handed down to posterity as that of a hero of romance, ascended the
throne of Denmark. In allusion to the famous fable about the election of
a king of the frogs, an old writer speaks of this event as a choice by
the frogs of the stork as ruler instead of the log. For Waldemar, as he
was called, proved indeed no log and no puppet in the hands of his
ambitious barons. As a mere youth he gave evidence of his strength and
determination, and under his aegis Denmark acquired great wealth and
consideration, and would have attained to yet more had not Waldemar,
with mistaken judgment, drawn the reins too tight, until from a wise
ruler he became a despot. It was his aim and policy to nationalize his
country, to drive away the foreigners who utilized it for their warlike
and commercial ends. He found it small and distracted with dissensions;
after twenty years' rule he could point to marked success and change,
for he had made Denmark respected and feared at home and abroad. History
knows him as Waldemar III.,[6] story and song as Waldemar Atterdag, a
nickname that well expresses the salient points of his character. For
the name of Atterdag, which means "there is yet another day," refers to
the king's constant habit of using this expression in the sense that if
to-day a goal is not reached, it is not therefore unattainable, that a
man must wait, never despair, and never lose sight of his aim.
And Waldemar for his part never did. He pursued his purposes with a
strenuousness and a patience, which contrasted favourably with the
vacillating attitude of his princely northern contemporaries, and which
was only matched and finally surpassed by the same strenuous and patient
policy on the part of the Baltic towns, and especially on the part of
Luebeck, their astute and diplomatic leader.
Nor was it only good aims that the king followed with such persistence.
He was an implacable, a relentless enemy, who never forgot an injury,
and who waited with cruel calmness the day of vengeance.
In Waldemar's state policy there often appeared mixed motives;
considerations of the most personal character were blended with care for
the welfare of his state, and when one should alone have been
considered, both frequently played a part. It was this that led to his
ultimate ruin; like too many clever people he overreached himself.
Therefore, while the early years of his reign were really a blessing to
distracted and impoverished Denmark, of the latter part a contemporary
chronicler complains that--
"In the times of Waldemar, every tradition of our ancestors, all
paternal laws, all the freedom of the Danish Church was abolished. The
rest of the soldier, the merchant, the peasant, was so curtailed, that
in the whole kingdom no time remained to eat, to repose, to sleep, no
time in which the people were not driven to work by the bailiffs and
servants of the king, at the risk of losing his royal favour, their
lives, and their goods." In a word, Waldemar worked his subjects hard,
and even the most patriotic singers cannot present him as a wholly
attractive figure. He is rather a character to be feared than loved.
The Hansa was not slow to recognize this. It saw that it was face to
face with a man whom no obstacles could deter, to whom even treaty
obligations were not sacred, and who was liable to be swayed by
incalculable caprice. That it was right in its estimate and its fears
Waldemar was not slow to make known, so soon as his power at home was
fully secured.
The first attack upon the Hansa towns was made by the Danish king in the
shape of interference with their fishing rights on Scania, breaking the
contracts which his predecessors, and even he himself, had made, and
demanding extortionate fees for the renewal of the time-honoured
privileges. Diplomatic negotiations were entered upon, but Waldemar
befooled the deputies from the cities, wasting their time with idle
discussion of irrelevant matters, and refusing to come to a real
agreement. After long and fruitless debate the ambassadors of the Hansa
towns departed home anxious and discouraged. Ten weeks after their
return the cities were startled by the terrible news that Waldemar, in a
time of perfect peace, without previous warning or declaration of war,
had suddenly invaded the island of Gothland, and seized, sacked, and
plundered the rich city of Wisby, the northern emporium of the Hansa's
wealth.
Such a blow was aimed not only at Wisby, but at all the Hanseatic towns;
from that moment diplomatic negotiations with Waldemar were no more to
be thought of. This act meant war; war at all costs and at all risks.
