NORWAY had taken no part in the expulsion of King Christian, and for a time remained loyal to him. The newly-elected archbishop, Olaf Engelbrektson, proceeded to Rome in order to obtain the recognition of the Pope. During his absence Norway was to be governed by the Council of State, which consisted of the bishops and a few noblemen. The mightiest among the latter was Nils Henrikson of Oestraat, whose wife, Inger Ottesdatter, was related to the old Norwegian royal house. This ambitious woman, commonly called Lady Inger of Oestraat, took quite a prominent part in public affairs, three of her daughters being married to prominent Danes.
King Frederick soon gained a number of influential adherents in Norway. He sent to Bergen the Danish nobleman, Vincentz Lunge, who married one of the daughters of Nils Henrikson and Inger of Oestraat. After the death of Nils, Vincentz became a member of the Council of State and commander at the fortress of Bergenhus. He used his influence in favor of King Frederick; but he wanted the Council of State to be as powerful in Norway as the Danish council was in Denmark. He was supported by Archbishop Olaf, and the Council of State finally elected Frederick king of Norway; but the king had to grant the council, and especially Vincentz Lunge, great authority. The king issued a “Recess,” by which he pledged himself: 1. In the future not to sign himself heir to Norway, as the country was a free elective kingdom; 2. To redeem the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, which his father had illegally pawned; 3. That the coronation was hereafter to take place in Throndhjem. The king did not care so much about keeping these promises as about filling the most important offices with Danish noblemen, who conducted public affairs to suit themselves. Among those who were specially favored were: Mogens Gyldenstierne, who became commandant at Akershus; Eske Bilde, who was placed in command at Bergenhus, relinquished by Vincentz Lunge in consideration of having the nunnery at Bergen (afterward called Lungegaarden) deeded to him; Vincentz’s brother-in-law, Nils Lykke, and Henrik Krummedike, notorious from the slaying of Knut Alfson.
King Frederick was an adherent of the doctrines of Luther, which had now been commonly accepted in Northern Germany, and from thence were introduced into Denmark. He compelled the Danish bishops to acknowledge him as the head of the Church instead of the Pope, and took possession of a number of cloisters, which he either kept for himself or gave to the nobles. In Norway, too, he gave away some of the cloisters, which, of course, caused great dissatisfaction among the clergy. The discontent in Norway took a very definite form, when, contrary to the Recess, the king sent his son Christian to Norway to be proclaimed heir to the throne. Archbishop Olaf Engelbrektson and a majority of the Council of State then declared that this could not be done, inasmuch as Norway was an elective kingdom; and here the king was obliged to let the matter rest. Meanwhile, the exiled King Christian, encouraged by messages from Norway and Sweden, thought he saw a chance to regain his lost throne. With the aid of Charles V., and some private parties, he gathered an army and a fleet in Holland, and sailed for Norway in October, 1531, with twenty-five ships and 7,000 men. On the way he suffered by great storms and lost ten of his ships, but landed in Norway with the remnants of his fleet. He gained a large number of adherents, and, proceeding to Oslo, laid siege to the fortress of Akershus. Mogens Gyldenstierne, however, defended it well, and when, in the spring (1532), reinforcements arrived, in the form of a strong army of Danes and Lubeckers, Christian made an agreement with Mogens, by which he was to proceed, under a safe conduct, to Copenhagen, in order to personally conduct peace negotiations with his uncle. Upon his arrival in Denmark, however, the agreement was shamefully broken, and the unfortunate king was thrown into prison at Sonderborg. He was placed in a cell having a small barred window high up; the entrance was closed with masonry, and the food was sent in through a hole in the wall. Here he remained for eighteen years. In 1550 he was transferred, by Frederick’s successor, to a milder prison in Kallundborg Castle, where he remained until he died, in the beginning of 1559, seventy-eight years old.
The Norwegians were severely punished for their alliance with Christian. The chieftains of the Danish party, Bishop Olaf in Bergen and the Danish noblemen, Eske Bilde, Vincentz Lunge and Nils Lykke, held a meeting in Bergen shortly after Christian’s defeat and levied a heavy tax on the whole country. The archbishop was fined 15,000 Danish marks. The Norwegians were compelled to relinquish any right, through the Council of State, to elect any other king than the one elected for Denmark.
Shortly after Frederick had been again recognized by the Norwegians as their king, he died, without being missed, at the age of sixty-two years, April 10, 1533. During his reign the Lutheran faith was preached throughout Denmark, but only in a few towns in Norway; for instance, in Bergen.
