History of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by S. A. Dunham

|1375, 1376.|

With Valdemar III. ended the male line of the dynasty founded by Sweyn, the nephew of Canute the Great. Who was to succeed him? As we have before related, he left two daughters only; viz. Ingeburga, wife of Henry, duke of Mecklenburg, and Margaret, the consort of Hako, king of Norway. As there was no example in the North of female succession, the electors must turn either to some collateral branch of the family, or to the sons of those princesses,—unless indeed they did what they might easily have done, and what many indeed professed to do, viz. make choice of a foreign house. The greater number, however, decided for preserving the sceptre in the ancient house, and without regard to the collateral branches. The choice therefore rested between the issue of Ingeburga and that of Margaret; viz. between Albert of Mecklenburg, and Olaf of Norway. The former was the eldest daughter, and Albert was much older than Olaf, yet merely a child; but the feeling of the states seemed to run in favour of the latter. In the first assembly nothing was effected; in the interval between it and the convocation of the next, Margaret was not inactive. Her intrigues, her presents, her promises, and above all the fact that Olaf was the heir of the Norwegian throne, and consequently that there would be a union of the two kingdoms, determined the question in his favour. In this decision too, dislike of Sweden had some share; for Albert was nearly connected with the king who had been elected the successor of Magnus. On this occasion, there was no general meeting of the states; and those of each province voted separately. Jutland, with its three orders, viz. the nobles, the clergy, the burghers and rich peasants, set the example. It was followed by Scania; and the rest, constrained by their preponderating influence, joined with them.

|1376.|

The promises of the queen to which we have alluded were not dissimilar from those which Christopher II. had made. In the name of her son (he was but five years of age), she guaranteed to the clergy all their rights, immunities, and privileges. No benefice should be held by a layman. No foreigner should become a dignitary. No bishop or any other ecclesiastic should be arrested, exiled, or deprived of his revenues, without the previous sentence of an ecclesiastical judge only. Abbots, friars, and rectors, were to be dependent only on the bishop, their lawful superior. The nobles and not the crown were to receive the fines inflicted on the rural inhabitants within their respective districts by any secular judge, when those fines fell below a certain amount, according to the custom of the province: in some provinces the maximum was three, in others nine marks; when it exceeded three or nine, it went indisputably to the crown. The king was to undertake no war without the consent of his senators, the prelates, and some nobles of the realm. No man in holy orders should be invested with any temporal employment. No man should be executed unless he had been judicially convicted, or caught flagrante delicto in some matter worthy of death. Even if he had been sentenced by the tribunals, one month and a day should be allowed him to flee from the kingdom! The peasants should not be compelled to repair the royal palaces, without the sanction of the senate. The king should not build on any other domain than his own, without the consent of the owner. The property of no man should be confiscated, even judicially, unless he were proved guilty of high treason, or had borne arms against his country. Foreign merchants might trade freely throughout the kingdom, and should be subject to no other tax or impost than such as were already sanctioned by custom. The great assizes should, according to ancient custom, be held annually on the feast of St. John the Baptist. No officer of justice should cite any one before a foreign tribunal—that of Norway, for instance—but every man should be amenable to the local jurisdiction alone.

|1376.|

Such were the chief provisions of the capitulation between Margaret and the people. They have been severely condemned by the national historians, as trenching on the just prerogatives of the crown. But surely they do not all merit the censure. Some of them are in the highest degree salutary. That indeed which allowed the nobles to enjoy the fines levied on their vassals, or more correctly freemen (subject, however, to many vassalitic obligations), was censurable; but it was common in most other countries where feudal tribunals existed. Two or three of those which concerned the clergy are also reprehensible; but they were sanctioned by the canon law, and were as obligatory in other places as in Denmark. The greatest defect of this capitulation is that too much influence was left to the nobles. But how should Margaret be condemned for sacrificing to the aristocracy, when aristocratic privileges were predominant every where else?

|1376 to 1380.|

The election of Olaf could not fail to exasperate the party of Albert. The head of the house of Mecklenburg called in the emperor Charles IV. to interfere in behalf of his grandson: he flew to arms, and persuaded his son Albert, king of Sweden, to join him; and he brought the courts of Holstein into the same league. These counts, in the event of Albert’s succession, were to have Sleswic, Alfen, and Langeland. On her part, Margaret was not idle. She too obtained allies, among whom were the dukes of Pomerania, the hereditary enemies of the Mecklenburg family. The result justified her policy. A formidable armament sailed against the coasts, and she was prepared to meet it. The elements, however, fought for her: the armament was dispersed or destroyed; and the enemy consented that the great subjects of dispute should be laid before arbitrators. This was to acknowledge Olaf de facto sovereign of Denmark, whatever the concessions expected from him in return. Whether this arbitration ever took place is not very clear: there are no records of it; yet there is some reason to suspect that it did, and that from the period in question the house of Mecklenburg was excepted from all homage for the lordship of Rostock. What confirms the inference is, that for some years the realm was undisturbed by foreign enemies, and the regent left at liberty to pursue her course of policy. That course was a judicious one. She drew closer the connection between Denmark and the Hanseatic Towns; she courted the clergy; she was gracious to the barons; she endeavoured to remove all subjects of discord, and to bind all orders of the people to her government.

|1380 to 1386.|

In 1380, Hako, the husband of Margaret, who was greatly her senior, paid the debt of nature. Olaf therefore, still a child, became king of Norway. But Hako was also the rightful heir to the Swedish throne, and these rights Margaret determined to secure in favour of their legitimate heir, her son. This indeed was the great, the constant, object of her policy: she had united two kingdoms, and she would now add a third. The mortification of the Swedish king was great. He feared lest the strength of the two hostile kingdoms should be consolidated, and become fatal to himself. To avert this result, he had recourse to hostilities, during the absence of Olaf and his mother in Norway (1381). Though he effected some mischief, he made little impression on that country. Two years afterwards, he made a second attempt, but was compelled to retreat. In 1385, both Olaf and his mother repaired thither to confirm the people in their fidelity, and to gain their attachment by such marks of favour as sovereigns can bestow.