"In the year of Christ 1361 King Waldemar of Denmark collected a great
army, and said unto them that he would lead them whither there was gold
and silver enough, and where the pigs eat out of silver troughs. And he
led them to Gothland, and made many knights in that land, and struck
down many people, because the peasants were unarmed and unused to
warfare. He set his face at once towards Wisby. They came out of the
town towards him, and gave themselves up to the mercy of the king, since
they well saw that resistance was impossible. In this manner he obtained
the land, and took from the burghers of the town great treasures in gold
and silver, after which he went his ways."
Thus the contemporary chronicler of the Franciscans of St. Catherine at
Luebeck. By a skilful _coup de main_ Waldemar had indeed made himself
master of Gothland, then under Swedish suzerainty, and of the wealthy
city of Wisby. His aim had been booty, and he had it in rich measure in
the shape of gold, of fur, and silver vessels.
Legend tells that the year previous to the attack Waldemar had visited
Gothland disguised as a merchant, securing the love of a goldsmith's
daughter, whose father held an influential position in Wisby, and who,
in her loving trustfulness revealed to him the strength and weakness of
the island and town, thus helping him to secure the spot that was
rightly regarded as the key to the three northern realms.
The inhabitants, unprepared, unarmed, had been unable to offer much
resistance. It was a terribly bloody fight this that raged outside the
walls of Wisby; the site of it is marked to this day by a cross erected
on the spot where 1,800 Gothlanders fell.
"Before the gates of Wisby the Goths fell under the hands of the
Danes,"[7] runs the inscription.
As was the custom among the conquerors of olden days, Waldemar, it is
related, entered the city, not by means of the gates that had been
forcibly surrendered to him, but by a breach he specially had made for
this purpose in the town walls. The gap too is shown to this hour.
When he had plundered to his heart's content, aided in his finding of
the treasure by his lady love, after he had added to his titles of King
of the Danes and Slavs, that of the King of Gothland, Waldemar
proceeded to return home in his richly laden ships. But it was decreed
that he should not bring his booty to port. A great storm arose in
mid-ocean. It was with difficulty that the king escaped with his life;
his ships were sunk, his coveted hoards buried in the waves.
There are still shown at Wisby the two fine twelve-sectioned rose
windows of St. Nicholas' Church, in which, according to tradition, there
once burned two mighty carbuncles that served as beacons to light the
seamen safely into harbour in the day of the town's prosperity. These
stones, it is said, were torn from their place and carried off by
Waldemar. The Gothland mariner still avers that on certain clear nights
he can see the great carbuncles of St. Nicholas' Church gleaming from
out the deep.
As for Waldemar's lady love, whom it is said he abandoned as soon as his
purpose was attained, she was seized on by the infuriated townspeople
and buried alive in one of the turrets of the city walls, known to this
day as the "Virgin Tower."
It is difficult to decide whether Waldemar foresaw the full danger and
bearing of his high-handed step; whether he knew what it meant to
plunder a city like Wisby, one of the strongest arms of the Hansa. He
had certainly thrown the gauntlet down to the towns; he was quickly to
learn that the power which some years ago had successfully beaten his
predecessors had but grown in strength since that date.
On the first news of Waldemar's treachery, the Baltic cities laid an
embargo on all Danish goods, and then called together a hasty council
in which it was decreed that until further notice all intercourse with
Denmark should be forbidden on pain of death and loss of property. Then
they put themselves into communication with Norway and Sweden in order
in the event of a war to secure the alliance of these countries, an
assistance that was the more readily promised because their sovereigns
were at feud with Waldemar. To defray the war costs it was determined to
levy a poundage tax on all Hanseatic exported goods.
A fleet was got ready with all possible speed, and when everything was
in order, the towns sent a herald to Waldemar with a formal declaration
of war.
In May, 1362, their ships appeared in the Sound, and brilliant success
at first attended their arms. Copenhagen was plundered, its church bells
carried to Luebeck as the victor's booty. At Scania the cities looked to
meet their northern allies, in order in conjunction with them to take
possession of the Danish strongholds on the mainland. Here, however,
disappointment awaited them. Whether lack of money or fear had deterred
the northern kings from keeping their word is unknown; at any rate, they
did not put in an appearance with their armies.
