ERIC VII.
SURNAMED GLIPPING.
1259–1286.
|1259 to 1268.|
Eric, the eldest son of the king, was elected by the states; and as he was only ten years of age at his father’s death, the regency devolved on his mother, Margaret, daughter of Sambir, duke of Pomerania. That princess had great courage and great prudence, and both were required in the peculiarly difficult circumstances in which she was placed. Some of the bishops were exiles, some in prison, but all protected by the pope, and venerated by the people. Eric, the son of Abel, supported by the counts of Holstein, by the prince of Rugen, and by the exiled prelates, aspired to the throne. The interdict still remained, and consequently the discontent of the people. And now Jaromir, prince of Rugen, and the duke of Sleswic, accompanied by the bishop of Roskild, made a descent on the coast of Zealand, with a formidable army. Margaret collected what troops she was able, and hastened to meet the enemy. The battle was disastrous to the royal party, 10,000 being left on the field. The consequences were still more disastrous—the occupation of Zealand, and the destruction of several towns, (among others Copenhagen, which had recently been invested with municipal rights,) by the victors. Bornholm was next reduced, then Scania, which remembered its primate with gratitude; and the whole kingdom must have been subjugated by the Slavonic prince, had not a tragical death arrested him in his career. This was a heavy loss to the ecclesiastical party; but the bishop of Roskild confirmed the censure, and denied Christian burial to the dead of the royal party. Jutland only remained faithful to the latter. Yet Margaret was not dismayed: notwithstanding the interdict and the absolute prohibition issued alike by the primate and the bishop of Roskild, she caused her son to be crowned. To soothe in some degree the animosity of the former, she released him and all the churchmen; but he would not compromise what he deemed his duty; he refused all overtures from her, and retired into Sweden to await the decision of Rome. For this conduct he has been much censured by modern historians. They should, however, remember that he could not do otherwise: the decision was no longer in his hands, but in those of the pope, to whom it had been carried by the appeal of both parties. Alexander IV. was dead; and Urban IV., who was raised to the dignity, took cognizance of the cause. He condemned the primate, and ordered him to resign his archbishopric into the hands of two ecclesiastical commissioners whom he nominated for that purpose. Erlandsen obeyed; but, hearing that Clement IV. had succeeded to Urban, he hastened to Rome to plead for himself. Clement did not confirm the judgment of his predecessor; he took up the case de novo, and sent a legate to examine on the spot into the circumstances of the dispute, and to decide according to justice. Erecting his tribunal at Sleswic, the papal functionary cited the king and the queen-mother to appear before him; but they refused on the plea that Sleswic was unfavourable to them. The plea was a frivolous one, and devised only to cover their determination not to acknowledge the competency of the judges. Apprehensive for their safety in a city which depended on the king, the legate and the bishops repaired to Lubeck, whence they excommunicated Eric, his mother, and all who had refused to obey the citation. The primate retired to Rome, where he remained about seven years; and during that period, the interdict remained in full force.
|1261 to 1264.|
While these events were passing, others occurred of still greater moment to the queen and her son. On the death of Valdemar (1257), eldest son of Abel, who had been transferred from the dungeons of Cologne to the ducal palace of Sleswic, and who left no issue, the succession was claimed by Eric, the next brother. Abel, who then reigned, had refused to invest him, and he had therefore thrown himself into the arms of his kinsmen, the counts of Holstein, and by their aid had entered on the administration of the duchy. Unable to dispossess him, Margaret proposed to recognise him, provided he would acknowledge that he held the fief by the pure favour of the crown, and not by any right of inheritance. But in every European country except Scandinavia fiefs had long been hereditary: they had become allodial property; and Eric refused to sanction a condition which must have proved fatal to the hopes of his family. To chastise him, the queen and her son marched towards the south; but on the plains of Sleswic they were signally defeated. Flight did not save them from the power of their enemies: they were overtaken and consigned to imprisonment—the former at Hamburg, in the charge of the counts of Holstein, the latter in the fortress of Norburg, subject to duke Eric. There both might have remained to the close of life (for the bishop and the people were equally disaffected), had not Albert of Anhalt, who had married the princess Mechtilda, sister of the king, interfered in their behalf. The queen was soon released (1263), and enabled to resume the administration: the king was confided to the guardianship of John, margrave of Brandenburg, also connected by the ties of blood with the royal family. It was at length agreed that he should be enlarged, on the condition of his marrying Agnes, daughter of the margrave, whose dowry, 6000 marks, was to be placed against his ransom. Returning to his capital (1264), he was now old enough to assume the reins of government.
|1272 to 1275.|
In 1272 died Eric, duke of Sleswic—an event which again disturbed the tranquillity of the country. He left two sons, Valdemar and Eric, both minors. To the guardianship a claim was put in by the king, and another by the counts of Holstein. Both parties flew to arms, and at first the counts had the advantage; but seeing the royal forces augmented, they consented to resign the trust into the royal hands, on the condition of his investing the eldest with the duchy when arrived at the due age. Eric now celebrated his marriage with Agnes of Brandenburg; and he had also the satisfaction to see the convocation of a general council, (that of Lyons, 1274,) destined to remove the interdict from his kingdom. He was, however, enjoined not merely to receive the primate into his friendship, but to pay him 15,000 marks by way of indemnification. This may appear a large sum, and it has been censured by historians. They forget, however, to tell us that during the long absence of the archbishop, he had been receiving the revenues of the see—an amount many times greater than the indemnification. The following year (1275), a national council held at Lund finished the work of reconciling the king with the church.
|1280 to 1286.|