On the north-eastern coast of Zealand, about two miles from Gilleleié, is situate the village of Sjöberg, where the spade and the ploughshare occasionally strike against the foundations of ancient buildings, and traces yet remain of the paved streets of towns, the names of which are no longer known, and over which the corn now grows or the cattle graze. Towards the close of the thirteenth century there was still standing a small town, built on the ruins of the ancient Sjöberg. On a hill, surrounded by the water-reeds of the now nearly dried-up lake, fragments of walls of hewn free-stone lie buried in the earth, and mark the site of the strong and well fortified castle, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries served as a place of confinement for state prisoners of importance. The spot on which the castle stood was then entirely surrounded by the lake, which thus formed a natural fastness, rendering artificial moats superfluous. The castle was surrounded by ramparts. It was built of massive free-stone, and had a strong square tower, in which the most dangerous state prisoners were confined. The air was close and bad in the subterranean dungeon of the tower, where no ray of light could enter; but the upper dungeon, at the height of thirty-six feet from the ground, admitted light and air through a small round grated window. In this upper prison, towards the close of the year 1295, was still confined one of the chief accomplices in Marsk[[1]] Stig's conspiracy[[2]], the turbulent and imperious Archbishop Iens Grand. He had been imprisoned here during the minority of Eric Menved, as an accomplice in the murder of Eric Glipping, and as the protector of the outlawed regicides.
This dangerous prelate had many adherents in the country, and possessed powerful friends among the potentates of Europe, as well as at the papal see. According to the famous constitution of Veile (cum ecclesiæ Dacianæ), which had been the cause of such dangerous disputes between the kings and clergy of Denmark, the nation was immediately laid under an interdict prohibiting the performance of divine worship throughout the kingdom, on the seizure and imprisonment of a bishop by the king or any temporal authority. This, however, was not carried into effect on the seizure and imprisonment of Archbishop Grand. Not only love of their country and dread of the ungodliness, profligacy, and confusion, the certain consequences of a national punishment of this nature, had prompted the greater part of the Danish clergy to appeal to the pope against the enforcement of this penalty, but also their fears of temporal power and the people's wrath. The closing of the churches might have been followed by perilous consequences to the clergy themselves, at a time when the agitation caused by a regicide had not yet subsided, and the excited passions of the populace often broke out in scenes of blood and violence. This important question remained undecided at the court of Rome. Divine worship meanwhile was continued as usual, but fears were reasonably entertained, that, should the archbishop not speedily be set at liberty, the interdict would be confirmed by the pope, and the nation consequently plunged into a state of the greatest misery.
King Eric Menved had attained his majority, having completed his twenty-first year. The circumstances under which he had passed his childhood had conduced to the early formation of manly character, and to the development of his intellectual qualities. The outrage committed on the royal person, to which he had been witness in his childhood, had early awakened the consciousness of authority within his breast, and imparted something of passionate earnestness to his zeal in the administration of justice. He was deeply imbued with the chivalrous spirit of the age. The care with which he upheld the dignity of the crown was deemed by many a necessary policy in so perilous a time, but this anxiety for the maintenance of royal splendour, joined to his natural gaiety of disposition, had inspired the young monarch with a love of pomp and outward show, which was often censured as ostentatious vanity. The earnest solemnity with which he assumed the regal sceptre indicated a manly and resolute temper, early disciplined to firmness in the school of adversity; and the boldness with which he issued his first royal mandates bespoke a master spirit, conscious of kindred affinity with Waldemar the Victorious, the model as well as the ancestor of the young king,[[3]] Eric's first exercise of royal power was a bold attempt to assert the authority of his crown against the mightiest of earthly potentates, who from St. Peter's chair swayed kings as well as people in all Christian lands. This the young monarch dared to do, even at a time when his personal happiness was in a great measure dependent on the favour of the papal see. He had despatched his oldest and most experienced councillor of state, Ion Little, as well as Drost Hessel[[4]], to Rome, to justify as an act of lawful self-defence the proceedings against the archbishop, contrary to ecclesiastical law, and to demand his condemnation as a traitor to the crown. But besides this important mission, the aged councillor was entrusted with another, which at any other time would not have been attended with difficulty, although at the present juncture its favourable issue seemed doubtful, in proportion to its being of moment to the king. Little had been commissioned to obtain from the pope, and forward to Denmark with all possible dispatch, the long promised dispensation, empowering Eric to wed the beautiful princess Ingeborg of Sweden, to whom he had been betrothed in infancy, and had long loved as the companion of his childhood, and whom he now adored with all the devotedness and fervour of first and youthful love.