The Burgomaster of Luebeck, Johann Wittenborg, who commanded the
Hanseatic fleet, saw himself forced to use the men he had on board for
the land attack. He held himself the more justified in doing this since
he deemed he had so thoroughly routed the Danes, that from the side of
the sea there was nothing to be feared.
This decision was rash, and Wittenborg was to atone for it with his
life. Already it seemed as if the stronghold Helsingborgs was in his
hands--he had been besieging it sixteen days with great catapults--when
Waldemar suddenly appeared with his fleet upon the Scanian coast,
surprised the Hansa vessels that had been left with but a feeble crew,
and carried off twelve of the best ships, and most of their provisions
and weapons. The consequence was that Wittenborg saw himself obliged to
return with the remnant of his army to Luebeck.
He found the city embittered against him in the highest degree for his
defeat; though it saw that the main guilt of the disastrous end of the
war lay with the faithless northern kings. The stern free city deemed it
right, not only towards itself, but also to its sister towns, to punish
heavily the unsuccessful leader. Wittenborg had hardly landed ere he was
arrested, chained, and thrown into a dungeon. Here he dragged out a
weary year of imprisonment. In vain some of the cities pleaded his
cause, in vain his friends tried to obtain his deliverance. Luebeck was a
stern mistress, who knew no mercy, and could brook no ill success. In
her dictionary, as in that of youth, according to Richelieu in Bulwer's
play, there might be no such word as "fail." Wittenborg had, of course,
been at once deprived of his burgomagisterial honours; a year after his
defeat his head publicly fell under the executioner's axe in the
market-place of Luebeck. Burial in the councillors' church was denied
him. He was laid to rest in the cloisters of the Dominicans the spot
where all criminals were interred in Luebeck during the Middle Ages; the
spot where, down to our own era, all criminals passing that way to
execution received from the pious monks a soothing drink as last
farewell to life. Further, Wittenborg's name is absent from the record
of the burgomasters; an omission in this place, which doubtless has the
same meaning as the absence of Marino Falieri's portrait among the long
row of Doges in the Venetian Palace.
The election of a burgomaster as leader of the troops is quite in
character with the spirit of those times. Such trade warriors are not
uncommon in the history of the Hansa. Within the roomy stone hall that
served as entry and store-room to those ancient dwelling-houses, it was
usual to see helmet, armour, and sword hanging up above stores of
codfish, barrels of herrings, casks of beer, bales of cloth, or what not
besides.
To this day the stranger is shown in the marketplace at Luebeck the stone
on which Wittenborg sat before his execution, and in the collection of
antiquities is the chair of torture in which he was borne thither. So
sternly did the Hansa punish.
There exists an entirely unauthenticated fable that Wittenborg had
betrayed his trust in return for a dance with the Queen of Denmark,
promising her as a reward the island of Bornholm. That the fable had
some currency is proved by the fact that for a long while there survived
in Luebeck the expression, "He is dancing away Bornholm," when some one
light-heartedly did an unjustifiable deed. The story has given one of
the younger German poets, Geibel, the theme for a famous ballad.
Further, it was fabled that twice a year the Burgomaster and council of
Luebeck solemnly drank Hippokras out of silver cups made from
Wittenborg's confiscated property, repeating the while a Low German
distich that reminded them of their stern duty and their predecessor's
sad fate. Modern accurate research, pitiless in the destruction of
picturesque legends has discovered that these cups were not made till
the sixteenth century, and were paid for by a tax levied on Bornholm,
then in rebellion.
After the cruel defeat due to Wittenborg, the cities concluded an
armistice with Waldemar, an armistice that might easily have been
converted into a permanent peace, for the towns were not eager to fight.
It was too great an interruption to trade. Moreover, the war expenses
had exceeded their calculations, times were bad, harvests scant, food
scarce, and, to crown all, the Black Death had reappeared in Europe and
was devastating whole districts.
But Waldemar had resolved to break entirely the power of the Hansa. Once
more he befooled it in diplomatic negotiations, and in the midst of the
truce attacked its herring settlements at Scania, and captured some
merchant vessels that passed through the Belt.
