i '.TM ii '!"■ i',i ' i' If ' 'i* 'ii' ^ l! il.''. L*! The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028446312 DENMARK AND SWEDEN THE STORY OF THE NATIONS 1. Kome. By ARTHUR Oilman, M.A. 2. The Jews, By Prof. J. K. HOSMER. 3. Qermany, By Rev. S. Baring- Gould, M.A. 4. Carthage. By Prof. Alfred J. Church. 5. Alexander's Empire. By Prof. J. P. Mahaffy. 6. The Uoors in Spain, By Stanley Lane-Poole. 7. Ancient Egypt, By Prof. George Rawlinson. 8. Hungary, By Prof. Arminius Vameery. g. The Saracens. By Arthur Uil- MAN, M.A. 10. Ireland, By the Hon. Emily Lawless. 11. Chaldea, ByZENAiDE A. RAGOZiN'. 12. The Ooths, By Henry Bradley. 13. Assyria. By Z^naTde A. Ragozin. 14. Turkey. By Stanley Lane-Poole, 15. Holland. By Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers. 16. Uedieeval France. By Gustave Masson. 17. Persia. By S. G. W. Benjamin. 18. Fhoenicia. By Prof. G. RAWLlxoOX. ig. Media. By Zena'^de A. RAGOZIN. ' 20. The Hansa Towns, By Helen ZIMMERN. 21. Early Britain. By Prof. Alfred J. Church. 22. The Barbary Corsairs. By Stanley Lank- Poole. 23. Kussia. By W. R. MORFILL, M.A. 24. The Jews under tbe Romans. By w. D. Morrison. 25. Scotland. By John Mackintosh, LL.D. 26. Switzerland, By Mrs. LINA HUG and R. STEAD. 27. Ueuco. By Susan Hale 28. Portugal. By H. MOKSE STEPHENS. 29. The Normans. By Sarah Orme Jewett. 30. The Byzantine Empire. By C. W. C. Oman. 31. Sicily : Phoenician, Greek and Soman. By the Prof. E. A. Freeman. 32. The Tuscan Republics. By Bella Duffy. , 33. Poland. By W. R. MORITLL, M.A. 34. Farthia. By Prof. George Raw- linson. 35. The Australian Commonwealth, By Greville Tregarthen. 36. Spain, By H, E. Waits. 37. Japan, By David Murray, Ph.D. 38. South Auica, By George M. Theal. 39. Venice. By Alethea Wiel. 40. The Onisades. By T. A. Archer and C. L. Kingsford. 41. Vedio India. By Z. A. Ragozin. 42. The West Indies and the Spanish Uain. By James Rodway. 43. Bohemia. By C. Edmund Maurice, 44. The Balkans, By W. Miller, M.A. 45. Canada. By Sir J. G. BouRlNOT, LL.D, 46. British India, By R. W. Frazer, LL.B. 47. Uodern France. By Akdr£ Le BON. 48. The Franks. By Lewis Ser- geant. 49. Austria, By SIDNEY Whitman. 50. Modem England. Before the Re- form Bill. By Justin McCarthy, 31. China. By Prof. R.K. Douglas. 52. Modem England. From the Reform Bill to the Present Time. By Justin McCarthy, 53. Modern Spain, By Martin A, S. HUMK. 54. Modern Italy. By PlETRO Orsi. 55. Norway. By H. H. BOYESEN. 56. Wales. Bv o. M. Edwards. 57. Medieval Rome, By W. Miller, M.A. 58. The Papal Monarchy, By William Barry, D.D. 59. Mediaeval India under Mohamme- dan Rule. By Stanley Lane- Poole. 60. Buddhist India. By Prof. T. W. Rhys-Davids. 61. Parliamentary England. By Ed- ward JenkS. M.A. 62. Medieeval England. By Mary Bateson. 63. The Coming of Parliament. By L Cecil Jane. 64. The Story of Greece, From the EarHest Times to .\,D, 14. By E. S. Shuckburgh. 65. The Story of the Roman Empire. (B.C. 29 to A.D. 476.) By H. Stuart Jones. 66. Denmark and Sweden, with Ice- land and Finland. By Jon Stefanssox, Ph.D. London : T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD., i Adelphi Terrace GVSTAWS ADOLPHVS D.G. REX SVEC GOTH; ET VAND, MAGNVS PRINCEPS FlNLANdX DVXETC, V,Ji t^m-Jflf Alt ■ >«• O/tk fin»'4 'x-"r DENMARK AND SWEDEN with ICELAND AND FINLAND By JON STEFANSSON, Ph.D. LECTURER IN ICELANDIC AT KINg's COLLEGE, LONDON WITH A PREFACE by VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M. LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD, ADELPHI TERRACE __ First published in igi6 {All rights reserved) v?> PREFACE Among all the countries of Europe, it is with those of the Scandinavian North and with Holland that we in Britain are most nearly connected by blood, by reli- gion, and by similarity of ideas and habits. Yet most of us in this country have very scant knowledge of the history of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, although the political relations of both Great Britain and Ireland were constantly affected by all these four countries during the ninth, texith, and eleventh centuries, and though in quite recent times our commercial and also our intellectual intercourse with them has attained a constantly increasing im- portance. Accordingly, the appearance of a new sketch of their history, brief, but perhaps all the more likely to be generally read because it is brief, deserves a welcome. The motive which specially prompts me to write these few lines of preface to the book of Mr. Jon Stefansson, is the fact that he is an Icelander, and that I have long known him as a scholar who has brought his knowledge of the lan- guage and history of his own isle to illustrate the early history of the British islands by a study of our place-names, which he has shown to be, especially X PREFACE along our coasts, very largely of Icelandic or Old Norse origin. As he is qualified by his knowledge of Iceland to present an outline of its history, so he has also the advantage, in writing of the other Scandinavian countries, of being able to treat their annals with an impartiality which might come less naturally to a Dane or a Norwegian or a Swede. Iceland is, to be sure, a part of the dominions of the Danish Crown, but on the other hand the people of Iceland are by race an offshoot of the people of Norway, so that an Icelander like Mr. Stefansson stands in his sympathies midway between Denmark and Norway. Denmark had in the more distant past many a war with Sweden, and Norway has, in more recent times, had some friction with Sweden, but Iceland never stood in any but friendly relations with Sweden. It is a distinctive feature of this little book that more space is in it allotted to the annals of Iceland than one finds in other books devoted to the Northern countries. Now Iceland is a country of quite excep- tional and peculiar interest, not only in its physical but also in its historical aspects. The Icelanders are the smallest in number of the civilized nations of the world. Down till our own days the island has never had a population exceeding seventy thousand, yet it is a Nation, with a language, a national character, a body of traditions that are all its own. Of all the civilized countries it is the most wild and barren, nine-tenths of it a desert of snow mountains, glaciers, and vast fields of rugged lava, poured forth from its volcanoes. Yet the people of this remote isle, PR Elf ACE XI placed in an inhospitable Arctic wilderness, cut off from' the nearest parts of Europe by a stormy sea, is, and has been from the beginning of its national, life more than a thousand years ago, an intellectually cultivated people which has pro- duced a literature both in prose and in poetry that stands among the primitive literatures next after that of ancient Greece if one regards both its quantity and its quality. Nowhere else, except in Greece, was so much produced that attained, in times of primitive simplicity, so high a level of excellence both in imaginative power and in brilliance of expression^ Not less remarkable is the early political history of the island. During nearly four centuries it was the only independent republic in the world, and a republic absolutely unique in what one may call its constitution, for the government was nothing but a system of law courts, administering a most elaborate system of laws,- the enforcement of which was for the most part left to those who were parties to the lawsuits. In our own time Iceland has for the student of political institutions a new iriterest. After many years of a bloodless constitutional struggle between its people and the Danish Crown, Denmark con- ceded to Iceland a local legislature, and an autonomy under that legislature which has greatly improved the relations between the two countries and furnished another argument to those who hold that peace and progress are best secured by the application of the principles of liberty and self-government. It is xil PREFACE much to be desired that the Russian Government should appreciate the value of these principles in its dealings with Finland. As regards that much larger part of Mr. Stefan- sson's book which relates to the Scandinavian countries of the mainland, it is enough to call attention in a very few words to the interest which their most recent history has for uS, since I cannot attempt to enter into those more distant centuries which are illustrated by the great names of Norse, Danish and Swedish kings, from Olaf Tryggvason of Norway and Cnut of Denmark and England, down to Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII of Sweden. In our time Denmark has become a perfectly constitutional State, after a long dispute which in the last generation divided the Crown .from the people. She has also, by the application of the principle of co-operation and by the use of scientific methods, become one of the most prosperous agricultural regions of Europe. Sweden's industries also have been immensely de- veloped, while her political life has passed, under a reformed parliamentary system, into new and striking phases. Both these countries have been adorned by brilliant poets and novelists, as well as by scientific investigators of the first rank. The history of all the Northern countries well deserves far more attention from Englishmen than it has hitherto i-eceived. BRYCE. July 17, iyi6. