The war with Denmark which had lasted twenty-eight years, was continued in a desultory fashion during Haakon's reign, but no important battles were fought. He used his fleet mainly as a threat to enforce his claims. All that he gained was the temporary possession of the province of Northern Halland, as security for the final surrender of his maternal inheritance.

In internal affairs King Haakon exhibited, according to the ideas of his age, no mean degree of statesmanship. His administration was both prudent and vigorous. He checked the usurpations of the Hanseatic cities, which were driving native merchants out of the foreign trade, and deprived them of some of their privileges. An honest intention to do right, coupled with considerable ability, characterized both his public and private life. For all that, his despotic temper tended to alienate the people from public affairs; and thus prepared the way for the following centuries of humiliation.

CHAPTER XXXII.

MAGNUS SMEK (1319-1374), HAAKON MAGNUSSON (1355-1380), AND OLAF THE YOUNG (1381-1387).

Magnus Eriksson, the son of Duke Erik and Ingeborg, was only three years old when his grandfather died, and the government therefore fell into the hands of a regency, the members of which had already been designated by King Haakon. Shortly before, a rebellion had broken out in Sweden against King Birger, who, on account of the murder of his brothers, was detested by his people. He was deposed and his son Magnus, though he was in no wise responsible for his father's crimes, was executed. At the instance of the regent, Mats Kettilmundsson, Magnus Eriksson was proclaimed king; and Norway and Sweden were thus for the first time united under one ruler. The union was a mere nominal one, the two countries having separate laws and administrations, and nothing in common except the king, who was to divide his time equally between them. During Magnus' minority, however, his mother, Duchess Ingeborg, governed in Norway with the utmost recklessness, making great scandal by her love of the Danish nobleman Knut Porse, duke of Halland, whom she later married. To enrich him she squandered the revenues and forfeited her popularity. When the treasury was on the verge of bankruptcy and loud murmurs of discontent were heard from all sides, the duchess was at last deprived of her power, and Sir Erling Vidkunsson of Bjarkö and Giske was made regent in her place.

When King Magnus, surnamed Smek, reached his majority, he assumed the government in both countries (1332). Being born a Swede, he lacked comprehension of the Norsemen, and showed little interest in their affairs. He was a weak and good-natured man, anxious to please all, and therefore succeeded in pleasing no one. In Sweden he had his hands full, in endeavoring to control the unruly nobility, whose pretensions were supported by his oldest son, Erik. He therefore rarely came to Norway, and made no adequate provision for the government during his absence. Erling Vidkunsson then made himself the spokesman of the universal discontent, and with other magnates compelled the king, at a meeting in Bergen (1350), to take his second son, Haakon, as co-regent and to abdicate the crown of Norway, in his favor, as soon as he should have reached his majority. It was then understood that Erik would be his father's successor in Sweden. But unforseen events frustrated this expectation. In 1359 Magnus and his queen, the wily and malicious Blanca of Namur, made a visit to King Valdemar Atterdag in Copenhagen. It was there arranged that Haakon should marry Valdemar's eldest daughter and heir, Margaret, and that the Danish king should extend his protection to Queen Blanca's favorite, Bengt Algotsson, whom Erik had declared to be a public enemy and was determined to destroy. At the instigation of King Valdemar, she chose, however, an easier way to accomplish her baneful purposes. She poisoned her son. Haakon was now heir both to Norway and Sweden, and his and Margaret's issue, presumptively, to Denmark. The Swedes were by no means pleased with this arrangement, and the Norwegian magnates would, if they had been consulted, have expressed themselves no less strongly against it. They must have foreseen in this union the inevitable decay of the Norse national spirit and the gradual extinction of their nationality. The Swedes, being a larger people, had less to fear from it, but yet regarded it as prejudicial to their interests. Their feeling toward Denmark was not, just then, of a friendly character, chiefly owing to the pusillanimity of their king, in ceding the provinces Skaane, Halland, and Blekinge to the latter country, without any adequate return, unless it was a pledge of aid from King Valdemar against his own subjects. So secure felt Magnus in his new alliance, that he actually helped the Danish king to conquer the Swedish island Gottland, and permitted him to sack the town of Visby, which was one of the principal depots of the Baltic trade.