The towns held council, Waldemar was offered terms. Yet again he
befooled them, and when he soon after married his only child Margaret,
celebrated in history as the Semiramis of the North, to Hakon, heir to
the thrones of Sweden and Norway, thus preparing the union of the three
northern kingdoms under one crown, the towns, alarmed at the mere
prospect, felt that now or never they must secure their independence.
In November, 1367, deputies from the Baltic and inland towns met in
conclave in the large council chamber of the Town Hall of Cologne, a
meeting that became the foundation act of the recognized and open
constitution of the Hanseatic League, and on which account the hall
still bears the name of Hansa Room. It seems certain that here for the
first time was drawn up an Act, modified, renewed, altered in course of
time, but yet always the fundamental basis of the League. There is no
older Hanseatic document than this of the congress known as the Cologne
Confederation, when the deputies of seventy-seven towns met to declare
most solemnly that "because of the wrongs and injuries done by the King
of Denmark to the common German merchant, the cities would be his
enemies and help one another faithfully." It was decided that such
cities as were too weak or too distant to help actively in the war,
should do so by the contribution of subsidies. It was further enacted
that such cities as would not join in the war should be held as outside
the League, with whom its burghers and merchants should have nothing
more in common, neither buying from, nor selling to, them, nor allowing
them to enter their ports, or unlade goods in their domains.
[Illustration: RATH-HAUS, COLOGNE.]
Waldemar was warned of what the cities had resolved against him. He
replied with an untranslatable pun, in which he likened the Hansa to a
flock of geese, who deafened him with their cackle. Warned once more,
Waldemar threatened the cities that he would complain of them to their
spiritual and temporal lords; among them the Pope and the emperor. The
cities had forestalled him. They had sent copies of a letter, stating
their grievances against a king whom they denounced as "a tyrant and a
pirate," to some thirty spiritual and temporal lords. In the letter to
the emperor, Luebeck, whence all the letters were dated, excused itself
in particular for not responding to Charles's recent invitation to join
his Roman expedition on the plea of its home difficulties, while humbly
giving thanks for the honour done it by the offer. It also justified
itself for not paying during the past year to Waldemar a tax decreed by
Charles, since this king, it wrote, "seeks to withdraw your town of
Luebeck from the emperor and the empire." It grieved to state that the
emperor lived too far off to shield by his arms his weak and neglected
flock in the northern region of the empire. Therefore the emperor's most
gracious majesty must not take it amiss if the cities, with God's help,
did something towards their own protection.
Worded with all the servile language of the period, Luebeck yet in this
letter made it pretty evident to its supreme ruler that it meant to
stand on its own feet, as it knew too well how unsteady were its
sovereign's.
Yet, again, Waldemar was warned of the growing strength, the earnest
purpose of the League, and this time he seems to have been alarmed, for
he tried to detach from it many of its members, and to win them over to
his own cause. He received from the towns with whom he opened
negotiations, the following reply, which proves how perfected and
tightly secured were already the reciprocal engagements of the League.
"The Hanseatic League," they said, "having resolved on war, they must
submit themselves to that general resolution which bound them all."
The cackling geese whom Waldemar had despised seemed to have grown into
formidable eagles overnight. Lordlings and princes too, many of whom had
private injuries to avenge, had joined the League or promised their
support. The Hansa had set up a rival and successful king in Sweden, and
it now proposed nothing less than to dismember Denmark, and to
distribute its provinces to its own friends and allies. It did not
desire to retain possession of it. It was ever its policy to restrict
actual possessions, but to seek that these should be as far as possible
in the hands of friends who would grant it the concessions and
privileges needful for commerce. Thus could be applied to it what a
Roman said of the peoples he subjugated, "I do not ask for gold; I only
desire to rule over those who have gold." With this difference, however,
that the Hansa, without wishing to conquer provinces, wished to draw to
itself whatever profits could be found therein.
