_Haakon Herdebred (1161-1162)--Erling Skakke_
After the fall of King Inge in the battle at Oslo, Haakon Herdebred
(the Broad-shouldered) took possession of the whole country. He
distributed all the offices, in the towns and in the country, among
his own friends. As he was only about fourteen years old, he could
not, of course, be expected to attend personally to the affairs of the
government; but his liegemen governed in his name.
Many of the adherents of the late King Inge refused to acknowledge King
Haakon. Among them was the powerful and wily chieftain Erling Skakke.
He was of a distinguished family, which resided on the Studla estate
in Söndhordland. In his youth he had made a crusade to the Holy Land.
On his way back through the Mediterranean he had a fight with pirates
and was wounded in the neck, which compelled him afterward to carry his
head on one side; hence his surname (_skakke_, wry). By the assistance
of King Inge he obtained in marriage Kristina, a daughter of King
Sigurd the Crusader and Queen Malmfrid. A year after their marriage she
bore him a son, who was named Magnus.
Erling Skakke called together in Bergen all the chiefs who had been
attached to King Inge, and all his court-men, and the house-men of the
late Gregorius Dagson. When they met they discussed the situation, and
resolved to keep up their party and to elect a king in opposition to
Haakon. Erling proposed to make the boy Nicholas, a son of Simon Skalp
and Harald Gille's daughter Maria, king; but the others objected to
this, and, after some discussion, Erling was persuaded to do what had
probably been his intention from the beginning, namely, to let his own
son, Magnus, be proclaimed king, although this was against the law of
the country, the boy not being of royal birth on his father's side. A
Thing was held in the town, and here Magnus Erlingson, then five years
old, was proclaimed king of the whole country.
Erling did not consider himself strong enough to immediately take
up the fight with King Haakon. He therefore proceeded to Denmark,
accompanied by his son and a large party. The Danish king, Valdemar the
Great, received them hospitably and promised to furnish the necessary
help to win and retain Norway, on condition that King Valdemar was to
get that part of Norway which his ancestors, Harald Gormson and Svein
Tjuguskeg, had possessed. With the help obtained in Denmark, Erling
crossed over from Jutland to Agder, and thence sailed northward to
Bergen, where he punished those who had given allegiance to Haakon.
Then he returned along the coast, and attacked and defeated Haakon at
Tunsberg. Haakon proceeded to Throndhjem, where he had most of his
friends, and Erling returned to Bergen, after having reduced the whole
of Viken in obedience to King Magnus.
In the spring King Haakon started southward with quite a fleet. By a
stratagem Erling succeeded in surprising him, when his forces were
divided, at Sekken, in Raumsdal, where a battle was fought. Haakon was
defeated, and the young king himself was killed (1162). Haakon's body
was buried in Raumsdal; but afterward his brother, King Sverre, had the
body removed to Nidaros and laid in the stone wall in Christ Church
south of the choir.