford, 2016), pp. 72-3: Allan Westcott, New Poems by James I of England (New York, 1911), p. 1: Two of the king's poems are known by that title. A ferry boat on the Forth collided with another vessel in a storm drowning all its passengers, including Jane Kennedy who was to join the queen's household. There was an inquiry and trial about this incident, but later in 1590 this disaster and the accidents of the royal voyages were attributed to witchcraft.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 165-6: Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 185-186.
James VI sent the Scottish diplomat William Stewart with John Skene and Peter Young to Anna in Norway. They sailed from Flekkerøy to Copenhagen and told Henrik Ramel (Ramelius) of the predicament facing the Danish fleet. At Helsingør, Jørgen Rosenkrantz and Christoffer Valkendorf asked for the Regent's and Council's advice, and wrote to Anna of Denmark asking if she would return to Denmark, but they realised the Scottish envoys and George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal wanted her to continue her journey or stay at Oslo.Kancelliets brevbøger vedrørende Danmarks indre forhold i uddrag (Copenhagen, 1908), pp. 275-6. Meanwhile, Steen Bille, William Stewart, and Andrew Sinclair brought Anna's letters in French from Flekkerøy to Edinburgh on 10 October, describing the delay and four or five failed attempts to cross the North Sea, and saying she would stay in Norway.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, 'James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts', Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), pp. 93-4: Miles Kerr-Peterson, A Protestant Lord in James VI's Scotland (Boydell, 2019), p. 51: HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 3 (London, 1889), p. 438. James VI decided to sail to Norway and escort her back to Denmark.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (John Donald: Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 23-5, 136-7: Thomas Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot..., vol. 1 (Odense, 1988), pp. 264-5.
Scotland and the queen's dower lands
James VI and Anne of Denmark returned to Scotland on 1 May 1590 with the remainder of the Danish fleet. Munk, Breide Rantzau, and Steen Brahe came as ambassadors. On their arrival at Leith, James VI presented the skipper of Munk's ship, the pilots, trumpeters, violers and kettle drummers with forty gold rose noble coins, accounted from his dowry. Peder Munk was given a jewel.Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, 'James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts, 1588-1596', Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), pp. 38, 52.
Before Anne's coronation in Edinburgh, Peder Munk travelled to view and take formal possession of the lands which James VI had given Anne of Denmark as a "morning gift".Simon Thurley, Palaces of the Revolution, Life, Death & Art at the Stuart Court (Collins, 2021), pp. 14-15. This gift was confirmed by the presentation of a special charter with the royal seal and the seals of representatives of the Parliament of Scotland and the Scottish burgh towns. Munk went first to Rossend Castle the home of Sir Robert Melville, and stayed at Wemyss Castle. On 12 May they visited Falkland Palace, then his party stayed the night with the Earl of Morton at the Newhouse of Lochleven Castle. Next, on 13 May, they went to Dunfermline Palace and then after a night at Niddry Castle, on 14 May, Linlithgow Palace. At each palace, the lawyer John Skene read out the details of the property, then Munk was given a handful of earth and stone, the traditional Scottish ceremony of transferring ownership or "sasine".David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (John Donald: Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 57-8, 102-3: William Fraser, Memorials of the family of Wemyss of Wemyss, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 28-9: David Moysie, Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 158.
Back in Edinburgh, on 17 May, the day of the queen's coronation, Munk, Steen Brahe, and Breide Rantzau walked with Anne of Denmark down the aisle of Holyrood Abbey on her left side, and the English ambassador Sir Robert Bowes walked on the right. They were followed by Bowes's wife Eleanor Musgrove, the Countess of Mar, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Bothwell, and Jean Kennedy Countess of Orkney who carried the train of the queen's gown and cloak.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 104-105.
On 18 May, Munk and Lord Hamilton escorted Anne of Denmark into St Giles during the ceremony of her entry into the town.David Stevenson, Scotland's Last Royal Wedding (John Donald: Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 104, 114, 142. The town of Edinburgh held a banquet a few days later for the Danish envoys and the king and queen. It was held in the house of the master of the mint, Thomas Aitchisoun, at the foot of Todrick's Wynd.Maureen M. Meikle, 'Anna Of Denmark’s Coronation And Entry Into Edinburgh', Julian Goodare & Alasdair M. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland: Essays in Honour of Michael Lynch (Brill, 2008), p. 291. The organiser was John MacMorran who had the room hung with tapestry, hired musicians, and arranged a guard of honour carrying halberds. The goldsmith Thomas Foulis provided gold chains as diplomatic gifts for Munk and the other Danish envoys.James Thomson Gibson-Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 34, Appendix p. 16: Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, 'James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts', Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 56.
Witch trials After his return to Denmark, Peder Munk became involved in litigation with Christoffer Valkendorff, treasurer and governor or Stadtholder of Copenhagen, about equipping the fleet and defective ships in October 1589.Liv Helene Willumsen, 'Witchcraft against Royal Danish Ships in 1589 and the Transnational Transfer of Ideas', IRSS, 45 (2020), p. 73. Some women were accused of witchcraft in the Copenhagen witch trials, raising storms or sabotaging the ships intended to carry Anne to Scotland. Anna Koldings and others were executed for gathering in Karen Vævers's house to infest the keels of the ships with little devils, Pil-Hesteskou and Smuk (Arrow-Horseshoe and Pretty), smuggled onto the ships in barrels.Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, 'Kind in Words and Deeds but False in Their Hearts: Fear of Evil Conspiracy in Late Sixteenth-Century Denmark', in, Jonathan Barry, Owen Davies, Cornelie Usborne, Cultures of Witchcraft in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 138-142.
News of the arrest of five or six women in Copenhagen reached Edinburgh by 23 July 1590. The English ambassador Robert Bowes wrote, "It is advertised from Denmark, that the Admiral there has caused five or six witches to be taken in Copenhagen, upon suspicion that by their witchcraft they had stayed the Queen of Scots voyage into Scotland, and sought to have stayed likewise the King's return."Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1589-1603, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 365.
In October 1590, the Danish diplomat Dr Paul Knibbe or Knibius wrote to Daniel Rogers in London that Peder Munk's fleet had been threatened by witches led by Margrete the wife of Jakob Skiber, consul in Copenhagen. Munk accompanied the accused couple to their trial and sentencing. Margrete was burnt and the possessions of Jakob were confiscated.Liv Helene Willumsen, 'Witchcraft against Royal Danish Ships in 1589 and the Transnational Transfer of Ideas', IRSS, 45 (2020), pp. 72-6.
In Scotland, several people were accused of trying to sink the royal ships by magic in the North Berwick witch trials. The "articles of dittay" indicting Agnes Sampson of witchcraft include raising winds to prevent the queen sailing to Scotland.James Thomson Gibson Craig, Papers Relative to the Marriage of King James the Sixth of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1836), pp. xiv-xvi. The safe delivery of James VI and Anne of Denmark from the "conspiracy of witches" was celebrated at the baptism of their son Prince Henry at Stirling Castle in August 1594.William Fowler, A True Reportarie (Edinburgh, 1594).
Scotland in August 1591 The "Admiral of Denmark" is said to have returned to Scotland as ambassador in August 1591 with a train of 200 followers.Joseph Bain, Calendar of Border Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1894), p. 380. He spoke to James VI about the disagreements between Anne of Denmark and the Chancellor John Maitland of Thirlestane.Joseph Bain, Calendar of Border Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1894), p. 383.
Marshal of Denmark