MAGNUS SMEK (1319-1374), HAAKON MAGNUSSON (1355-1380), AND OLAF THE
YOUNG (1381-1387).
Magnus Eriksson, the son of Duke Erik and Ingeborg, was only three years
old when his grandfather died, and the government therefore fell into
the hands of a regency, the members of which had already been designated
by King Haakon. Shortly before, a rebellion had broken out in Sweden
against King Birger, who, on account of the murder of his brothers, was
detested by his people. He was deposed and his son Magnus, though he was
in no wise responsible for his father's crimes, was executed. At the
instance of the regent, Mats Kettilmundsson, Magnus Eriksson was
proclaimed king; and Norway and Sweden were thus for the first time
united under one ruler. The union was a mere nominal one, the two
countries having separate laws and administrations, and nothing in
common except the king, who was to divide his time equally between them.
During Magnus' minority, however, his mother, Duchess Ingeborg, governed
in Norway with the utmost recklessness, making great scandal by her love
of the Danish nobleman Knut Porse, duke of Halland, whom she later
married. To enrich him she squandered the revenues and forfeited her
popularity. When the treasury was on the verge of bankruptcy and loud
murmurs of discontent were heard from all sides, the duchess was at last
deprived of her power, and Sir Erling Vidkunsson of Bjarkoe and Giske was
made regent in her place.
When King Magnus, surnamed Smek, reached his majority, he assumed the
government in both countries (1332). Being born a Swede, he lacked
comprehension of the Norsemen, and showed little interest in their
affairs. He was a weak and good-natured man, anxious to please all, and
therefore succeeded in pleasing no one. In Sweden he had his hands full,
in endeavoring to control the unruly nobility, whose pretensions were
supported by his oldest son, Erik. He therefore rarely came to Norway,
and made no adequate provision for the government during his absence.
Erling Vidkunsson then made himself the spokesman of the universal
discontent, and with other magnates compelled the king, at a meeting in
Bergen (1350), to take his second son, Haakon, as co-regent and to
abdicate the crown of Norway, in his favor, as soon as he should have
reached his majority. It was then understood that Erik would be his
father's successor in Sweden. But unforseen events frustrated this
expectation. In 1359 Magnus and his queen, the wily and malicious Blanca
of Namur, made a visit to King Valdemar Atterdag in Copenhagen. It was
there arranged that Haakon should marry Valdemar's eldest daughter and
heir, Margaret, and that the Danish king should extend his protection
to Queen Blanca's favorite, Bengt Algotsson, whom Erik had declared to
be a public enemy and was determined to destroy. At the instigation of
King Valdemar, she chose, however, an easier way to accomplish her
baneful purposes. She poisoned her son. Haakon was now heir both to
Norway and Sweden, and his and Margaret's issue, presumptively, to
Denmark. The Swedes were by no means pleased with this arrangement, and
the Norwegian magnates would, if they had been consulted, have expressed
themselves no less strongly against it. They must have foreseen in this
union the inevitable decay of the Norse national spirit and the gradual
extinction of their nationality. The Swedes, being a larger people, had
less to fear from it, but yet regarded it as prejudicial to their
interests. Their feeling toward Denmark was not, just then, of a
friendly character, chiefly owing to the pusillanimity of their king, in
ceding the provinces Skaane, Halland, and Blekinge to the latter
country, without any adequate return, unless it was a pledge of aid from
King Valdemar against his own subjects. So secure felt Magnus in his new
alliance, that he actually helped the Danish king to conquer the Swedish
island Gottland, and permitted him to sack the town of Visby, which was
one of the principal depots of the Baltic trade.
