The founding fathers of Reformation Scandinavia left the stage within a short time of one another. Christian III was the first to depart. After a long illness he died in his fifty-sixth year at Koldinghus January 1, 1559. He remained in harness to the end. In June the previous summer he had risen from his sick bed to ride the judicial circuit on Fyn and north Jylland. Late in the summer he had been ill at Voergaard in Vendsyssel. By October he was well enough to preside at a council meeting in Kolding. The royal family remained at Koldinghus afterward.

Christian III had little for which to reproach himself in his rule. As a man he was the very pattern of a Lutheran territorial prince, a paragon of piety, a dutiful husband, and an exemplary father. After his violent seizure of power, he became known for his rectitude and moderation. His subjects were, by the standards of that age, well looked after. Administration was in the hands of an experienced and moderate chancellor, Johan Friis. The state debt was paid off slowly. Trade was prosperous. In the churches of Denmark and Norway and out across the Atlantic, God's Word was being preached in the vernacular by orthodox Evangelical priests. The king had gradually freed himself from the leading strings of the nobility of Holstein, something his father had never managed to do, and he had befriended the Danish lords he had at first treated so sternly.