When Erik was fourteen years old, he was married to Margaret of Scotland, the daughter of his grandfather's enemy, King Alexander III. The young queen died, however, a year later, after having given birth to a daughter, who, on the death of King Alexander (1284), was acknowledged as the heir to the throne of Scotland. While yet a child (1290), the Maid of Norway, as she was called, embarked for the land which she was to rule, but died before reaching it. Her father then, as his daughter's heir, laid claim to the Scottish crown, but the armed interference of King Edward I. of England compelled him to abandon his candidacy. He had at that time another controversy on his hands, which threatened serious results.
The queen-dowager, Ingeborg, was the daughter of the Danish king, Erik Plowpenny. His nephew, Erik Glipping, who succeeded his father, Christopher I., refused to surrender her inheritance, which consisted in landed estates in different parts of the kingdom. Magnus Law-Mender had vainly insisted upon the surrender of the property, and Erik, at the instigation of his mother, resumed negotiations, and, when these resulted in nothing, made threatening demonstrations. The Norse baron, Sir Alf Erlingsson, a special favorite of the queen, began to prey upon the shipping in the Sound, and by his recklessness and daring, made his name dreaded among seamen and merchants. He did, indeed, inflict much injury upon Danish commerce, and ravaged the coasts of Jutland and Halland; but the principal sufferers were the cities of the Hanseatic League, which, by the concessions of Magnus Law-Mender, had obtained a virtual monopoly of the foreign trade of Norway. Their ships were now seized without mercy by the noble pirate, who added insult to injury by once appearing incognito among them in an open boat, and bargaining with them about the price which they had set upon his head. It was of no use that the League sent out ships of war to capture him; he out-manœuvred them, deceived them, sent them on a wild-goose chase, and ended by capturing his would-be captors. Though not officially authorized to carry on war in this fashion, Sir Alf perceived that his performances were winked at by the queen-dowager, who was actually so gratified at his success, that she had him created an earl, and induced the king to use him as his ambassador to England. As allies of the King of Denmark, the Hanseatic cities were, in the queen's opinion, entitled to no consideration, but she forgot in her blind hostility that they had it in their power to take revenge. Partly on account of the risk, partly as a measure of retaliation, the Hansa forbade the importation of grain and other staples of food to Norway, and the result was famine and misery. The hostilities with Denmark in the meanwhile continued, but were, after the death of Queen Ingeborg (1287), conducted, not by piracy, but by open warfare. A conspiracy was formed against the life of King Erik Glipping, and he was murdered, while on the chase (1286), by Marshal Stig, Count Jacob of Halland, and others. The murderers, who were outlawed in Denmark, found a refuge in Norway, and accompanied King Erik on his campaign against their native country in 1289. The city of Elsinore was burned, and the Norwegian fleet lay for four weeks near Copenhagen, serving as a basis of operations for the outlawed king-slayers, who satisfied their private vengeance by burning cities and castles. Three similar expeditions, during the following six years, brought Erik neither honor nor profit in proportion to the cost of the enterprise; although, in the end, the Danish king, Erik Menved, was compelled to conclude an armistice for three years at Hinsgavl, in Funen (1295), at which he made a definite promise of the surrender of the disputed property. The king-slayers were permitted to return unmolested to their homes, and their estates were to be restored to them.
The war with the Hanseatic cities had come to an end long before, by the peace of Kalmar, (1285). The formidable weapon which they wielded, in their ability to cut off supplies, gave them so great an advantage that King Erik had no choice but to accept their terms. King Magnus of Sweden, who, according to mutual agreement, had been selected as umpire negotiated peace, on the conditions that King Erik should return to their owners all ships which had been captured, pay an indemnity of six thousand marks and greatly extend the commercial privileges of the Hansa. Thus the lawless valor of "Little Sir Alf," as the pirate earl was called, proved no less disastrous to his country than it did to himself. He did not appreciate the difference which the death of the queen had made in his position; but continued to tread law and honor under foot with defiant heedlessness. The baron, Sir Hallkell Agmundsson the commander of Oslo Castle, had for some reason incurred his hostility; and Earl Alf gathered, in the ancient fashion, a band of adventurers about him and commenced a rebellion, as it appears, against Duke Haakon, who was Sir Hallkell's protector. He even had the audacity to attack Oslo, set fire to the town, capture his foe, and after a brief imprisonment executed him. This daring murder brought upon him a sentence of outlawry; and he was forced to seek refuge in Sweden, where King Magnus took him under his protection. His luck had, however, deserted him, for when again he appeared as a corsair in Danish waters, he was captured and brought in irons into the presence of Queen Agnes. According to the ballad, she twitted him on the smallness of his stature; to which he replied that she would never live to see the day when she could bear such a son. Another and still more insolent remark made the queen so furious that she struck her fist against the table and declared that Little Sir Alf should be tortured on the rack, and his bones broken on the wheel. The sentence was executed the following day (1290).