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION . . . . . xix PART I DENMARK CHAPTER I. ORIGINS — THE VIKING AGE . . 3 II. CNUT THE GREAT . . .10 III. THE EARLY MIDDLE ACE . . 16 IV. THE AGE OF THE VALDEMARS (1157-124T) 23 V. CIVIL WAR ... 31 VI. VALDEMAR iVTTERDAG (134O-7S) . . 36 VII. QUEEN MARGARET THE KALMAR UNION — THE OLDENBURG DYNASTY . . .40 VIII. CHRISTIAN li . . . -5° IX. THE REFORMATION . . . ■ 6^ X. THE SEVEN YEARS WAR (1563-70) . . 73 XI. CHRISTIAN IV (1588-1648) . . • 78 XII. ABSOLUTISM — GRIFFENFELD . . '87 XIV CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIII. ABSOLUTISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . 94 XIV. CHRISTIAN VII AND STRUENSEE . . IO4 XV. FREDERICK VI DENMARK AND ENGLAND THE LOSS OF NORWAY . . -US XVI. CHRISTIAN VIII — SLESVIG AND HOLSTEIN . 1 27 XVII. FREDERICK VII — THE CONSTITUTIONAL MON- ARCHY THE FIRST SLESVIG WAR . -133 XVIII. CHRISTI.\N IX AND HIS SUCCESSORS — THE LOSS OF SLESVIG — CONSTITUTIONAL STRUGGLES . I43 PART II ICELAND XIX. ICELAND . . . . . ,157 , PART III SWEDEN. XX. ORIGINS — THE VIKING AGE AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGE . . . 175 XXI. UNION WITH NORWAY (1319-71) AND WITH DENMARK (1389-1521) . . .191 XXII. GUSTAVUS VASA (15 23-60) — THE REFORMATION 203 XXIII. EKJC XIV , . , , .231 CONTENTS XV CHAPTER PAGE XXIV. THE REFORMATION POLAND . . . 240 XXV. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS . . . 247 XXVI. SVi^EDEN AS A GREAT POWER . .276 XXVII. CHARLES XII . . . . . 296 XXVIII. PARLIAMENTARISM B'REE AND UNFETTERED . 308 XXIX. GUSTAVUS III .... 314 XXX. GUST.WUS IV — THE LOSS OF FINLAND . 328 XXXI. BERNADOTTE AND HIS SUCCESSORS — THE UNION WITH NORWAY AND ITS DISSO- LUTIOI* ..... 337 PART IV FINLAND XXXII. FINLAND AFTER ITS SEPARATION FROM SWEDEN (1809-1914) . . . 35S SYNOCHRONISTIC TABLES OF EVENTS IN SWEDEN, DENMARK, AND NORWAY . 371 INDF.X 381 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS Frontispiece THE JELLINGE STONE 7 ORNAMENTS, CHIEFLY BUCKLES, OF THE VIKING AGE . 8 DANISH COINS FROM THE REIGN OF CNUT THE GREAT, MINTED AT LUND, ROSKILDE, RINGSTEAD . . I3 CANUTE AND EMMA. From a miniature reproduced in " Liber Vitce" {Birch) 14 CHALICE AND RING OF ABSALON . ... 26 QUEEN MARGARET'S SARCOPHAGUS 45 CHRISTIAN II 51 [THE STOCKHOLM MASSACRE . . . . . 60 THE STOCKHOLM MASS.\CRE . . ... 62 KRONBORG, ELSINORE, IN SHAKESPEARE'S TIME . . 75 THE KRONBORG TAPESTRY MENTIONED IN "HAMLET"; FREDERICK H AND HIS SON 76 CHRISTIAN IV ... 80 HESSELAGERGAARD CASTLE 85 CAROLINE MATILDA 106 STRUENSEE "2 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY . . . . I39 ARNI MAGNUSSON . . 167 xvii xvm ILLUSTRATIONS PACK JON SIGURDSSON I?' OLAF SKOTT-KONUNG'S COINS 1/*^ GRAVESTONE OF THE ENGLISH PATRON SAINT OF FINLAND, BISHOP HENRY 1 83 LAWMAN EIRGER'S GRAVESTONE 1 89 SEAL OF STOCKHOLM 197 GUSTAVUS VASA' 205 STOCKHOLM. From an old^rint . . . . .211 GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS LANDING IN GERMANY . . . 259 SEAL OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS . . . . . . 264 DEATH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS AT LUTZEN. A Dutch Iprint 271 GRAVE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, RIDDARHOLM CHURCH, STOCKHOLM 274 SIGNATURE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS .... 275 AXEL OXENSTIERNA, CHANCELLOR OF SWEDEN . 278 CHARLES X 282 DAHLBERG 285 MARCH OF THE SWEDISH ARMY OVER THE ICE . . 287 THE SWEDES STORM COPENHAGEN, FEBRUARY II, 1659. 290 CHARLES XII. By Wedekind 298 DEATH MASK OF CHARLES XII 306 GUSTAVUS III 316 BERNADOTTE (CHARLES JOHN) . . . . 336 FIVE FINNISH LEADERS 361 INTRODUCTION It has often been stated that Denmark, Sweden, and Norway come late into European history and are factors of little importance for the balance of power. Yet we find that at the dawn of their history, in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Scandinavian peoples exercised a deep and lasting influence on Western and Eastern Europe. The y helped to build up the Empires of England, of Franc e, of Ru ssia. These early~^mpire-builders had discovered the value of sea-power and used it to conquer and settle many shores. They imparted their seafaring and colonizing genius to the Anglo-Saxon stock. The Vikings con- tributed virile and adventurous elements to the composite stock of the English. In France they became crusaders and builders of cathedrals. They sent out leaders of men, not only on the Seine and the Thames, but also on the Dnieper. They gave Russia her name and governed her, few though they were in number. They broke the Mongolian yoke. Rurik's last descendant died as Tsar in 1 598. The Anglo-Scandinavian Empire of Cnut the Great was short-lived, but the Scandinavian mind clung to it with tenacity. Harald Hardrada of Norway, Saint XX DENMARK AND SWEDEN Cnut of Denmark, tried to revive it. Even as late as the middle of the fourteenth century Valdemar Atterdag negotiated with France about his claims to the English Crown and planned the conquest of England. It has remained a dream which can only be realized if the Scandinavian kingdoms should enter a Federated British Empire for their own safety and security. Though the smallest in extent of the three Scandi- navian kingdoms, Denmark was the most powerful of them during the early Middle Ages. At the time of the Valdemars" she held the hegemony of the North. She held sway over the Wends and Esthonians on the shores of the Baltic. But soon the naval and commercial domination of the northern seas by the Hanseatic Cities ousted all competitors. The Baltic Empire of Denmark crumbled easily. Through civil feuds she sank into disorder and degradation, and seemed to be on the verge of sharing the fate of Poland. Valdemar Atterdag restored her to her pristine state. It was his daughter, Margaret, who brought about the first union between the three kingdoms of the North. Her contemporaries greatly marvelled at the strength and wisdom of the woman who accomplished what men had in vain striven to do. But it was only a dynastic union, not a union of the three peoples. Denmark continued to be the predominating Power and ruled the two other countries in her own interest. This was contrary to the stipu- lations of the Kalmar Union, drafted at Kalmar, 1397, by nobles representing the three kingdoms, according to which they were all to be on an equal footing, while INTRODUCTION XXI each of them was to retain her independence as a sovereign state. As a symbol of this union Margaret's grand-nephew was crowned with the triple crown of ^ the three kingdoms at Kalmar in 1397. A coronation ( in any of the three capitals of Denmark, Norway, or Sweden would have been a breach of their status of equality. This was the theory, but in practice the union worked far otherwise. Margaret, desirous of curbing the power of the nobles, never promulgated the terms of the Kalmar Union. Danes held office in. Sweden and in Norway contrary to the stipulations of the Union. The national spirit of the Swedes rose against the Danish yoke. Norway lacked leaders. The flower of her nobles had been killed off in civil wars and in blood feuds. The union between Denmark and Sweden gradually broke up, though it lasted nominally till 1523. Thei Vasa dynasty ascended the Swedish throne. They raised Sweden to the highest pinnacle of poWer which has been reached by any of the three sister nations. \ In a series of fratricidal wars Denmark and- Sweden struggled for supremacy in the North. Denmark airned at the dominion of the adjoining seas, the Baltic, the North Sea, the Polar Sea. She insisted that all foreign men-of-war should dip their topsail in her seas. She emblazoned the three crowns in her arms as a symbol of her supremacy. She exacted customs duties not only in the Sound but also for ships rounding the North Cape. This finally led to the Swedish seizure of the Sound provinces, Scania, Halland, Blekinge. Holland, which desired that the Northern Dardanelles should not belong to XXll DENMARK AND SWEDEN one Power supported the two rival Powers against each other. In the course of half a century these fertile provinces became thoroughly denationalized and wholly Swedish. The aim of Swedish statesmen was to create a Baltic Empire. By holding the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic, with the outlets of the great rivers, they held the master-keys to the future destinies of Germany and Russia. When Gustavus Adolphus defended religious freedom against Pope and Emperor, he proposed a Scandinavian alliance to Christian IV. They were fighting for the same ideals, but distrust and jealousy won the day. Christian refused. But ever since attempts have been made from time to time to realize the dream of a united Scandinavia. In the latter half of the "seventeenth century Griffenfeld and Gyllenstierna, a great Danish and a great Swedish statesman, both saw that the invincible Swedish army and the splendid Danish navy, united, would enable their countries to act the part of a Great Power in Europe. Unfortunately, Denmark in the