While the Danish embassy was detained at the papal court by all the artifices of tedious investigation and diplomatic ambiguity, the papal nuncio, Cardinal Isarnus, had been dispatched to Denmark, for the purpose of threatening the young Danish sovereign with excommunication in case he should refuse to release the archbishop unconditionally from imprisonment. The wily cardinal brought with him no letter from the pope touching the dispensation and permission for the royal marriage; but expressed himself on the subject in so dubious and enigmatical a manner, that it was evident the court of Rome designed to work upon the inexperienced monarch's feelings in a matter so nearly concerning his personal happiness, in order the more effectually to secure his submission to papal authority and his clemency towards the ecclesiastical offender at Sjöberg.
This mode of proceeding, however, was so far from producing, its intended effect on the young and impetuous King Eric, that it appeared to rouse him to such a pertinacious defiance of papal authority, as might be followed by dangerous consequences both to himself and the kingdom. The affair still remained undecided--the cardinal had quitted Denmark with fearful menaces, and was now at Lubec.
The haughty Archbishop Grand, who was alone the cause of this suspense and impending danger, was detained meanwhile in close captivity. During the first thirty-six weeks of his imprisonment he was confined in chains in the dark, deep, subterranean dungeon of the tower, and was left to suffer great misery and want, although most persons acquitted the young king (then in his minority) of having been accessary to this severity of treatment. The archbishop's fellow-prisoner, the traitorous and malevolent provost Jacob, had been released from prison on the plea of illness, but had immediately availed himself of this act of clemency to hasten to Rome, where he zealously laboured to stir up hostile feelings towards the king, and neglected no means of forwarding the liberation of the archbishop and their mutual revenge.
The preceding Christmas the king had visited Sjöberg, and had himself offered to give the archbishop his freedom, on the condition of his vacating the archiepiscopal chair, of his quitting the kingdom, and swearing to renounce all revenge, and give up all connection with the enemies of the crown. Notwithstanding the haughty defiance and scorn with which the archbishop had rejected this proposition, the rigour of his captivity was mitigated by the king's command, and he was placed in the upper dungeon he now inhabited, where he wanted neither light nor air, but where, as yet, he remained closely guarded and strongly fettered as before. As soon, however, as the king had left the castle, the condition of the captive became once more extremely miserable. The steward, Jesper Mogensen, was notorious for his avarice, his cruelty, and hypocritical bearing; and the king's brother. Junker[[5]] Christopher, was accused of having had a great share in the severity of the archbishop's treatment, although the prince took every opportunity of blaming the king's conduct in this matter, and counselled him to make any sacrifice and submit to any humiliation, to avoid a formal breach with the church and the papal see.
One evening in the month of October the steward of Sjöberg, accompanied by the cook and an old turnkey, ascended the winding stairs which led to the archbishop's prison and to the turnkey's chamber immediately above it. The strong light of a dark lanthorn, which the cook held up before him, fell full upon the countenance and form of the steward:--he was a short, strong-built man, with a true hangman's visage, in which the expression of ferocity and malice was combined with an air of wily hypocrisy; a shaggy cap was slouched over his low and narrow forehead; he wore a dirty coat of sheep's skin, and tramped up the stone stairs in heavy iron-shod boots, apparently in great wrath and alarm. "That limb of Satan! that ungodly priest!" he muttered, "if he hath dealings with the Evil One, chains will be of no use here."
"As I tell thee, master," answered the portly, round-faced cook, with an air of importance, "he talks with invisible spirits, and no turnkey dares any longer watch by him. He is as regularly bound to the Evil One as I am to thee, saving that he cannot shift his service, and leave his master when he pleases; you remember, no doubt, I gave you warning at the right time, and am free to be off either to-day or to-morrow, if I please. The devil take me if I stay longer here, since--since he is here already, I was near saying."
"Pshaw, Morten! thou shalt stay here till I get another cook: that thou didst promise me. But what hath given rise to all this talk about his sorceries?"