Visitors to Elsinore, Denmark, might be forgiven for believing that the city’s Kronborg castle found fame through William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. But in fact, the castle’s reputation preceded that of the Bard’s play.Kronborg began life in the 1420s as a sort of glorified toll booth, a fortress built by King Erik of Pomerania to extract payment from ships entering or leaving the narrow sound between Denmark and Sweden that leads to the Baltic Sea.During the 1570s, Frederik II transformed the crude fortress into a magnificent Renaissance castle richly decorated with marble fireplaces, ceiling paintings and tapestries. The castle was the finest in Europe at the time, which befitted the international shipping and cultural center that Elsinore had become.It was this impressive structure that a troupe of English actors encountered when their company toured Elsinore in 1585. Upon their return to England, three of the actors (Will Kempe, George Bryan and Thomas Pope) became colleagues of William Shakespeare and told him about their experiences touring abroad.
By 1602, Shakespeare had used Kronborg as the setting for The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke and the Castle of Elsinore. The play was based on the legend of Prince Hamlet, first mentioned more than 800 years ago in a history of Denmark by Saxo Grammaticus and dramatized in 1590 in England by Thomas Kyd.The touring actors’ accounts of the castle became Shakespeare’s stage directions. “The castle Courtyard is a prison, with total security of access and exit,” explains Shakespeare scholar Ralph Berry. “Off it is the Chapel, where the body of Polonius is laid to rest. Upstairs is the Lobby, where Hamlet walks. Gertrude and Hamlet meet in the Queen’s Rooms. Polonius hides behind the arras, one of the famous tapestries that still adorn the palace walls. The fencing match takes place in the Great Hall. The play is made for the castle.”And indeed, Hamlet has been performed often at Kronborg, the first time in 1816 to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare. Since then, a succession of luminaries have played the role inside the castle: John Gielgud (1939), Michael Redgrave (1950), Richard Burton (1954), Derek Jacobi (1979), and Kenneth Branagh (1988), to name a few.
The enduring popularity of Shakespeare has, perhaps, kept Kronborg in the public eye. But even without this literary association, Kronborg still would have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 2000 as one of the most important Renaissance castles in Northern Europe.Visitors enter Kronborg through the Crownwork Gate, so called because the defense system on the inland side of the castle, when viewed from above, resembles the shape of a royal crown. Inside the Courtyard, they can observe the plan of the castle as laid out by Frederik II.Apartments for the king and his officials occupied the north wing, with the Chapel and 57-meter-high Trumpeter Tower on the opposite side. The Kitchen and Brewery were at the bottom of the Courtyard on the west side, with guest suites on top. The east wing, with its faceted-stone facade, was the last part of the structure to be completed, making it possible to walk all the way around the castle without going inside.Today, the Royal Chambers on the first floor of the castle, the Chapel, historical suites and Ballroom on the second floor, as well as the Casemates under the castle are open to the public.
The Casemates are an extensive underground system of corridors and rooms where soldiers were billeted in times of war. They are spacious enough to house 1,000 men, plus enough provisions for a six-week siege.The King’s Chamber, the Queen’s Chamber and the bedrooms between them were part of the late 16th- century transformation of Kronborg from fortress to castle. They served as the royal family’s private apartments until the castle ceased to be used as a royal residence in the 17th century.A disaster intrudes.A fire in 1629 destroyed much of Kronborg. Christian IV, son of Frederik II, managed to restore the exterior to its original appearance, but the interior never regained its former grandeur. However, Christian IV greatly expanded Frederiksborg palace in Hillerod, which Frederik II had begun, and built the more modern Rosenborg palace in Copenhagen.The only room at Kronborg to survive the fire intact was the Chapel, the strength of its arches apparently saving it. The gold-trimmed Chapel includes a gallery pew reserved for the royal family and a Baroque organ installed by Christian IV.
The Queen’s Gallery connects the Queen’s Chamber in the north wing to the Chapel and the Ballroom, which covers the entire length of the south wing. Measuring 62 meters by 11 meters (203 feet by 36 feet), the Ballroom at Kronborg is the largest castle hall in Scandinavia.Originally, Gobelin tapestries by Dutch weaver Hans Knieper hung in the Ballroom. The tapestries depicted 100 Danish kings, historical and legendary, as they were perceived in the 16th century. Of the 40 tapestries delivered to Frederik II the 1584, 14 have been preserved. Seven are in the Small Hall at Kronborg, and seven are in the National Museum in Copenhagen.The Flag Bastion on the north wing is sometimes open to the public during summer. A special unit from the King’s Artillery Regiment is responsible for its 17 cannons, all of which are of 18th-century origin. On special occasions, such as royal days and visits by foreign heads of state, as many as 27 salvoes are fired.
As the royal family moved out of Kronborg, the armed forces moved in. From 1785 until 1922, the castle was under military administration. Since then, the government has assumed responsibility, continually working to restore the castle to the way it looked during the reigns of Frederik II and Christian IV.