eighteenth century was secretly leagued with Russia against Sweden, and England systematically made use of the hostility of these two Powers to Sweden to counter- poise the influence of France in the Baltic where she had important interests. Again, at the tithe of the North American War of Independence, Denmark and Sweden drew nearer to each other. In 1780, 1794, and 1800 Dano-Swedish fleets cruised in the Baltic and in the North Sea, cornmanded in turns by a Danish or a Swedish admiral, to protect and INTRODUCTION XXIU convoy their joint commerce. But this comradeship in arms, the Armed Neutrality, came to an end in 1801. The Danes had to fight Nelson single-handed in the battle of Copenhagen. The Swedish fleet lay at Karlskrona, ready to join them, but its com- mander disobeyed the orders of his king. It was the same admiral who surrendered the impregnable Sveaborg to the Russians in 1809. It has been held, though there is no proof of it, that he accepted bribes on both occasions. Bitterness and distrust replaced mutual confidence between the sister nations. After the dethronement of Gustavus IV 1 (1809) the Crown Prince of Denmark was a candidate for the vacant throne of Sweden, and he might have united the two countries under one sceptre had hej been less obstinate and narrow-minded. Bernadotte thought that the acquisition of Norway was of more value to Sweden than the loss of Finland, the tenure of which would always be unsafe and at the mercy of Russia, while only one-tenth of its population were Swedes. He judged from the map. The two nations, inhabiting the same peninsula, were joined together, 1814-1905, and during that time the changes that took place were mainly in the direction of differentiation from each other. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the students of the Scandinavian Universities began to hold joint meetings and draw together in various ways. During the Danish wars with Germany (1848-50 and 1864) hundreds of Swedish and Norwegian volunteers joined the Danish army, and it was only with difficulty that Sweden-Norway XXIV DENMARK AND SWEDEN could be held back from joining in the war. It is now known that Bismarck had made a secret arrangement with Russia. If Sweden-Norway assisted Denmark with their armies, Russia was to invade the northern parts of these kingdoms and seize certain ice-free ports. Sweden wisely remained at peace and in safety. The three Scandinavian nations have instituted a common coinage and postage. Certain members of their three parliaments hold inter-parliamentary meetings and conferences at stated intervals, in which they discuss how to bring their legislation and other matters into closer conformity. Their rules of neutrality have been made identical. Never has their feeling of close kinship and their sense of the need of standing by each other in time of danger like one nation been stronger than it is at the present time. Sweden is not only the largest in area, population, and wealth of the three kingdoms. She is also the one who has played a great part on the stage of European history. No other country in the world has had a succession of hero kings, one after the the other, as she has. Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII dazzled their contemporaries even more than or as much as Napoleon. Charles X, in a reign lasting only six years, filled the pages of history with heroic deeds. Charles IX and Gustavus Vasa laid the foundations of the greatness of Sweden as the leading Protestant Power in Europe. Gustavus III saved his country from the fate of Poland, and, almost single-handed, carried through a revolution INTRODUCTION XXV without shedding one drop of b'lood. Sweden had been governed by parliamentary majorities, without honour and without patriotism. The highest bidder, the Russian or the French Ambassador, could have their votes, and bribery was thoroughly systematized, a regular source of income. To such degradation had Swedish nobles come ! Sweden had tried successively various forms of government. The oligarchy of the nobles broke down through its own inefficiency and was supplanted by absolutism. When Charles XII, by his autocratic obstinacy, ruined the Baltic Empire of Sweden, royalty was constitutionally shorn of all power. Un- fettered parliamentary government led to such abuses that it, too, in its turn, broke down. Even now, under the constitutional regime of the Barna- dottes, the King of Sweden has powers, rooted in tradition, which have lapsed in Denmark. Recently Gustavus V was able to dismiss a ministry which represented a parliamentary majority, because they disagreed with him on military matters, and the sub- sequent elections proved that the King had correctly gauged the opinion of the Swedish people. Swedish kings have often, in the hour of need, appealed to the proud and free Swedish peasantry, whose spirit has never been cowed by viUenage, as in Denmark. During the last five hundred years Danish kings have not stood forth as the leaders of their people in the Swedish way. Christian I and Christian IV essayed it, but did not succeed. The Danish nobles at every election of a king encroached on the royal privileges and domains. Though they held in fief Xxvi DENMARK AND SWEDEN the larger half of Denmark they exempted themselves from taxation. The peasants on their estates were treated like serfs. Just retribution came in due time. After the loss of the provinces east of the Sound Frederick III, in 1660, introduced an absolute auto- cracy, the most thoroughgoing and logical that the world has seen. The real author of the Lex Regia was a statesman of genius, Griffenfeld. He determined to carry out the " L'etat, c'est moi" of Louis XIV to its utmost limits and consequences. The new autocracy was at first more efficient than the oli- garchy, but it killed and chilled all independence and initiative and soon degenerated. One of its first victims was Griffenfeld himself, who died in prison. Mediocre kings, some of them alienated from their people by a German Court, ruled a meek and humble nation. Even the loss of Norway in 18 14 did not shake their simple trust in the godlike wisdom of their monarch. The mad freaks and the dissolute scandals of .the insane Christian VII did not affect his popularity. He reigned forty-two years. The liberal movements that spread like fire through Europe ih 1848, also reached Denmark. Frederick VII, at the pressing request of his people, gave up his absolute power, and in 1849 Denmark was granted the Constitution which, with some alterations, is in force to-day. The Danish peasants had in the course of centuries sunk down to a lower status than those of Sweden. Since the Peasant Reforms in 1788 their recovery has been rapid. At the present time they are more prosperous, more enlightened, more progressive, more INTRODUCTION XXVU ready to turn to practical use the latest discoveries in science than the farmers of any other country. Their co-operative institutions are studied and imitated by other countries. They have set themselves to make good the loss of Danish territory in 1864 by putting under cultivation an area of equal extent within the borders of the kingdom. Danish Slesvig is being Prussianized by force and violence. This wound is still open and bleeding. Nowhere does Danish patriotism burn with such a bright and steady flame as among the Danes in North Slesvig. Separated from their countrymen economically, administratively, and politically, yet they are tied to them to-day by even stronger bonds than half a century ago ; they are, as it were, a living human wall that acts as a frontier guard to the motherland. Their prudence and self-restraint is such that every measure of Germanization merely intensifies their national feeling, and thus has the opposite effect of what was intended. Unconquer- able, they patiently await the day of deliverance. Amid all party strife in Denmark Slesvig has been a rallying-point for the best and strongest elements of the nation. Since the parallel with Finland and Sweden is often drawn, it should be stated that the dissimilarity is greater than the resemblance. Finland Is struggling to preserve historic rights which gave her a status as an internally independent nation within the Russiah Empire. Dominated, led, and civilized by Swedes for centuries, she is still under their spell, but they are a dwindling and decreasing minority. A thousand years of common XXviii DENMARK AND SWEDEN history makes every Swede feel the Russification of Finla.nd as a blow stmck to denationalize a branch of the Swedish race. Only second to that is the danger to Sweden caused by the elimination of Finland as a buffer state. It is to ward off this danger that the impregnable fortress of Boden has been built in the high North. Unreasonable or not, these Swedish fears exist, as they did at the time of the Crimean War. There is a regret that the November Treaty of 1854, by which England and France engaged to defend Swedish and Norwegian territory against Russian encroachments, is no longer in force. Sweden has, in the course of centuries, lost so much territory to Russia that she fears the process may not be at an end yet, and