It was on the Sunday of Quasimodo, April 16, 1368, that all the Hansa
ships were to meet in the Sound for a combined attack on Zealand. The
Easter days approached. All Northern Germany awaited anxiously the
moment for the decisive combat to commence; when suddenly the cities
learnt that on Maundy Thursday Waldemar had secretly fled from his
dominions, alarmed by the decision and strength shown by his enemies. In
a ship laden with much treasure he had landed on the Pomeranian coasts
to go further east and avoid the impending squall, leaving a viceroy in
his stead, whom he authorized to conclude peace or carry on war.
Waldemar's cowardly attitude could not of course alter that of the
cities. In that same month of April the war began and raged all the
summer, the Hansa meeting with but little resistance. With the winter
came a truce, after the fashion of those times, but in the summer war
was renewed and for two years the Hansa ships harassed the Danish coasts
and waters, sacked their cities and plundered their treasures. The
treacherous attack on Wisby was avenged with interest, and the war
proved so profitable to the League that it settled in congress that it
should continue until the Danes sued abjectly for peace. Its leader was
once more a Luebecker, Brun Warendorf, the son of the Burgomaster. He
died in battle, but the memory of his gallant deeds remains in the
stately monument the town erected to him in the choir of St. Mary's
Church. Thus Luebeck honoured those who contributed to her honour.
[Illustration: RATH-HAUS, TANGERMUNDE.]
By the close of 1369, Denmark was exhausted and the people weary of war.
They pleaded for peace. On this the seventy-seven cities, whom Waldemar
had derided as geese, dictated their terms. It was indeed a peace such
as few kings have signed in the deepest degradation of their empire. For
the term of fifteen years they claimed two-thirds of the revenues of
Scania, the possession of its strongholds, the free passage of the
Sound, and the right for the same fifteen years to veto the choice of a
Danish ruler, besides a number of other valuable concessions and
privileges; terms, in short, as humiliating for Denmark as they were
glorious for the League. The last paragraph of this remarkable Treaty of
Stralsund, which put the Hansa in the position of a first-class power,
ran thus:
"Our king, Waldemar, shall seal to the cities the above terms of peace
with his great seal, if he would remain with his kingdom and not give it
over to another ruler. If it should be that our lord and king; Waldemar,
desires to abdicate his land of Denmark during his lifetime, we will and
shall not suffer it, unless it be that the cities have given their
consent, and that he has sealed to them their privileges with his great
seal. Thus, too, it shall be if our lord and king, Waldemar, be carried
off by death, which God forfend. Then, too, we will accept no ruler but
in council with the cities."
It is evident from this paragraph that the Hansa still mistrusted
Waldemar, and feared he would by some subterfuge evade the treaty
obligations made in his name by his appointed viceroy.
And they had probably not gauged him falsely.
It was further settled that Waldemar must sign this document within
sixteen months: if he did not do so within this period, the Danish
council and kingdom would nevertheless be bound to keep its terms "even
if the king did not seal."
But abject though these stipulations were, complete as was the
submission of Denmark to the League which they implied, Waldemar signed
them within the appointed time. He saw that he was defeated, friendless,
and alone. In vain had he scoured the mainland, and recounted his woes
to all who would listen, in vain had he begged or bribed for help
against his enemies. He had made himself too much hated, and even those
who promised aid failed at the last to keep their word.
With the signature of peace Waldemar also signed away his position, nay,
perhaps his life. Broken in hope and spirits, his health gave way. Four
years later (1375) he died, after he had just appealed in vain to the
towns to restore to him his castles in Scania.
With the peace of Stralsund the German merchants had established the
supremacy of the Hansa over Scandinavia, and laid the foundation for
that power over the northern kingdom, which, in the words of King
Gustavus Vasa, places "the three good crowns at the mercy of the Hansa."
Thus ended the Hansa's great war against the King of Denmark--a war that
marks an important era in its history and development.
The League henceforth took a changed position, not only in its own
fatherland, but in the face of all Europe, for nothing succeeds like
success. Flanders, France, and England, had all to recognize that a new
power had arisen in the north of Germany. For the war had proved, not
only how valiantly the League could fight if need arose, but also how
well organized it was; how it held together for the common weal; how it
would be not only unwise, but dangerous to resist its demands for trade
privileges and concessions.