Bishop of the Lutheran Hanseatic cities, and their need for such an
office gives us an indication of their numbers and importance.
Bugenhagen was a man specially suited to work out the reform of
doctrines and to set in order church affairs, and this work he performed
for the whole of Northern Germany and Denmark. The new movement gathered
strength. It advanced like a mighty ocean with resistless power. Only
Luebeck, of all the northern cities, remained untouched by the storms
beating around it. True to its stubbornly conservative character it
continued longer than the rest faithful to the Roman hierarchy. But even
Luebeck had to yield. The pressure to which it gave way came from the
people. For some time past these had craved teachers of "the purer word"
as the new creed was at first called. At first the demands were refused
on imperial authority, but after a while concessions were made. It was
needful to conciliate the inhabitants, for the funds of the city were
low, thanks to the wars for Frederick and Gustavus, and it was foreseen
that new taxes would be submitted to with a bad grace. Indeed, when in
1529 the rulers appealed to the guilds to support them in imposing new
taxes they were answered by a delegation of forty-eight persons who
replied to the municipal demands in bold terms, of which the upshot was
that they would treat of "no money questions until the municipality
should permit the introduction of the evangelical teaching" and the
sacrament be administered in both forms. This language was unmistakably
clear, and the city rulers seeing the townspeople were in earnest,
yielded to all their demands. Thus in 1531 Luebeck openly acknowledged
the Lutheran creed. The democracy had spoken and triumphed. They had
made their power felt; they were conscious of their success, and they
did not mean easily to abandon their newly acquired position of
importance. The leader and spokesman of this demonstration was Juergen
Wullenweber, the man whose ambition and energy were to give to the Hansa
yet one more proud moment of triumph; one more, and the last.
The origin and the life of Juergen Wullenweber are to this day wrapped in
some mystery. It suited the various party factions to represent him
respectively as an idol and a scoundrel. Even the records that survive
concerning him in Luebeck are few. But modern research has unearthed
much, and proved incontestably that Wullenweber, even if personally
ambitious, was a true and disinterested patriot. Time has thrown round
his figure a sort of mystical halo. He has been made the hero of many
German romances, and the protagonist of various German plays.
Of his family little is known except that they came from Hamburg, and
were no doubt at first wool weavers, as the name implies. Juergen's name
does not appear in any Luebeck register until the year 1530, when he was
chosen a member of the Burgher Committee. He is there described as a
merchant.
This man had been the chosen spokesman of the democratic party on the
occasion when they defied the city rulers. Soon after he was elected
into the municipal council, and it was not long before it was generally
felt that new blood stirred within that body. In 1533 King Frederick of
Denmark died. During the interregnum that followed the Danes entered
into a defensive alliance with the Swedes against their common
oppressors, the Hansa. The Scandinavian nations wished to emancipate
themselves from the League's tutelage. Wullenweber at a glance
recognized the full gravity of the situation. He thought now or never
the time had come to reassert, if need be by force of arms, the Hansa's
might; now or never was the moment to punish for their ingratitude and
faithlessness the two kings Luebeck had created. He called together a
council, meeting in the guildhall, March 16, 1533, and with eloquent,
ardent words, he laid before the assembly the whole political situation,
its gravity, and its possibilities. He showed how the entire Hanseatic
trade was endangered by the commerce of the Netherlands in the Baltic.
He urged the bold scheme that Luebeck should take forcible possession of
the Sound, and thus hold in its own hands the key to that sea.
It was a scheme which had often crossed the minds of the Luebeck
councillors, but which since the days of Waldemar Atterdag they had
never tried to carry into effect, recognizing probably that the might of
the League was not great enough to retain such a point of vantage, even
if their physical force sufficed to gain it.
Wullenweber's eloquence and self-confidence, however, carried the day.
The next thing was to consider the matter of funds. Juergen reminded his
hearers of the silver and gold ornaments and church decoration
confiscated by the State in consequence of the Reformation. These he
said could be melted down. As before, he was listened to and obeyed. He
spared nothing in his zeal, even the colossal chandelier of St. Mary's
Church had to go into the melting pot to make cannons. So much for the
funds. It was now needful to find the men. This was no arduous task.
Luebeck was a favourite resort for the mercenaries who in those times
roamed the world in search of adventure and pay. Among these men were
Max Meyer, a native of Hamburg, destined to become the _condottiere_ of
the League in its last war.