she cannot look on unmoved at events happening in Finland. At the same time she is forming new cultural and commercial ties with the Russian Empire, whose statesmen have more than once urged that her fears are groundless. Iceland stands on her historic rights. The Ice- landic Republic entered into a personal union with Norway in the thirteenth century, the monarch being the common link. Later, Denmark took the place of Norway in this union. Iceland is still striving to get Denmark to acknowledge her historic rights, and to modify her constitutional relations accord- ingly. At the present time it is debated whether the Minister for Iceland should attend the meetings of the Danish Cabinet or not. Denmark is gradually coming to see that she can give way without losing any advantage or prestige. The intense national feeling of the Icelandic people has behind it a history INTRODUCTION XXIX which is the common heritag^f all the Scandinavian nations. As the treasure-hcftise of the past of the Scandinavian nations, Iceland deserves to have, apart from its historic rights, a unique and separate status of its own, unassailed by petty constitutional quibbles. The essence of the movement towards unity of the Scandinavian nations is closely bound up with Iceland, for all Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians are equally proud of their historic past, which, through the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas, has been preserved for all time. Even now Iceland is awaking from the sleep of centuries, and advancing, economically, by leaps and bounds. Denmark should be proud to assist in the renaissance of the little nation in the North Atlantic, whose stubborn spirit has, survived the oppression of man and of nature, on the verge of the Arctic Circle. The new University of Iceland at Reykjavik will again lift the torch of culture and, learning which burnt so brightly in republican Iceland! New Iceland-owned steamers are crossing the Atlantic for the first time in 1915. New energies are springing up in many directions. They have been to some degree roused by the colony of Ice- landers, New Iceland, founded under the British flag on the shore of Lake Winnipeg. None of the Scandinavian nations have such strong English sympathies as the people of Iceland, whose nearest neighbour in Europe is Great Britain. It was an Englishman, William Morris, who said that as Hellas is holy ground to the nations of the South, so should Iceland be a Hellas to Northern Europe. A united, free, and federated Scandinavia is no XXX DENMARK AND SWEDEN longer a dream of the distant future. The world- historic events through which we are passing have brought it nearer to realization. The meeting of the three kings, so closely related to each other, proves that all ill-feeling engendered by the separation of Sweden and Norway in 1905 is at an end. The very selection of a meeting-place, Malmo, was suggestive of the meeting at Kalmar in 1397. Sweden, possessing a larger army and a larger navy, alone, than Denmark and Norway added together, would have to bear the burden of defence to a higher degree than either of her sister nations. The only neighbours whom the three countries fear are Russia and Germany, and their joint resistance to either of these two Empires would be no insignificant factor in a European war. Sweden and Norway are by nature well adapted for defence against superior forces. The literature and art of Scandinavia has influ- enced Europe. Ibsen's art has revolutionized the drama of every country. The music of Grieg has strengthened the national strain in European music. Thorvaldsen made an epoch in sculpture. In science Scandinavia has contributed far more than her share. She has sent out explorers who have been the only serious rivals of the English. Norway has more shipping in proportion to her population than any other country. Denmark, the size of an English county, has an East Asiatic steamship line, and controls the Great Northern Telegraph Company's lines that extend to the uttermost ends of the Asiatic Continent. The metallurgy and mining of Sweden INTRODUCTION XXXI can hold its own with those of any other country. European civiHzation and culture would be the poorer if it were to forgo the contribution made to it by the Scandinavian countries. The influence of England on the Scandinavian countries begins with the dawn of their history. Christianity with civilization in her train penetrated slowly from the British Isles to the North. Cnut the Great drew the two peoples nearer to each other in his Empire. Elizabeth, in her correspondence with the kings of Denmark, brooks little interference with the important commercial and economic interests of England in the Baltic. James I, Charles I, and Cromwell favour Sweden, the great Protestant Power fighting on behalf of all Protestant nations. In the tangled web of alliances of the latter half of the seventeenth century Sweden, as a rule, was found on the side of France, and Denmark among her opponents. Charles XII, after the seizure of Bremen and Verden by Hanover, was at war with George I as the Elector of Hanover, but at peace with him as King of Eng- land. Sir John Norris cruised in the Baltic with the British fleet as a neutral. Still, Sir George Byng blockaded Gothenburg in the spring of 17 17, to prevent a Jacobite raid on England by Charles XII. In the eighteenth century English policy favoured Denmark, as Sweden was for the most part the satellite of France. England attacked Denmark twice during the Napoleonic wars, in 1801 and 1807. A seven years' war with Denmark came to an end in 1 8 14. Since then economic interests have knit close XXJCU DENMARK AND SWEDEN ties between England and Denmark. Denmark sends the whole of her large exports of agricultural produce, over twenty million pounds' worth, to the British market. Sweden is imitating the example set by Denmark in an ever-increasing degree. PART I DENMARK CHAPTER I ORIGINS — THE VIKING AGE The^ earliest references to Denma rk are fo ujicLin classical writers. The Cimbrians, who were beaten by Marius at Vercelli, loi B.C., have left traces of their name in a district of Jutland, the present Himmerland (Himmer-, earlier Himber-). Ptolemy in his geography, A.D. 130, mentions the Cimbrian peninsula, and Pliny the Elder, about A.D. 70, writes that he sailed round it. About the time of the birth of Christ the citizens of Ankyra (now Angora), in Asia Minor, built a temple dedicated to the Emperor Augustus and the goddess Roma. On its marble wall the following inscription, chosen by Augustus himself, was engraven : " My fleet sailed ■ from the mouth of the Rhine eastward to the country of the' Cimbrians to which no Roman had ever penetrated before that time by sea or by land and the Cimbrians and the Charydes and the ,Semnones and other German peoples in these regions asked for my friendship and that of the Roman people, through' legates." t The ethnic name of t he Danes is first recorded by the historian Prokopius, A.D. 550, while King Alfred 4 STORY OF DENMARK the Great is the first writer who records the name Denmark (Denemearc in old English) in the account of the travels of Ottar and Wulfstan, which he inserted in his translation of Orosius, A.D. 890. Denmark was the first Scandinavian country to adopt Christianity. Willibrord, the English mis- sionary who converted the Frisians, preached in Denmark shortly after 700 A.D., and took thirty Danish boys with him when he left. When Charlemagne Christianized the Saxons by sword and fire, their leader, Widukind, sought refuge in Denmark. Thus Christianity approached Denmark as the enemy of its freedom and independence, and King Godfred set out with two hundred ships to attack Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, but he was assassinated while raiding the coast. Heming, his successor, made peace with Charlemagne in 811. The river Eider was to divide Derunark and the Empire. In 826 the Danish king, Harald, came sailing up the Rhine to visit the Empetor Louis Debonnaire, and was baptized at Ingelheim, near Mainz, with his queen and his son and a large retinue. He apparently changed his faith in order to seat himself more safely on the throne of Den- mark with the assistance of the Emperor, to whom he did homage. Ansgar (" the Apostle of the North "j sailed with him down the Rhine to convert Denmark. Ebo, Archbishop of Rheims, had been on a fruitless mission to Denmark in 823. Ansgar was born in Picardie in 801. He entered the Prankish monastery, Corbie, and moved to New Corvei in Saxony, founded in 822 by the Corbie Benedictines. Ansgar ORIGINS 5 established a school at Hedeby (Slesvig), but he had to flee the country in 827 when King Harald was expelled. At the request of certain Swedes the Emperor sent him on a mission there in 829. When he arrived at Birca, the chief city of Sweden, King Biorn permitted him to preach. The baptized chieftain, Hergeir, built a church in Birca. After eighteen months Ansgar returned to Germany, and was appointed Archbishop of Hamburg in 831, with Scandinavia for his mission-field. In 845 King Horik of Denmark sailed up the Elbe with six hundred ships, plundered