What was with Mrs. Heiberg and Monrad?

You can get a short bio of her here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johanne_Luise_Heiberg

Really, the two weren't that close, but she was definitely a cultural (soft power) force at the time.

One of the major reasons this series was viewed as unauthentic was the portrayal of Monrad. He was a much more complex figure in reality.

As for the major part played by Heiberg, I think she'd be better suited in a movie about the cultural bourgeoisie of the Danish Golden Age. The reason she was selected was probably because she's a much more noticeable and memorable female figure to most Danes, compared to Monrad's (first) wife, Emilie Nathalia Lütthans. We live in a mostly gender-equal society today, and so it's only natural that people want that reflected in our perspective on the past. Sadly (though true), only the king and men of considerable wealth could hold any final political power in early democratic Denmark. It was only in 1901 that we had real parliamentarism and in 1915 in which women finally achieved the right to vote and with it the right to run for political office.

In general, I too thought the series was a little ridiculous in its portrayals - but sometimes you have to take what's available. And understandably, this is the only series on the subject to date. Still, some of the later episodes were definitely of passable quality.

i have to preface my comment with the fact that i am not a Dane,

what i believe was shown in the series was Monrad being enamored by Heilberg,she was a Dramatic Actress, spoke/performed with conviction, Romanticized war, and fed Monrads aspirations of a Strong Denmark, as mentioned their relationship depicted in the series was not accurate, however i believe that they wanted it to seem that Monrad (A little mad) believed so much that Denmark was Stronger than they actually were, and Heilberg reinforced that belief..feeding him the confidence he needed to sway politics... i don't know if this was true or not, but interestingly Adolf Hitler had the same kind of relationship with Richard Wagner's widow, a powerful influential Aristocratic woman giving moral support...