Now, the patience of the Swedes was at last exhausted. The Royal
Council, supported by the nobility, declared that King Magnus, as well
as his son Haakon, had forfeited their rights to the crown (1363), and
called Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg to the succession. Weak as he was,
however, Magnus was not minded to give up his kingdom without a
struggle. With whatever troops he could scrape together from the
provinces which were yet faithful to him, he attacked King Albrecht at
Enkoeping, but was defeated and taken prisoner. Haakon, dangerously
wounded, made his escape into Norway. Though the Norwegians cared little
for Magnus, they were too loyal to refuse Haakon their aid in his
attempt to liberate him from the horrible prison in which he was
languishing. The war was therefore continued with varying success until
the Hanseatic League interfered and came near deciding it in Albrecht's
favor. The German merchants had, during the feeble government of Magnus,
obtained so great a power in Norway that they trod justice under foot,
slew their enemies, refused to accept the king's money (which was not
good), and leagued together to defy the laws and protect each other from
punishment. The king was so incensed at their arrogant conduct, that he
issued a decree expelling all Germans from the country. Unhappily he had
not the power to enforce obedience to this mandate, and when the Hansa
made war upon him, he was obliged to buy peace by further concessions.
This left him comparatively free, however, to prosecute the war with
King Albrecht, and when all negotiations had proved futile, he advanced
with an army upon Stockholm, laying the country waste as he progressed.
Here, at last, peace was concluded (1371) on the condition that Haakon
should pay a ransom of twelve thousand marks for his father and renounce
his claim to the throne of Sweden. In return, Magnus was to receive
Skara-Stift, Vestergoetland, and Vermeland. The old king was, however,
not to enjoy long his dearly bought liberty. Three years later he was
drowned in the Boemmelfjord in Norway (1374), and his son only survived
him six years. Like so many of the kings of Norway, he died in his prime
(1380).
The reigns of Magnus Eriksson and his son were a period of great
disaster to Norway. In 1344 the Gula-Elv suddenly changed its course,
owing to the fall of an enormous rock into its bed, and forty-eight
farms were destroyed, and two hundred and fifty people and a multitude
of cattle were drowned. In Iceland an earthquake and a great eruption of
Hekla spread alarm and desolation. But the worst of all calamities was
the Black Death, a terrible pestilence, which, after having ravaged
Germany, England, and Southern Europe, reached Norway in 1349. An
English merchant vessel first brought the pestilence to Bergen, whence
it spread with great rapidity over the entire land. In Drontheim the
archbishop and all the canons of the cathedral chapter died, except a
single one, who then alone elected the new archbishop. In many districts
the entire population was swept away; horses and cattle starved to
death, for want of attendance, or perished in the woods. The results of
the labor of centuries were destroyed. Where once there had been fertile
valleys and animated human intercourse, the forest grew up unheeded. The
fox barked in the deserted farm-houses, and the wolf prowled in the
empty churches. In many places the dead lay unburied, until, by the slow
process of dissolution, the earth reclaimed them. Sloth and
indifference took possession of the survivors. The peasant neglected to
till his fields, because he could procure neither horses nor laborers to
assist him. Famine and death were the result. All industries stagnated,
and what there was left of Norwegian commerce fell completely into the
hands of foreigners. As is usually the case in the times of great
plagues, when the restraints of social order are relaxed, vice grew
riotous, and every extreme of lawless passion was wantonly displayed.
Centuries elapsed before the country recovered from the results of this
terrible calamity. But there were other causes which combined with the
pestilence in producing the political impotence and social barbarism
which followed. There is a danger in doing injustice, even to the Black
Death, and it has, until recently, been the fashion to make it solely
responsible for the eclipse of Norway's glory.
Olaf, the only son of Haakon Magnusson and Margaret, was proclaimed King
of Norway at his father's death. Five years earlier he had, after the
death of his maternal grandfather, been elected king of Denmark. As he
was yet a child, his mother Margaret and the Council of the Regency
conducted the government in his name. Thus commenced the union of Norway
and Denmark, which lasted without interruption for 434 years, and which
proved so disastrous to the former country. Olaf died at the age of
seventeen at Falsterbro in Skaane.
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