Hamburg and burnt Ansgar's church and monastery and his Danish school. But in 848 the Emperor made Ansgar Bishop of Bremen, yet retaining the title of Arch- bishop of Hamburg. About 850 the first church in Denmark was built in Slesvig. The next church was erected at Ripe (now Ribe), these two churches being the only ones in Denmark long after Ansgar's death. News reached him from Sweden that his missionaries had been expelled, and in 853 he went there a second time. Single-handed he succeeded in persuading King Olaf and a hostile assembly to tolerate the new faith. Ansgar died in Bremen, 865, sixty-four years old, and his successor and pupil, Rimbert, wrote his Life. St. Ansgar — he was canonized — was a noble and winning character, full of self-sacrifice and burning zeal. A visionary who realized his visions in life, who lived on bread and water, and wore a hair shirt next to his body. He deserves his name, " the Apostle of the North." The history of Denmark during the next century, 6 STORY OF DENMARK down to the middle of the tenth century, is shrouded in obscurity. As Adam of Bremen says : " Whether of all these kings or tyrants in Denmark some ruled the country simultaneously or one lived shortly after the other is uncertain." Saxo gives the names of no less than fifty kings of Denmark who reigned before the Viking Age. King Gorm raised a runic stone at Jellinge in memory of his queen, Thyri, with the following inscription : " King Gorm set this monument after his queen, Thyri, Denmark's guardian {tan- markar but)!' She. was called thus because she built the Danevirke (Danework) in three years, each province of Denmark building the part assigned to it of the wall of earth turf, stones and timber, stretching from the Bay of Slien to the' river Eider, almost ten miles in length. It served to. defend the southern frontier, ^thelfled, the Lady of Mercia, the sister of Alfred the Great, had a little earlier built similar works in England against the Danes themselves. The earliest occurrence of the name Denmark in Denmark itself is on Thyri's stone.. Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth (940-86), is the first Christian king of all Denmark. The Saxon monk Widukind of Corvey, writing in 970, relates how the German priest Poppo converted the King by carrying red-hot iron in his naked hands, unhurt, about 960. But already about the middle of the century Arch- bishop Adaldag of Hamburg began to organize the Danish Church by appointing bishops, Hored of Slesvig, Liufdag of Ripe, Reginbrand of Arus (now Aarhus). Harald subdued Southern Norway and Earl Hakon became his vassal but refused to adopt THE VIKING AGE the new faith. As Harald says with pride on the runic stone he raised at Jellinge in Jutland : " King Harald bade make this monument after Gorm, his father,, and after Thyri, his mother, that Harald who THE JELLINGE STONE. conquered all Denmark, and Norway, and made the Danes Christians." Harald lost Norway before his death, and was killed in a war against his son Sven, 986. ORNAMENTS, CHIEFLY BUCKLES, OF THE VIKING AGE. THE VIKING AGE 9 Sven Forkbeard (989-1014) laid siege to London in 994, unsuccessfully, wintered in Southampton 994-95> and was bought off with Danegeld. It was probably on his return to Denmark that he let the moneyer Godwin strike coins in imitation of a coin of Ethelred the Unready. It is the first real coin struck in Denmark, and bears the name of king and moneyer. No other coins dating from his reign have been found, but English coins, i.e. Danegeld, have been found in abundance. In league with King Olaf of Sweden, and with Eric and Sven, the sons of Earl Hakon of Norway, he defeated King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway in the famous battle of Svold, off the coast of RUgen, in A.D. 1000. Sven had put away his Polish wife, Gunhild, and married Sigrid the Proud, the widow of Eric the Victorious, King of Sweden. Olaf Trygg- vason had been one of her suitors, but when she refused his demand that she should be baptized he called her " heathen like a dog," and struck her in the face with his glove. " This will be your death," Sigrid exclaimed. She had egged on her new husband to avenge the insult. Besides, Sven's sister who had run away from her husband, the Duke of Poland, had married the King of Norway without Sven's consent. Norway was then divided between the three conquerors. CHAPTER II CNUT THE GREAT Afte]R the massacre of the Danes in England on St. Brice's Day, November 13, 1002, one of the victims of which was Sven's sister Gunhild, wife of an ealdorman, Pallig, King Sven made a vow to wrest England from Ethelred. For years he ravaged and raided till Ethelred fled to Normandy. Sven became master of England in 1013, but he died on February 3, 1014, at Gainsborough. Adam of Bremen relates that priests and bishops carfle from England to preach in Denmark during Sven's reign, among them Bishop Godebald to Scania. It is significant that the Danish Odinkar, Bishop of Ripe (Ribe), had all Jutland for his diocese during Sven's reign, as Sven would not appoint German bishops to the vacant bishoprics. Cnut was now elected king by the Danish army in England, He had to leave, but returned (1015) with a huge fleet. Harald, Sven's eldest son, succeeded Sven in Denmark and, with his brother Cnut, brought their mother, Gunhild, home from her exile in Poland. Cnut had to conquer England over again. The deaths first of Ethelred and then of Edmund Ironside (six months after CNUT THE GREAT U dividing England with Cnut) in 1016 left Cnut in possession, after a severe struggle. The twenty-two years old viking leader ruled England, not as a conqueror but with greater wisdom and justice than its native kings. He married Ethelred's widow, Emma. He sent his Danish army out of the country and retained only his trained household troops, the house-carls, a standing army of 3,000 men. He wished England to be governed by Englishmen. After 102 1 Earl Thorkil the High, his chief adviser, yields place to an Englishman, Godwine. Cnut's ideal seems to have been an Anglo-Scandinavian Empire, of which England was to be the head and centre. In 1018 he succeeded to the throne of Denmark, after the death pf his brother Harald. In 1028 he sailed to Norway with 1,400 ships and seized it without a sword-stroke. When King Olaf attempted to reconquer Ws country, he was slain by the Norwegian bonder in the battle of Stiklastad, July 29, 1030. Sven, the son of Cnut and Aelfgifa, was appointed viceroy of Norway. At Christmas, 1026, Cnut and his brother-in-law. Earl Ulf, bandied high words over a. game of chess at Roskilde, the royal residence in Denmark. Next morning he ordered ,one of his men to slay the Earl wherever he found him, and he ran the Earl through when kneeling down in the choir of Trinity Church. Next spring Cnut went on a pilgrimage to Rome, not only to expiate his sin but also for State reasons. He was the first Scandinavian king to enter the Eternal City. On Easter Day, 1027, the Emperor, Conrad II, after his coronation by 1 the Pope in St. Peter's, 12 THE STORY OF DENMARK walked out of the Cathedral with Cnut to the right and the King of Burgundy on his left side. Cnut's noble conception of kingship stands out in the letter sent by him from Rome to his English subjects : " I do you to wit that I have travelled to Rome to pray for the forgiveness of my sins and for the welfare of the peoples under my rule. ... I have vowed to God to rule my kingdoms justly and piously. I am ready, with God's help, to amend to the utmost whatever heretofore I have done, in the wilfulness and negligence of youth, against what is just. My officers shall administer justice to all, rich and poor, nor do wrong for fear or favour of any tpan, on pain of losing my friendship and their own life and goods. I have no need that money be gathered for me by unjust demands. I have sent this letter so that all people in my realm may rejoice in my welfare, for, as you know, never have I spared — nor shall I spare — to spend myself and my toil in what is needful and good for my people." In Cnut's reign churches were built and the earliest monasteries founded in Denmark. He sent bishops from England to Denmark, Gerbrand to Roskilde, Bernhard to Lund, also Reginbert. All these names are Frankish. Abbot Lyfing, who accompanied Cnut to Denmark and to Rome, was his adviser in establishing the Danish Church, which Cnut wished to be subject to Canterbury. The Arch- bishop of Bremen tried in vain to prevent the Anglicizing of the Danish Church. Peter's pence was introduced in Denmark. The first regular Danish coinage dates from Cnut's reign, and Eng- CNUT THE GREAT 13 lish, moneyers worked for him in several Danish toW|ns. English civilization and culture struck root jn Denmark. Cnut died on November 12, 1035, thirty-seven years old, and is buried at Winchester. The Norwegians, dissatisfied with his son Sven, called Magnus, the son of St. Olaf, to rule Norway. "Cnut," says the Icelandic Knytlinga Saga, "was of great size and strength, and very handsome except DANISH COINS FROM THE REIGN OF CNUT THE GREAT, MINTED AT LUND, ROSKILDE, RINGSTEAD. that his nose was thin, high, and