After the death of his first queen, King Erik had married Isabella Bruce, the sister of Robert, who later became King of Scotland. He had by this marriage a daughter, Ingeborg, who became the wife of Duke Valdemar, the brother of the Swedish king, Birger Magnusson. King Erik died at the age of thirty-one (1299), after having been king for nineteen years.
CHAPTER XXXI.
HAAKON LONGLEGS (HAALEGG), 1299-1319.
Duke Haakon, the second son of Magnus Law-Mender, succeeded his brother without opposition. He was then twenty-nine years old, tall and of stately appearance. He had not been long upon the throne, before he showed the haughty barons that he meant to have a reckoning with them. He first summoned Sir Audun Hugleiksson to meet him in Bergen, tried him for treason, and had him executed (1302). A woman from Lübeck had, two years before, appeared in Norway and created much excitement by claiming to be the Princess Margaret, "The Maid of Norway," who had died on the Orkneys. Her trial proved her to be an impostor, and she was burned at the stake. According to one conjecture, Sir Audun was in some way compromised by her trial, and it is not unlikely that he may have encouraged her pretensions. The legend, however, relates that Sir Audun suffered death for having insulted the king's bride, Countess Euphemia of Arnstein, whom, in 1295, he brought over from Germany.
It must have been an unpleasant surprise to the barons, who had had their own way so long, to find a stern and determined master in the new king, and it is the more to his credit that, in spite of their hostility, he induced them to consent to a change in the law of succession in favor of his daughter Ingeborg and her issue. As he was the only male descendant in the direct line of the old royal house, it was a source of uneasiness to him that he had no sons, and he foresaw that the only means of averting civil war, after his death, was to secure the succession to the prospective sons of his daughter, and in case she had none, to herself. Princess Ingeborg was, while a mere child, promised in marriage to the brilliant and ambitious Duke Erik, the second son of King Magnus Birgersson of Sweden. By this betrothal, King Haakon became involved in the quarrels of the dukes Erik and Valdemar with their brother, Birger Magnusson, whom they were endeavoring to dethrone. The dukes hated the king, and the king, who was jealous of Erik's popularity and eminence in chivalrous accomplishments, reciprocated their feelings. The long-smouldering hostility at last blazed forth, in 1306, when the dukes treacherously assaulted their brother and held him captive for about eighteen months. King Haakon was induced to take their part in the struggle, perhaps chiefly because his enemy, the king of Denmark, made common cause with King Birger. The good understanding between them did not, however, last long, for when it began to look as if Duke Erik aimed at the union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms under his own sceptre, Haakon, as an interested party, could scarcely remain inactive. He demanded the restoration of the fiefs which he had granted the duke during his exile. When this was refused, he opened negotiations with the king of Denmark, who was the brother-in-law of King Birger, and concluded a preliminary treaty at Copenhagen (1308) in accordance with which the Princess Ingeborg was to marry Magnus, the son of King Birger. Duke Erik then invaded Norway with an army, took Oslo and vainly besieged the fortress of Akershus. The province of Jemteland was also attacked by the Swedes, and the duke had in 1309 an indecisive fight with a portion of the Norwegian fleet in Kalfsund. Finally, after another fight, in which Erik gained the upper hand, negotiations were resumed, and by mutual concessions peace was reëstablished (1310). Duke Erik had a powerful ally at the Norwegian court in Queen Euphemia, whose love for him was not of an entirely maternal character. He had thus little difficulty in conciliating King Haakon and getting again the promise of his daughter's hand. The wedding was finally celebrated with much splendor in Oslo in 1312. Duke Valdemar married the same day the king's niece, Ingeborg, the daughter of King Erik Priest-Hater. About four years later, when the hope had almost been abandoned, each of the duchesses bore a son. King Haakon's joy at this happy event was great, for it relieved him of his anxiety for the succession. But his joy was of short duration. There was one man in Sweden who was not rejoiced at the birth of the young princes, and that was King Birger. He feigned, however, delight, and invited his brothers to a great feast of reconciliation at the castle of Nyköping. When the festivities were at an end, the dukes were thrown into prison and deprived of their lives. As there was no sign of violence on their bodies, the rumor went abroad that they had been starved to death. This was probably true. The tidings of this calamity gave King Haakon such a shock that he never recovered from it. He died, 1319, aged forty-nine years. With him the male line of the race of Harold the Fairhaired became extinct.