The figure of Max Meyer is a most romantic one. His parents can never
have credited what the fairies sang around the boy's cradle, that he
would become a friend of the great king of England, Henry VIII., and
have his portrait painted by the most eminent artist of his day,
Holbein. He was born in the humblest circumstances, and brought up as a
blacksmith. Two great iron conduits, the work of his hand, are shown in
Hamburg to this day. He was a tall, strong, fine looking man, with
lively eyes and large hands, and whoever beheld him at his smithy,
swinging his large hammer upon the anvil, could not help fancying that
he beheld some old Norse Viking, who was moulding his own sword, so bold
and enterprising did he look. And, indeed, a desire for adventures
stirred in his blood. He knew no rest beside his smithy fire. He felt he
must go into the world. Already, as an apprentice, he had fought in some
of the northern disturbances, had served as ensign under Christian II.
Throwing aside his hammer, he once more ranged the world in search of
danger and distinction. Coming to Luebeck, in the course of his travels,
he was engaged by that city to lead the 800 men whom she was sending to
the emperor as aid against the Turks. A year after he returned to his
native city, glorious and victorious, rich in booty and honours. Hamburg
received him as though he were a great and powerful lord, and he
impressed all his friends and relations by his magnificence. When he
rode away to return to Luebeck, dressed in a full cuirass, with nodding
plumes upon his helmet, a local chronicler wrote that "he was so good to
look upon, that, although he was a blacksmith, yet he was such a fine,
clever fellow, he could pass anywhere for a nobleman." He left Hamburg
in triumph, trumpeters heading the procession, in which there were forty
men in full armour, and two great waggon-loads of booty. The foremost
men of the city conducted him to the gates.
Arrived at Luebeck, Max Meyer entered it in the same proud manner in
which he had left Hamburg, greatly impressing the townspeople by his
wealth and splendour. Among those who saw his entry and beheld him with
a favourable eye was the rich widow of the Burgomaster Lunte. She lost
her heart entirely to the handsome blacksmith, and at last she married
him, sorely against the wish and will of her family. Thus Max Meyer
became a person of importance in Luebeck, thanks to his marriage and his
wife's connections, and, consequently, he was thrown into close
relations with Wullenweber. The latter was not slow to recognize that he
was dealing with no common person, and that here might be the
instrumental hand to aid his schemes. And, indeed, Max Meyer soon became
Wullenweber's close ally.
It was while Luebeck was thus at war with the Netherlands that Max Meyer,
as commander of the city's war-ships, approached the English coasts,
hearing that some twenty-four Dutch merchant vessels were sailing in
these waters. He hoped to capture them and to obtain rich booty. In this
attempt, however, he failed; but he took, instead, some Spanish ships
laden with English goods. This was a breach of the peace, since the
Hansa was not at war with England; but, regardless of this act, Meyer,
perhaps because in want of provisions, actually sailed into an English
harbour and anchored his vessel. King Henry, who had heard of his
presence, and knew him to be a Luebeck captain carrying on hostilities
against the Netherlands, received him with great honour. The English
king had his own private reasons for wishing to stand well with the
Hansa. He knew they were Protestants, and that they were not too well
disposed to the Emperor Charles, from whom he also had become estranged,
now that he had grown weary of his Imperial Highness's aunt, the elderly
Catherine of Aragon. As the Pope would not listen to the scruples of his
tender conscience about having taken to wife his brother's widow, from
whom he sought a divorce on that account--according to his own
showing--he hoped, not wrongly, that the Protestants would take less
stubborn and unscriptural views of the indissolubility of the marriage
contract, and he therefore sought to conciliate all Protestant powers.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII.]
But the England of those days, like the England of ours, was a
law-abiding country, and three days after King Henry had received Meyer
with great feasts and honours at Court, the royal guest was arrested as
a pirate. It was pleaded that he ought to suffer the common penalty of
piracy, that is to say, death. In these straits the merchants of the
Steelyard came forward to aid their representative, offering to stand
surety for him. They succeeded in averting the sentence of death by
restoring the value of the goods seized; they could not succeed in
relieving him from the imprisonment which his breach of international
faith had incurred. Max Meyer had to go to prison, whence he was
released at last only by the intervention of the municipality of
Luebeck, though not until he had almost served his time.
Justice satisfied, Max Meyer returned to King Henry's Court, and was
once more made a welcome guest. Whether he was empowered by the city to
act as plenipotentiary, or whether, in the first instance, he acted on
his own account, does not appear. But what is certain is that he made a
number of proposals to King Henry, to which the latter lent a willing
ear, that Meyer was knighted by his royal host, and received from him a
golden chain in token of the honour in which he held him, and that Henry
further promised him a yearly income of three hundred and a half golden
crowns. The terms were that the English king should advance a
considerable sum to Luebeck towards her war expenses--a sum which the
city promised to refund and to double, out of the first profits derived
from the conquered Danish kingdom.