slightly bent. He had a light complexion and fair, thick hair, and his eyes surpassed" the eyes of most men, in beauty and in keenness." His contemporaries called him Cnut the Mighty, ruler as he was of England, Southern Scotland, Denmark, Norway, and of the Wendish (Slavonic) lands along the south coast of the Baltic, including Jomsborg, the stronghold of the Baltic vikings. He subdued the Baltic coast in 1022. In CANUTE AND EMMA. (The King and Queen are presenting a golden cross to Winchester Abbey, New Minster.) From a miniature reproduced in Liber ViliB (Birch). CNUT THE GREAT I 5 1026 he beat back the attack which the allied Kings of Sweden and Norway made on Denmark in his absence. Posterity has called him Cnut the Great. His Anglo-Scandinavian Empire crumbled at his death. His life was too short to lay its foundations stable and sure. The violent viking temper in him has its outbursts, but he devotes much care to the Church, to education, and to the poor. As the Ice- landic historian, Snorri Sturluson, says : " In his Kingdom was so good a peace that no one dared break it." The greatest of Danish kings, he has only his equals in Alfred and Elizabeth as ruler gf England. CHAPTER III THE EARLY MIDDLE AGE Hartha-Cnut, his son by Emma, succeeded him in Denmark, where he had been viceroy since 1032. After the death of his half-brother, Harald Harefoot, King of England (1035-40), he reunited England and Denmark. He ordered Harald's body to be dug up and flung into the Thames. In 1042 he fell down dead as he stood at his drink at a wedding-feast in Lambeth. As the chronicler says, " He never did anything royal." Thus the incapacity of Cnut's sons dissolved the union of England and Denmark, and the dream of an Anglo-Scandinavian Empire vanished. Edward the Confessor succeeded to the English throne, and the son of St. Olaf, Magnus the Good, King of Norway, succeeded to the throne of Denmark. Sven Estrithson (1047-76) was the son of Earl Ulf and Estrith, daughter of Sven Forkbeard, after whom he is called, since it was owing to her royal birth that he was elected king. Of him the Knytlinga Saga says that " he was handsome, tall and strong, generous and wise, just and brave but never victorious in war." Born in England about 1018, he was educated there. THE EARLY MIDDLE AGE IJ His father governed Denmark when Cnut the Great was absent. After the murder of his father he took refuge on the large estate left him by his grandmother Sigrid, in Sweden. Hartha-Cnut gave him the title of Earl, but at his death in 1042 Magnus the Good, King of Norway, succeeded to the Danish throne in accordance with the Treaty of Brenneyjar between him and Hartha-Cnut. Magnus created Sven Earl, though his leading chieftain, Einar, called out to him : "Too mighty an Earl, too mighty an Earl, my foster-son ! " Sven took the name of king, and rose more than once against Magnus, but was always defeated. On his death-bed in 1047 Magnus the Good gave Denmark to Sven, who for seventeen years had to defend it in long wars against King Harald Hardrada of Norway. He suffered numerous defeats, but he never despaired, and in 1064 he had wearied Harald out, and was allowed to keep Den- mark in peace. After the Conquest Sven prepared to take England from the Conqueror. His brother Esbern, who had been outlawed from England in the reign of Edward the Confessor, commanded a fleet of 240 ships, which sailed in August 1069, to conquer England. Cnut and Harald, Sven's sons, were on board. Esbern rowed up the Humber and seized York. When the Conqueror approached with an army he could not reach them on board their ships in the river, and merely ravaged the country. Esbern left for Denmark in June, 1070, bribed or bought off, it is supposed ; at any rate he was exiled by the King on his return. In 1075 a second expedition of two hundred ships, commanded by Cnut, failed for 3 1 8 THE STORY OP DENMARK lack of support by the Danes of the Danelag. Cnut brought the relics of St. Alban with him to Den- mark, and deposited them in the church of Odense. About 1060 Sven completed the organization of the Danish Church. He divided Jutland, which was then under one bishop, into four bishoprics. Ripe (Ribe), Viborg, Aros (Aarhus) and Vestervig (later Borglum), and founded the bishoprics of Lund and Dalby in Scania. Dalby was soon joined to Lund in one bishopric. According to Adam of Bremen, Scania had 300 churches, Siaelland 150, Funen lOO. Sven favoured the Church, and the building of the Cathedral of Roskilde began in his reign. Sven had nineteen children — fifteen sons and four daughters — all illegitimate but one, a son who died in infancy. Five of his sons were Kings of Denmark successively. He was compelled by Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen to divorce his queen, Gunild, the widow of the Swedish king Anund Jacob, because she was a daughter of a half-sister of Sven's mother, Estrith. Adam of Bremen, in his " History of the Archbishops of Hamburg," which reached to about 1072, quotes Sven as one of his chief sources, since " he held the whole history of the barbarians in his memory, as it were in a written book.'' Sven told him Danish history by word of mouth. Harald Hen (the Gentle, 1076-80), the eldest of Sven's sons, was succeeded by his brother Cnut, (1080-86), who took up the plan of his youth, the conquest of England ; an immense fleet of 1,000 ships assembled in the Limfjord, among them ships from his brother-in-law, Olaf the Quiet, King of THE EARLV MWDL£ AGE ig Norway, and his father-in-law the Count of Flanders, but Henry IV of Germany compelled Cnut to guard his southern frontier, for the Emperor's enemies fled to Denmark. The fleet waited for Cnut all the summer of 1085, and when provisions failed dis- banded. Cnut punished them with fines which he wanted to commute into tithes for the clergy. A general rising took place in Jutland and Cnut fled to Funen. On July 10, 1086, at evensong, in the wooden church of St. Alban at Odense, Cnut, his brother Benedict and seventeen warriors, defending him, were stoned and speared. His character resembles that of Gregory VH, and he became the Protomartyr of Denmark less owing to sanctity of his life than to his patronage of the Church. He was succeeded by his brother, Olaf, nicknamed Hunger (1086-95), because Denmark suffered from bad seasons and famine in his reign — the vengeance of God, it was believed, for the murder of the Saint. Olaf transferred the bones of Cnut at Easter, 1095, to a stone church. After a general fast of three days his grave was opened and at that very moment two days' unceasing rain stopped, the sun shone in a blue sky and all joined in a Te Deum. Cnut's bones were laid in the crypt of the unfinished stone church the foundation of which he had laid and which was then called St. Cnut's Church. He was enshrined at Easter, iioi, after Pope Paschalis H had canonized him. King Eric the Evergood (Eiegod) in 1098 went on a pilgrimage tq Rome in order to get his brother Cnut canonized and to get an archiepiscopal see established at Lund. Urban II granted both his 20 TtlE STORY Of DENMARK requests at the Church Council of Bari. Eric met Anselm of Canterbury there, and visited Duke Roger of Apulia, who was married to Edel, St. Cnut's widow. Edel sent .precious stones for the Saint's shrine. In A.D. 1 100 Eric sent for twelve monks from Evesham-on-Avon, who settled in the first monas- tery, built in ■ Denmark, close by St. Alban's Church. King Eric the Evergood (1095-1103) had eight men's strength and was taller than other men. He was the first king in Europe who went on a pilgrimage to Palestine ; it was in penance for homi- cide. , He died in Cyprus on July loth, St. Cnut'S Day, in 1103, but his queen, Bodil, continued the journey to Palestine, where she died. Paschalis H sent Cardinal Alberic with the archiepiscopal pallium to . Bishop Asser of Lund, a nephew of Queen Bodil, in 1104. Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury in a letter, extant, congratulates Asser on being appointed Primate of the North, but no papal bull establishing the archbishopric is preserved. Thus the Scandinavian nations were freed from German Primates who did not know their language. Niels (1103-34), the fifth of the brothers who reigned as king, appointed Cnut, son of Eric Evergood, Earl or Duke of Slesvig, 1115. Hereaftef the Earls of Slesvig were called Dukes {Hertog). Cnut was then twenty- one years old. He was beloved by the people, and he was called Cnut Lavard {the Middle English form of English lord) ; he was elected alderman of St. Cnut's Guild at Hedeby. He was married to Ingeborg, daughter of Grand Duke Mstislav of THE EARLY MIDDLE AGE 21 Novgorod. Cnut had been educated at a German Court and he brought German culture to Denmark. Archbishop Asser began to build a cathedral at Lund, in spite of peasant riots caused by the enforce- ment of the celibacy of the priests. Aelnoth of Canterbury, one of the St. Cnut's Friars at Odense, wrote a Life of St. Cnut, soon after 1120, and dedicated it to King Niels. Cnut Lavard became Prince {Knes) of the Wendish tribes near the Danish frontier. He was invited by King Niels to spend Christmas at Roskilde in 11 30. In vain he was warned not to go by Cecilia, a daughter of St. Cnut, : whose brother, Charles the Dane, had been murdered, kneeling before the altar, in 1 1 27, in the same way as her father i had been slain in io86. Cnut Lavard was assassinated in a wood on January 7, 1 131, by Magnus, King Niels' son. As the Chronicle says : " Magnus, King Niels' only son, at the instigation of the devil, slew, in treacherous peace, Cnut, son of King Eric, a chaste and temperate man, gifted and eloquent." " Turple does not ward off sword-strokes," Cnut's cousin had said to him, alluding to his foreign dress. " Sheep- skin does not, either," Cnut answered. Cnut's widow, Ingeborg, gave birth to his post- humous son on January 14, 1131. She called him Valdemar, after her grandfather. Grand Duke Vladi- mir. Civil war ensued, the bloodstained clothes of Cnut being exhibited at public assemblies. In the battle of Fotevik, in Scania, on Whit Monday, June 4, 1 1 34, Magnus, Niels' son, five bishops, and sixty priests were killed, and the victor, Eric, a half- 22 THE STORY OF DENMARK brother to Cnut Lavard, was called Emune (Ever-to- be-remembered) afterwards. King Niels fled to Slesvig, and was killed on June 2Sth by the guild- brothers of St. Cnut, who were bound to avenge the death of their alderman. Eric Emune (1134-37), a tyrant who put to death his brother and his nephew, was assassinated at a public assembly. Eric Lamb (1137-47), a grandson of Eric Evergood, by his daughter, succeeded him as the three princes nearest to the throne were only from six to eight years old. Eskil, Asser's nephew, succeeded him as Primate of the North in 1137. The gentle but feeble Eric abdicated in 1147 and .retired to a monastery. Civil war raged from 1 147-^7 between Sven, the illegitimate son of Eric Emune, Cnut, son of Magnus, and Valdemar, son of Cnut Lavard. They divided Denmark between themselves. Sven assassinated Cnut at a banquet at Roskilde while Valdemar, with his foster-brother, Absalon, was wounded and barely escaped assassination. Sven was defeated and killed in battle by Valdemar in 1 1 57- CHAPTER IV THE AGE OF THE VALDEMARS (1157-I241) Valdemar I, later called the Great (i 157-82), healed the wounds of the civil war. He appointed an Englishman, Radulph, his chaplain, and made him subsequently his chancellor, and then Bishop of Ripe (Ribe). There was an open rupture between the King and Archbishop Eskil ; they supported rival Popes during the schism. Eskil at last had to go into seven years' voluntary exile at the Abbey of Clairvaux. He was a pupil of St. Bernard. In 1 178 Eskil abdicated as archbishop and retired, to end his life at Clairvaux in 11 82. Absalon whose Danish name, Axel, was thus Latinized, had been Bishop of Roskilde since 1158, and was now fifty years old. He was solemnly elected Primate in the Cathedral of Lund, but refused to accept, though the King, Archbishop EskiL, and his clergy and the people pressed it upon him, and his clothes were torn in the attempt to force him into the archi- episcopal seat. Finally the Pope commanded him to accept, on pain of excommunication, but per- mitted him to continue Bishop of Roskilde. Den- mark has never produced a greater personality than 23 24 THE STORY OF DENMARK Absalon. He was equally eminent as statesman, warrior, and churchman. For a generation he guided Denmark in peace and war with supreme ability. When Valdemar came on the throne, about one- third of Denmark lay wasted and depopulated by the continual irruptions of the heathen Wends. Absalon beat them off, and for ten years he was engaged in a series of crusades against them to the south of the Baltic. At last in 1169, with Valdemar, he stormed the inaccessible Wendish temple strong- hold of Arcona, on the northern promontory of Riigen. The four-headed, gigantic wooden statue of their chief god, Svantovit, was demolished in the presence of hundreds of temple priests and chopped into firewood for the Danish camp. The Wendish capital, Garz, was taken and the seven-headed Riigievit suffered the same fate. The Wends were baptized, and the island of Riigen was annexed to the bishopric of Roskilde. To protect the fishing village of Havn (Haven, Hafnia) — first mentioned in Knytlinga Saga, 1043 — on the SouTid against pirates, Absalon built a strong- hold, in 1 168, Castrum de Havn, on the site where now standi Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. King Vald'^mar made a grant of the future capital of Denmai-'k to the see of Roskilde, and the bishops gave it municipal privileges, subsequently confirmed by royal chkrter. It was called Kaupmanna Havn (Chapmen's or Merchants' Haven) because of its trade, and the city is still called Copmanhaven in Elizabethan English. The modern Danish is Koben- havn, while modern English Copenhagen is borrowed THE AGE OF THE VALDEMARS 2$ from German Kopenhagen. Absalon's statute on horseback, a battle-axe in his right hand, stands to-day near the site of his castle. On June 25, 1170, the solemn enshrinement of Cnut Lavard as a Saint took place at Ringsted simultaneously with the coronation of Cnut (VI), the seven years old son of Valdemar. It was the first coronation of a Danish king, Valdemar I died suddenly, forty-seven years old. The lines on his epitaph at Ringsted Church run : " Primus Sclavorum expugnator et dominator, patrie liberator, pacis , conservator." As the Chronicle says : " He was lamented by all Denmark for which he fought more than 28 battles in heathen lands and warred against the pagans to the glory of God's church so long as he lived." Cnut VI (i 182-1202) conquered Pomerania and Mecklenburg, with Absalon's help. In 11 84, on Whit Sunday, Absalon annihilated the Pomeranian fleet in a great battle. As Cnut added all the lands of, the Wends from the Vistula to the Elbe to his dominions, he assumed the title of Hex Sclavorum, King of the Wends or Slavonians, in 1185, a title retained by the Kings of Denmark to-day. Cnut defied the German Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, and refused to render him fealty for the land south to the Elbe conquered by his brother. King Philip August of France, when he married Cnut's sister, Ingeborg, in 1193, wanted Cnut to make over to him the claims of the Danish kings to the English crown and to have the full use of the Danish army and navy to enforce these claims. Philip August put 26 THE STORY OF DENMARK away his queen in a nunnery for years, but was compelled by Innocent III to take her back. Of Cnut VI the Chronicle says : " He was not given to whispering conversation or fun, during mass, as CHALICE AND RING OF ABSALON. some are wont, but held his eyes fixed on the psalter or prayer book, in meditation." Absalop died on March 21, 1201. He had studied at the University of Paris, where a college for Danes (Collegium Dacicum) had been founded. THE AGE OF THE VALDEMARS 2/ He was a patron of literary men, and encouraged his secretary, Saxo, later called Grammaticus, to write a history of Denmark, Gesta Danoruin, which comes down to about A.D. 1185. Sven Aggeson, a contem- porary, also wrote a history of Denmark, ending in the same year. The Icelandic Knytlinga Saga, a history of the Kings of Denmark from Harald Blue- tooth to Cnut VI, also ends in 1185. Saxo's history is only known so far from the text printed in 1514, but for some fragments of what is probably his own MS. of the history, discovered at Angers in 1877. The first history of Denmark written by a Dane is the Roskilde Chronicle, from the time of Eric Lamb, 1 1 37-47- Valdemar II, the Victorious (Sejr), (1202-41) was a brother of Cnut. Before his accession to the throne, while he was Duke of Slesvig, he had con- quered Holstein and the territories south to the Elbe, and after his coronation he was recognized by the German Emperor as Lord of Northalbingia (i.e. the territory between the Eider and the Elbe). Liibeck and Hamburg were now subject to Denmark. In 1206-10 Valdemar seized the island of Oesel, off Esthonia, in the Baltic. When the Bishop of Riga appealed to him for assistance, he set out on a crusade against the heathen Esthonians. He had a great armada, 1,400 vessels in all, and sailed with about 1,000. The city of Reval opened its gates to him. Tradition relates how in the battle of Lyn- danise, near Reval, in 12 19, the Danes having lost their banner and being hard pressed, a red banner with a white cross in the centre dropped from the sky. 28 THE STORY OF DENMARK when the Danes at once rallied and gained a victory. The Pope may have sent a consecrated banner to be used in this crusade. Thi. Danebrog (Danes' cloth) has ever since been the national banner of Denmark. It is seen in the arms of the city of Reval which rose round the fortress built by Valdemar, who estab- lished a bishop there. The Baltic was now almost a Danish lake, for Denmark held its southern coast froni the Elbe to Lake Peipus. No monarch in Northern Europe, except the King of England, held sway Qver a wider dominion. Since Cnut the Great Denmark had not attained such a pinnacle of power. Yet in one day this Empire, and with it the hegemony of the North, crumbled to dust. One of Valdemar's German