CHAPTER XXXVII Margaret (1387-1389)--Erik of Pomerania (1389-1442)--The Kalmar Union (1397)

AS young Olaf left no offspring, it was quite generally supposed in Norway that the kingdom would be given to his nearest relative, Haakon Jonson, a grandson of King Haakon V.’s illegitimate daughter Agneta; but the wily Queen Margaret (who had already been acknowledged as reigning queen of Denmark), induced Archbishop Vinald and the majority of the clergy to take her part, and, at the state council in Oslo, February 2, 1388, she was, as Haakon’s widow and Olaf’s mother, declared to be the rightful ruler of Norway and its dependencies. According to law, however, the Norwegians were to be ruled by a king, and could not long be satisfied with having the government conducted in the name of a woman. She therefore induced the council to choose her grandnephew, Erik of Pomerania, as king of Norway (1389), she to continue the regency during his minority.

King Albrecht of Mecklenburg, who was at this time reigning in Sweden, had caused a great deal of discontent among the Swedish nobility, because he had surrounded himself with Germans, whom he had given places of influence and honor. The ambitious Queen Margaret, who hated Albrecht deeply, because he had laid claim to the Danish throne, made overtures to the Swedish magnates, with the result that they chose her as “the mistress and rightful ruler of Sweden,” and transferred several fortified places to her, while she promised to reunite West Gautland and Vermeland with Sweden. Albrecht proceeded to Germany to collect an army, and swore that he would not put his hood on before he had conquered Norway and Denmark. He sent Margaret several insulting messages, called her “Queen Breechless,” and sent her a whetstone on which to sharpen her scissors and needles, saying that the good woman ought to remain quietly at her spinning wheel. The queen’s chiefs, Ivar Lykke and Henrik Parow, invaded Sweden with an army, and won a battle at FalkÖping in West Gautland. Albrecht was taken prisoner and was brought before the queen, who reminded him of his insults. She gave him a long fool’s-cap to wear instead of the crown of Denmark, and sent him to prison in the castle of Lindholm in Scania, where he remained six years.

Queen Margaret soon won the whole of Sweden except Stockholm, where the German merchants and the hood-brothers made a determined resistance. They received aid from the North German cities Rostock and Wismar, whose rulers proclaimed that any one who would harry the coasts of the Scandinavian countries could find refuge in their harbors; and the result was a number of pirates, the so-called Victualia-Brethren, made the northern waters unsafe for several years, and plundered many of the coast towns. Thus they twice attacked and plundered Bergen. In order to gain his liberty, Albrecht, in 1395, made an agreement that within three years he would either pay 60,000 marks silver or release Stockholm. He could not pay the money, and Stockholm’s gates were opened to Queen Margaret.

In 1397 Queen Margaret’s sixteen-year-old grandnephew, Erik of Pomerania, was crowned in Kalmar as king of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, in the presence of prominent men from the three countries. A document was drafted containing the provisions regarding the triple union, and it was signed on Margaret’s Day, July 20, 1397. It could scarcely be considered binding upon the three countries, as it was signed by only seventeen of the gentlemen present, and they had not been given power to act for their countrymen. The main stipulations of the agreement were the following:

1. The three countries were always hereafter to have the same king.

2. One king was to be elected by authorized delegates from the three countries.

3. The countries were to help each other against foreign foes.

4. Each country was to be governed by its own laws.

Queen Margaret died at Flensborg, October 27, 1412, aged fifty-nine years, leaving the government in the weak hands of King Erik.

In the union Denmark soon assumed the position of the chief country. In Sweden and Norway the people complained that the revenues of the countries went to pay the expenses of the war with the Counts of Holstein about Schleswig, although this war, which lasted for twenty-six years, concerned only Denmark. The counts received aid from the Hansa towns, which hated King Erik, because he encouraged the Dutch trade with the northern countries. In 1427 he defeated the Hanseatic fleet in Oere Sound, and in 1428, when they tried to attack Copenhagen, the city was saved by his brave queen, Philippa of England. She armed the citizens and the peasants, and the Germans were obliged to withdraw. The final outcome of the war was, however, that King Erik had to cede Schleswig to Count Adolph of Holstein by the peace at Vordingborg (1435).

Norway had occasion to feel the effects of King Erik’s weakness. The inhabitants of Finmark and Halogaland were attacked by Russians and other enemies from the northeast, who did great damage and abducted men and women, and the town of Bergen was left defenceless against the attacks of the daring Victualia-Brethren. Thus in 1428 the pirate from Wismar, Bartholomew Vot, came to Bergen with six hundred men, just as the English traders were waiting there for the vessels from Northern Norway to bring herring, stock-fish and other goods. The Englishmen, believing that the whole fighting force of the Hansa towns was coming, hastened aboard their ships and took flight. The bishop of Bergen, who was seized with a similar fear, left everything behind for the enemy and fled with the Englishmen. The robbers then went ashore and plundered the town. At the bishopric they forced the iron doors to the book-room and took away all the books, besides many other valuables. As the traders from the north arrived with their full cargoes, the booty of the pirates became so much larger, as they took possession of their fish, furs and other goods. This success encouraged the robbers to renew their attack on Bergen next year, when they again plundered the bishopric, and then laid a great part of the town in ashes.

In all three countries the people were dissatisfied with King Erik; he coined bad money, levied new taxes, and appointed foreigners, especially Germans, to the chief offices. In Sweden the first uprising started. The peasants in Dalarne twice sent the gallant Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson to Denmark to complain of the cruel prefects, but he could obtain no redress. On his return he placed himself at the head of a rebellion, which spread itself to the whole country. Engelbrekt was murdered (1435); but in his place Carl Knutsson Bonde became the leader of the rebellion and regent.

In Norway the people followed the example of the Swedes. The peasants in Viken revolted under Amund Sigurdson Bolt, captured Oslo, and drove some of the Danish and other foreign officers out of the country. In a proclamation issued, after this uprising, by the Norwegian Council of State, calling upon the people to be loyal to King Erik (1436), the council promised to request the king in the future not to appoint foreigners to the high offices unless they had married into Norwegian families.

In Denmark also the people complained of the heavy taxes and the many Germans who were imported and given high positions. Wearied of all these complaints, and taking with him his mistress, Cecilia, the money left in the treasury, and a number of important documents, King Erik left the country and took up his residence on the island of Gotland, where he had a fortified castle (1438). Shortly after this he was formally deposed in Denmark and in Sweden, while in Norway they still, for a time, remained loyal to him. As regent in Norway, during his absence, the king appointed the influential Norwegian, Sigurd Jonson. The latter descended from a powerful old family; he had inherited Biarkoe, Giske and other estates, and was the richest man in the country. For ten years King Erik lived in his castle in Gottland, supporting himself by piracy, but was finally driven away by the Swedes. He returned to his native country, Pomerania, where he ended his long but inglorious life in 1459.

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