At the death of King Friedrich, his realm broke into three separate parts, Denmark proper, the duchies of Schleswig Holstein, and Norway. All the king's horses and all the king's men would be needed to put the pieces together again. The problems confronting Denmark made the prompt election of a king urgent. Formally, the council of the realm held the right to a free election, but had promised at Friedrich's accession to choose one of his sons. In the interregnum the great fortresses would be held by the council until a new king could be elected and had sealed an accession agreement. The duchies of Schleswig Holstein, like the kingdom of Denmark, had promised to choose one of Friedrich's sons as lord; the duchies were not obliged, however, to choose as their duke the same son the kingdom chose as king. At the urging of his father's powerful junta, Duke Christian took control of the fortresses in the duchies on behalf of himself and his half-brothers. In Norway the council of the realm was pursuing a separatist course, and if the Danes on the council and the commanders at the great coastal fortresses had not restrained Archbishop Engelbrektsson, he might have taken the occasion of Friedrich's death to break with an increasingly heretical Denmark.

Of Friedrich's sons, only one was of age, the thirty-year-old Duke Christian. He was an outspoken Lutheran who had undertaken a radical reform of the church in his small duchy, Haderslev Tørning.