Henry's object in this alliance was chiefly to harass and annoy his
Catholic compeers, and to have a rich Protestant ally in the
complications that were thickening round him. There was not much result
from the friendship on either side; but for the moment, the news that
the King of England was their friend and supporter, gave renewed courage
to the democratic party in Luebeck. It also gave them ready cash
wherewith to carry on the war with the Netherlands and their friends the
Danes. For war it must be. This Wullenweber openly advocated, after
various vain attempts to induce the Danish king to grant the Hansa's
requests. Wullenweber himself had on two occasions been sent by Luebeck
as their ambassador to Copenhagen, and had returned home furious at the
want of success that met his negotiations. Why should not the Hansa, he
pleaded, once more play the _role_ of king-maker? Gustavus Vasa had
proved a failure and a disappointment to the League, had broken every
promise he had made to them. Let a new king be put in his place. Those
who had helped the Swedish king into power with a hundred marks, should
help him out of power with five hundred marks, he boasted; adding that
before the next carnival he should make a masquerade before King
Gustavus that he would not despise. For Denmark too he had his plan; and
this was no other than to reinstate Christian II., once the enemy of the
League. Christian had always opposed the aristocracy and the clergy, and
had proclaimed himself the friend of the people. Reinstated by the
Hansa, he would owe them gratitude, so reckoned Wullenweber, and being
popular with the lower classes in Denmark the League might reckon upon
their support. To aid him in this enterprise the dictator turned to the
Count of Oldenburg, a relation of the dethroned king, an intrepid and
intelligent Lutheran known as the Alcibiades of the North.
Christopher of Oldenburg, at that time thirty years of age, handsome in
face and stature, was one of those princelings of Germany, of which the
race is not quite extinct, whose title was their sole fortune and who,
in former days, were willing to sell their services to any king who
needed their aid, and in more modern times are utilized to marry the
redundant princesses of royal parentage, for whom no match can be found
among the reduced number of reigning houses. These bold _condottieri_,
whether in search of adventure, of booty, or of a marriage portion and
ease, had little but their wits to rely upon. Christopher of Oldenburg,
for example, possessed as his whole patrimony an old convent. He had
attracted around him, however, a band of devoted troops, free lances,
willing to follow wherever he led: men without fatherland, faith, or
ideal, the scum of all lands, whose desire was bloodshed and booty, and
whose sole religion was obedience to their chosen captain. Christopher
of Oldenburg was not an ordinary chief. With the military courage of a
_condottiere_ he combined a bright intellect and a mind of real
elevation. He was well educated and well read. A copy of Homer
accompanied him in all his adventures; his passionate desire was to be a
hero of romance. This was the kind of instrument Wullenweber required;
the man who could realize, appreciate, and help to carry out his bold
designs. And these were, in a word, to put the Hansa in possession of
the Sound. Possessing this advantage, with two obedient monarchs upon
the respective thrones of Denmark and Sweden, and enjoining the moral
and material support of the English king, the League would once more be
as in the days of its greatest glory.
So reasoned Wullenweber, and not without reason. But he was too
ambitious, or, at any rate, too bold. He had not reckoned with the
apathy and the economic egotism that dictated the policy of the sister
towns. He was to play a dangerous game. He staked his all and he lost.
Wullenweber's original plan was to attack Denmark, while carrying on at
the same time the war with the Netherlands. This proposal, which besides
being audacious, meant a great outlay of money, alarmed the other
cities, and, above all, the town of Hamburg. Owing to her endeavours, a
brilliant congress was assembled within her walls during the month of
March, 1534, when it was proposed to examine carefully the various
points of grievance at issue between the Hansa and her opponents. There
were present delegates from the various Baltic cities, imperial
councillors, Netherland grandees, and Danish nobles. But none of them
exceeded in outward splendour the representatives of Luebeck, Juergen
Wullenweber and Max Meyer, as they rode into the city of Hamburg,
dressed in full armour preceded by the chief of Luebeck's militia, by
trumpeters and drummers, and followed by sixty armed riders. The timid
Hamburgers glanced at all this military display with some terror,
feeling assured that such a proud bearing meant that the town that sent
forth these men would not easily yield its claims. Already, before the
first assembly of the delegates, Wullenweber had been regarded with an
evil eye by many of the other Hanseatic envoys. They could not grasp the
ultimate ends he had in view for the benefit of the League. They thought
he was inciting to needless expense and disturbance. They did not
understand, still less did they sympathize with, the democratic wave
which had swept over Luebeck, and which had brought two such men as
Wullenweber and Max Meyer to the front. Local chroniclers, speaking of
this meeting of plenipotentiaries, call the Hamburgers "the peace
loving," and accuse the Luebeckers of being "the instigators of the woful
wars."
