At 23 he not only became king but the first Danish king by hereditary right and not by election. Conscientious if not gifted, he was devoted to riding and hunting. Consequently he was very popular with the lower classes but hated the old nobility, whose power he tried to reduce by creating a new class of nobility drawn from officials and upper-middle-class families. He revived Christian I's Order of the Elephant and introduced an elaborate Table of Ranks. 
Under the guidance of his chancellor, Griffenfeldt, son of a wine merchant named Schumacher, Christian also tried to create an absolute government. In 1676 Griffenfeldt fell from power when his overtures to the French king became known. His many enemies wanted the death penalty but Christian reduced it to life imprisonment. From then on Christian was his own Prime Minister, even though the government was in reality led by Count Frederick Ahlefeldt. A hotbed for intrigue 
ensued between the King, the Queen and the King's mistress, Sophie Amalie Moth, who had been introduced to the Court as a sixteen-year-old and ennobled as Countess Samsoe. 
His reforms were not always successful and the new tax exemptions he introduced helped to undermine royal finances. His foreign policy was anti-Swedish, but French diplomacy deprived him of the rewards of Denmark's involvement in the Scanian War (1675-1679) which reversed 
the tide of military defeats at the hands of Sweden. 
Due to the extravagance of the Court and the unremunerative war with Sweden (1675-1679), the financial situation worsened. His personal courage and affability had made him popular with the lower classes, but as a despot he was weak. During the years from 1661 until 1683 new laws were established for Norway. On 25 August 1699 he died in a hunting accident aged only fifty-three. 
 

Source: Leo van de Pas