The Story of Norway

by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

And yet, in spite of these ameliorating circumstances, Norway's condition during the Danish rule was miserable. The revenues of the country were spent in Copenhagen, and the people were heavily taxed to support a foreign court and a hungry brood of foreign officials, whose chief interest was to fill their own pockets. Danish nobles married into the great Norwegian families, and secured, by bribery and intrigue in Copenhagen, a virtual franchise for unlimited ill-doing. Great estates were accumulated in the hands of men like Vincentz Lunge, Hartvig Krummedike, and Hannibal Sehested, and the courts were prostituted to favor the land-grabbing schemes of noble adventurers. The public spirit which, in times of old, had jealously watched over the interests of the realm, had already been weakened by the incipient despotism of the last national kings; and what there was left of it now gradually expired. A most striking proof of this is the fact that when, in 1537, Norway lost the last vestige of her independence, being declared to be a province of Denmark, the decree was accepted without protest, and caused no perceptible excitement. So gradually had the change taken place, that no one was surprised. The same peasants who boldly resented any encroachment upon their personal rights and killed the magistrate who overtaxed them, heard without a murmur of the extinction of their nationality. It has been surmised, as a cause of their lethargy, that they did not hear of it—at least, not simultaneously, but gradually and casually, in the course of years; and it is not improbable that the imperfect means of communication was responsible for their apparent acquiescence.

No attempt will be made in the following pages to relate the history of Denmark, except in so far as it directly affected that of Norway, and the plan of the present work excludes any but the most general characterization of the social conditions. The story of the Union will, therefore, be disproportionately short.

The death of Christopher of Bavaria afforded the Swedes an opportunity to assert again their independence. The common hatred of the Danes enabled the hostile estates to forget their differences and to unite in electing Charles Knutsson Peasant king of Sweden. The Norsemen had a candidate for the throne of Norway in the regent, Sigurd Jonsson, a descendant of Agnes, the daughter of Haakon Longlegs, but they failed to support him. One party desired to make common cause with Sweden and elect Charles Knutsson, while another favored Count Christian of Oldenborg, who had just been elected in Denmark. This latter party, supported by the Danish nobles, who already wielded a great influence, was victorious. King Christian I. (1450-1481) arrived in Norway in the summer of 1450, and was crowned in the cathedral of Drontheim. At a meeting of the Council of Regency in Bergen, it was resolved that Norway was to remain eternally united with Denmark under one king, but that each kingdom should be free and the other's equal, and should be governed in accordance with its own laws and by native-born officials.

Christianus. I. Rex Daniæ.

Christian could not give up the thought of reëstablishing the Kalmar Union, and he therefore waged war for several years with King Charles Knutsson. In 1452 the latter invaded Norway and conquered Drontheim, but the commandant in Bergen, Sir Olaf Nilsson, again drove him back across the frontier. Soon internal dissensions in Sweden enabled Christian to defeat Charles and expel him from his country (1457); and, in 1458, the three kingdoms were thus again united. Christian's extortions and shameless breaches of faith made him, however, soon so detested both among peasants and nobles, that a rebellion broke out; Charles was recalled, and, though he did not at once become master of the situation, he succeeded in keeping the Danes at bay. He died as King of Sweden in 1470. When Christian during the following year made an attempt to conquer Sweden, he was overwhelmingly beaten at Brunkeberg near Stockholm by the regent, Steen Sture the Elder.

In Norway Christian broke his promises with the same cynical disregard as he did in Sweden. Instead of appointing native officials, he allowed the Danish nobles to plunder as of old, and made no effort to discipline them. The German merchants in Bergen also became constantly more insolent in their behavior toward the citizens, whom they drove away from the wharves and treated like conquered people; but Christian did not dare to restrain them in their violations of law and order, because he feared that the Hansa might avenge itself by interfering in his war with Sweden. Even when the Germans murdered Sir Olaf Nilsson, his friend, Bishop Thorleif, and sixty other citizens, and burned the cloister of Munkeliv, the king refrained from punishing them.

Highly characteristic of the way the Danish kings regarded Norway was Christian's transaction with James III. of Scotland. A marriage was arranged with the latter and Christian's daughter Margaret, and the dower was fixed at 60,000 gülden. As the Danish king was unable to pay this amount, he remitted the tribute due from Scotland for the Hebrides, pawned the Orkneys for 50,000 gülden and the Shetland Isles for an additional amount. Thus Norway lost these ancient dependencies; for it is needless to say that they were never redeemed.

Christian I. was succeeded by his son Hans or Johannes (1483-1513). The Norsemen, who had now had a sufficient taste of Danish rule, were not anxious to be governed by him, and a rebellion broke out, which, however, was short-lived. The Danish nobles, who, by marrying Norwegian women, could obtain citizenship, had by this time secured a preponderating power in the Council of Regency, and had small difficulty in getting their king acknowledged. The Swedes resisted until the year 1497, when Hans defeated Steen Sture's army and was declared king of Sweden. Three years later, however, he suffered a terrible defeat in Ditmarsken (1500), whose inhabitants opened the dikes and called in the ocean as their ally. Four thousand Danes were here slain or drowned, and enormous treasures were lost. This was the signal for renewed risings both in Sweden and in Norway. The Norse knight, Sir Knut Alfsson, of Giske, who derived his descent from the old royal house, united with the Swedes and defeated Duke Christian, the king's son, in Vestergötland. Then he invaded Norway and captured the fortresses Tunsberghus and Akershus; but was besieged in the latter place by the Danes under Henrik Krummedike. Seeing small chance of taking the fortress, the Danish general invited Sir Knut to a conference, under safe-conduct, but foully slew him and threw his body into the water. The wretched king apparently approved of this treason, for instead of punishing Sir Henrik, he heaped honors upon him, and declared the great possessions of the murdered man to be forfeited to the crown.

Once more the Norsemen attempted to throw off the detested Danish yoke (1508), under the leadership of the peasant Herluf Hyttefad, but the country was already too divided between the foreign and the native interest to afford sufficient support for a successful rising. Duke Christian came with a Danish army and quelled the rebellion, and executed its leaders. He did not, however, satisfy himself with this. He was a believer in radical measures. In order to break the rebellious temper of the Norsemen, once for all, he captured and murdered as many of the representatives of the great Norse families, as he could lay hold of. With atrocious cruelty he raged in Norway until every trace of the rebellion seemed extinct.