Now, the patience of the Swedes was at last exhausted. The Royal Council, supported by the nobility, declared that King Magnus, as well as his son Haakon, had forfeited their rights to the crown (1363), and called Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg to the succession. Weak as he was, however, Magnus was not minded to give up his kingdom without a struggle. With whatever troops he could scrape together from the provinces which were yet faithful to him, he attacked King Albrecht at Enköping, but was defeated and taken prisoner. Haakon, dangerously wounded, made his escape into Norway. Though the Norwegians cared little for Magnus, they were too loyal to refuse Haakon their aid in his attempt to liberate him from the horrible prison in which he was languishing. The war was therefore continued with varying success until the Hanseatic League interfered and came near deciding it in Albrecht's favor. The German merchants had, during the feeble government of Magnus, obtained so great a power in Norway that they trod justice under foot, slew their enemies, refused to accept the king's money (which was not good), and leagued together to defy the laws and protect each other from punishment. The king was so incensed at their arrogant conduct, that he issued a decree expelling all Germans from the country. Unhappily he had not the power to enforce obedience to this mandate, and when the Hansa made war upon him, he was obliged to buy peace by further concessions. This left him comparatively free, however, to prosecute the war with King Albrecht, and when all negotiations had proved futile, he advanced with an army upon Stockholm, laying the country waste as he progressed. Here, at last, peace was concluded (1371) on the condition that Haakon should pay a ransom of twelve thousand marks for his father and renounce his claim to the throne of Sweden. In return, Magnus was to receive Skara-Stift, Vestergötland, and Vermeland. The old king was, however, not to enjoy long his dearly bought liberty. Three years later he was drowned in the Bömmelfjord in Norway (1374), and his son only survived him six years. Like so many of the kings of Norway, he died in his prime (1380).

The reigns of Magnus Eriksson and his son were a period of great disaster to Norway. In 1344 the Gula-Elv suddenly changed its course, owing to the fall of an enormous rock into its bed, and forty-eight farms were destroyed, and two hundred and fifty people and a multitude of cattle were drowned. In Iceland an earthquake and a great eruption of Hekla spread alarm and desolation. But the worst of all calamities was the Black Death, a terrible pestilence, which, after having ravaged Germany, England, and Southern Europe, reached Norway in 1349. An English merchant vessel first brought the pestilence to Bergen, whence it spread with great rapidity over the entire land. In Drontheim the archbishop and all the canons of the cathedral chapter died, except a single one, who then alone elected the new archbishop. In many districts the entire population was swept away; horses and cattle starved to death, for want of attendance, or perished in the woods. The results of the labor of centuries were destroyed. Where once there had been fertile valleys and animated human intercourse, the forest grew up unheeded. The fox barked in the deserted farm-houses, and the wolf prowled in the empty churches. In many places the dead lay unburied, until, by the slow process of dissolution, the earth reclaimed them. Sloth and indifference took possession of the survivors. The peasant neglected to till his fields, because he could procure neither horses nor laborers to assist him. Famine and death were the result. All industries stagnated, and what there was left of Norwegian commerce fell completely into the hands of foreigners. As is usually the case in the times of great plagues, when the restraints of social order are relaxed, vice grew riotous, and every extreme of lawless passion was wantonly displayed. Centuries elapsed before the country recovered from the results of this terrible calamity. But there were other causes which combined with the pestilence in producing the political impotence and social barbarism which followed. There is a danger in doing injustice, even to the Black Death, and it has, until recently, been the fashion to make it solely responsible for the eclipse of Norway's glory.