Charlotte Amalie Winge
Charlotte Amalie Winge (floruit 1766), was the royal mistress of king Frederick V of Denmark. She is known as Madam Winge, and was, alongside Else Hansen, one of only two women known to have been long term lovers of the king. [1]
Charlotte Amalie Winge was the widow of a priest when she became the lover of the king in 1762. According to a traditional story, the king met Winge dressed as an Amazon on a walk on the manor Bregentved, where he was staying witch his favorite Adam Gottlob Moltke, and brought her back to Copenhagen as his mistress and installed her in a house at Vandkunsten.[1] If so, Moltke was likely the one arranging the meeting.[1] Winge is not believed by Dorothea Biehl to have participated in the famous decadent Bacchusfesterne ('Bacchus parties') of the king, but was seen as someone who could ease the king's mind and nurse him during his decreasingly ill health. It is noted that during the king's illness, queen Juliane Marie often found Winge nursing the king when she came to tend to his health.[1]
Just as the rest of Frederick's lovers, Winge was not an official mistress introduced at court, nor did she have any influence on state affairs. However, in contrast to most other lovers of the king, Winge managed to make him hand out favors to her relatives, and he gave her sister a pension, made her brother-in-law an official, and protected her two nephews in their careers was officers.[1]
The relationship between the king and Winge lasted until the king's death. After the death of the king in 1766, Charlotte Amalie Winge was granted a pension as long as she stayed unmarried.[1]