Glücksburg Castle (German: Schloss Glücksburg, Danish: Lyksborg Slot) is one of the most significant Renaissance castles in Northern Europe. The castle was the headquarters of the ducal lines of the house of Glücksburg and temporarily served as the primary residence of the Danish monarch. The building is in the town of Glücksburg, located in Northern Germany on the Flensburg Firth. The structure is a water castle. The ducal house of Glücksburg derived its name from the castle and its family members are related to almost all European dynasties. Nowadays, the castle is one of the most famous sights in the German state of Schleswig Holstein. Within the castle is a museum which is open to the public. Glücksburg Castle History From the Ryd Abbey to Glücksburg Castle The history of today's castle grounds began in Schleswig in 1192, when the double monastery of St. Michael auf dem Berge was dissolved. The nuns then moved to the St. John's Monastery in Schleswig, which still exists today, while the monks left the place and went to Guldholm on Langsee. Between 1209 and 1210 the monks founded a new Cistercian monastery in Glücksburg. In the vicinity of the monastery was an older motte-and-bailey castle, parts of which have been preserved to this day. The so-called Ryd Abbey and the extensive estates were inhabited and managed by the monks in the following centuries. At the same time, the neighboring town Flensburg still had several castles, as well as the large, militarily important Duburg fortress, built in 1411. In the course of the Reformation, the Rüdekloster was secularized in 1538 and came into the possession of the Danish King Christian III in 1544. The monastery buildings served as the administrator's residence. In the beginning of the 16th century, the condition of the Duburg fortress in Flensburg began to decline. The ancestral seat of the elder line The history of the castle itself begins in 1582. The Danish King Frederick II encumbered his brother John, known as Hans the Younger, with the lands of Sundewitt, the Reinfeld monastery and the old Ryd Abbey, amongst other things. John, who already had considerable possessions, acquired additional areas. The government of the duchy was largely in the hands of John's brother. Although John was a partitioned-off duke, because the estates refused him homage, he tried to increase his fortune and his reputation in other ways. He worked successfully as