vassals. Count Henry, of Schwerin, had a grievance, as a portion of his fief had been taken from him by the King. On May 6, 1223, Valdemar and his eldest son were hunting on the little island of Lyo, south of Funen. Count Henry was their guest, but in the middle of the night, May 6th to May 7th, he seized them asleep in their tent, and carried them off to a. dungeon in Dannenberg on the Elbe, a castle, in Germany belonging to him. Thereupon the North German vassals of Valdemar rose against Dfenmark and defeated the Danes. After an imprisonment lasting two and a half years Valdemar was compelled, on November 17, 1225, to pay in ransom for him- self and his son 45,000 marks silver, all the Queen's jewels, and costly apparel for one hundred knights, to cede all his conquests except Riigen, to give hostages, and take an oath to keep these conditions. Thus in one night the conquests made by three kings in THE AGE OF THE VALDEMARS 29 sixty years were lost. The Pope absolved Valdemar from his oath, but in the battleof Bornhoved, July22, 1227, Valdemar's final attempt to retrieve his for^ tune, he was defeated with the loss of one eye. He now formally ceded Northalbingiato the Emperor. He had lost Esthonia, too, in the fatal year 1227, but recovered it in 1238. Of his Wendish (Slavonic) Empire on the Baltic he only retained the island of Riigen. He now applied himself to internal adminis- tration and the codifying of laws, and is called the Lawmaker (legifer) in the next century. The Liber Census Daniae, a kind of Danish Domesday Book, was drawn up in 1231. There were even then 420 koue, i.e. German homesteads in the crown-lands of Slesvig, which was then wholly Danish. The Scanian law had been written down soon after 1200, but Valdemar codified the Zealand (Sjaelland) Law, and the Jutland Law Code was only completed a few days before his death on March 28, 1241. He was first married to Dragomir (Danicized Dagmar), a daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia, and then, after her death, to Berengaria (Danicized Bengerd), a daughter of King Sancho of Portugal. His first queen was beloved by the people, and cele- brated in folksongs and ballads ; the second was unpopular. Valdemar's four sons all became Kings of Denmark, but the eldest, Valdemar HI, died in 1 23 1 as co-regent of his father. As the Ryd Monastery Annals say : " At the death of Valdemar H the crown fell off the head of the Danes. From that time forth they became a laughing-stock for all their neighbours through civil JO THE STORY OF DENMARK wars and mutual destruction, and the lands which they had honourably won with their sword were not only lost but caused great disasters to the realm and wasted it." The next century (i 241-1340), is a time of decline, when nearly all Danish kings die a violent death. CHAPTER V CIVIL WARS Eric Plogpenning (Plough-penny) (1241-50) was called thus because he levied a tax on every plough- share in the kingdom to defray the expenses of a crusade to Esthonia. His brother, Abel, Duke of Slesvig, refused to do homage for his fief; after pro- longed hostilities they were reconciled, and the King was his brother's guest in the ducal palace near Slesvig. In the night he was seized and taken in a boat out on the Slien, allowed to make his confes- sion, beheaded, and then sunk with heavy chains into deep water. Some fishermen found the body ; it was taken to a monastery, the monks attested the miracles wrought at his tomb, and after a time he was canonized by the Pope. Abel (1250-52), the fratri- cide of whom his contemporary, Matthew of Paris, says, " Abel only by name, by deed Cain," purged himself of all guilt by his own oath and that of twenty-four nobles, as compurgators. Abel enacted many wise measures and encouraged trade with the Hansa cities. He fell in a battle against the Frisians, 1252, and his brother, Christopher I (1252-59), was elected King. His reign was a struggle with a 32 THE STORY OF DENMARK Danish Thomas a Becket, Jacob Erlandson, Arch- bishop of Lund since 1253. The Archbishop con- vened a Church Council in 1256, which decreed that if any bishop should suffer any injury by order, con- nivance, or assent of the King, the kingdom should be, laid under interdict, and divine worship sus- pended. The Primate threatened to excommunicate any bishop who should dare to assist at the corona- tion of the King's son, Eric, which was thus foiled. The Archbishop was now seized at night, February 1259, and carried off to a dungeon, chained, with a cap of foxes' tails on his head. The country was then placed under an interdict, and Christopher died suddenly three months later. May 1259 ; the contem- porary suspicion that he had been poisoned by a monk seems to be groundless. Eric Klipping (1259-86) (Klipping, a clipped sheep- skin) was hardly eleven years old when he came to the throne, and the Queen-mother, Margaret, governed on his behalf The struggle with the Archbishop continued, with many vicissitudes. A papal legate came to Denmark to settle the dispute, and he excommunicated the King and his mother and laid the kingdom under interdict, as they did not attend before hifn. The interdict was removed in 1275, after it had remained in force with varying degrees of rigour for sixteen years, but the Primate had died the year before on his way back to his archiepiscopal see, and Crown and Church came to terms. On March 19, 1282, at Vordingborg, Eric, with the " best men of the realm, lay and learned," enacted CIVIL WARS 33 a Constitution which in its extended form, enacted at Nyborg, July 29, 1282, is the Magna Carta of Den- mark. The " parlamentum quod hoff dicitur " (the Parliament, called Danehof in the fourteenth century) shall be held once a year in mid-Lent, and its time and place shall be made known one month before- hand. No one shall be imprisoned unless lawfully found guilty. Eric granted charters of incorporation to many towns, and favoured the guilds and enacted guild statutes. On the night of November 22, 1286, Eric retired to sleep in Finderup Barn in Jutland, tired after a day's hunting. His dead body was found next morning with fifty-six wounds. A con- temporary ballad brands the atrocious deed done by Danish nobles. At the Parliament of Nyborg, 1287, Eric Moendved (1286-1319), the twelve years old son of Eric Klipping, with the help of his mother, regent during his minority, and of the Duke of Slesvig, his guardian, selected a grand jury to determine the guilt of the regicides. Nine were found guilty and sentenced to perpetual banishment and the con- fiscation of their goods. The assassins had fled to Norway and harassed Denmark from their robber nests in islets on the coast, while the protection given them by the Norwegian Court caused a long war between Denmark and Norway. The regicide out- laws are the heroes of the ballads of this time. The new Archbishop, Jens Grand, was their secret ally, and in April 1294 he was arrested and lingered in a duno^eon, where he was treated as the lowest criminal with every circumstance of ignominy till December 1295, when he escaped. The King was summoned 4 34 THE STORY OP DENMARK before Boniface VIII, who received the Primate as a martyr, since " there was many a saint in heaven who had suffered less in the cause of God." A. cardinals' court sentenced the King to pay the Archbishop 49,000 marks of silver as indemnity, an interdict to be laid on the kingdom, and the King to be excommunicated until the sentence was complied with and all their rights restored to the clergy. Eric vainly tried to defy the Pope, but- finally made an abject submission, in an autograph letter : " Let the Vicar of Christ restore to his servant his lost ear that the holy sacraments being again restored, he may again freely hear the Word of God, and whatever burden your Holiness may impose upon his shoulders, how heavy soever, he will not refuse to carry the same. What more can he say ? Speak, Lord, thy servant listens." The interdict was removed, the indemnity reduced to 10,000 marks, a'nd the Archbishop translated to a benefice in Germany. Civil war broke out repeatedly, owing to Christopher, the King's brother, and his treason and treachery. Eric died childless and with a large part of his kingdom mortgaged. Christopher II (1320-32), the most faithless and useless ruler Denmark has ever had, was compelled to sign a capitulation, on his election as king, safeguarding the rights of - clergy, commons, and parliament. Twice he was driven from his kingdom and the twelve years old Duke of Slesvig was king (1326-30), under the guardianship of Count Gerhard III of Holstein. The monarchy was divided among foreign princes, and the King died in extreme poverty 1332. CIVIL WARS 35 Gerhard occupied Jutland, and laid it waste with his mercenaries. After a lawless interregnum of eight years (1332-40), Gerhard was slain at night in his camp at Randers by a Jutland nobleman, since famous in folksong, Niels Ebbesen, 1340. CHAPTER VI VALDEMAR ATTERDAG (134O-75) Valdemar IV, Atterdag, the youngest son of Chris- topher II, was educated at the Court of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria (1326-40). He married Helvig, the sister of Dul