On March 2, 1534, the Congress was opened by the Burgomaster of Hamburg
in the grand council chamber of the local guildhall, an historical room,
unfortunately destroyed in the great fire that devastated Hamburg in
1842. In an eloquent speech the local magnate described the miseries
entailed by the war in which the Luebeckers had engaged against the
Dutch, and urged that peace should be concluded in the interest of the
common Hanseatic merchants. The burgomaster was followed by an imperial
councillor, who said the same things in yet stronger terms. Wullenweber
was visibly angered. His anger was increased when the Dutch envoy rose
to his feet and claimed that it should be laid down as a principle "that
the sea and all other waters should be free to the shipping of whosoever
listed," adding that "if the Luebeckers suffered damage in consequence,
they should find comfort in God's will and in the mutability of all
earthly things."
This was too much for Wullenweber's temper to bear. He declared with
violence that if the speeches continued in this tone and spirit he and
his colleagues should leave the assembly, and this, in fact, they
shortly afterwards did. Not only did he leave the assembly, but the city
also, after he found that all the demands of Luebeck fell on deaf ears.
But before he left he made a powerful speech in the guildhall, wherein
he asserted and maintained that all he had done had been done solely for
the general benefit of the League. He even accused the other Hanseatic
delegates of being Dutch in sympathy, "a thing," he added, "which they
and the Dutch would repent of as long as he lived."
He was asked to explain his projects. He sketched a plan almost
identical in spirit with the Navigation Act of Cromwell; it might indeed
almost be regarded as its prototype. When taunted regarding the egotism
of this proposal, when told that the sole purpose that inspired it was
to prevent the vessels of other powers from deriving a profit out of
carriage of goods, Wullenweber retorted as angrily as Cromwell might
have done, and with the same contempt for the petty spirits that could
see no higher object, nor any larger or wider aims than purely personal
and financial ones. To Wullenweber's mind there was at stake not only
vulgar profit, but the control and supervision of the Baltic trade, the
maintenance of the Hanseatic colonies, indeed of all commercial
navigation; in a word, of everything that had made the Hansa what it
was.
The colonial policy pursued by the Hansa, which had been one of its
sources of strength, became a cause of weakness, and ultimately led to
its fall. It was based in all essentials upon the same principles as
those pursued later by other nations with regard to their foreign
non-European colonies, and which led in time to the loss of these same
colonies. The chief points were these: that the direct intercourse and
traffic with the Eastern settlements and their commercial domain were
reserved exclusively to Hanseatic vessels, and that transport by land
was forbidden, because in that case it was not so easy to keep watch
upon business, and to be assured that no Hanseatic laws were
transgressed. Foreign flags were excluded from all Eastern ports and
non-Hanseatic merchants not admitted to their markets. All traffic from
the Eastern cities to non-Hanseatic places, and all traffic with these
places were to go by way of Luebeck. This is the sum of the Luebeck Staple
Act, which had a little sunk into abeyance during the late disorders and
which Wullenweber desired to see fully reinforced. Again, to refer to
England's dictator, with whom Wullenweber had some points of
resemblance, this Luebeck staple was neither more nor less than the
British staple, prescribed by Cromwell's Navigation Act, when it
excluded foreign flags from American harbours, and interdicted the
Americans from sending ships to any other European harbour than those of
the mother-land. Two hundred years separated these two Tribunes of the
People from each other, and yet, in some respects, their ideals and
ideas were identical. But to return to the course of our narrative,
which has been interrupted in order to make clearer the aims the Luebeck
burgomaster had in view.
Wullenweber grew daily more angered at the tone adopted in the Congress,
not only from his opponents, but by those from whom he had a right to
look for support.
On March 12th, accompanied by Max Meyer, and the same military train
with which he had entered, he left Hamburg, shaking the dust of the city
off his feet in anger. He was soon followed by the delegates of the
other Baltic cities. The congress had come to an untimely end, and
nothing had been settled.
Wullenweber's object in returning so precipitately was twofold. He
desired to know the wishes of the city under the changed circumstances,
and he wished to complain of the colleagues who had failed to support
him. This precipitous return greatly alarmed the citizens, all the more
because during Wullenweber's absence the aristocratic party had tried to
lodge various complaints against the absent burgomaster, and to stir up
the people to revolt and discontent. They had even ventured to insinuate
that he was guilty of "stealing and treason." Indeed, the tumult in the
city was so great and seemed so threatening, that many timid spirits
began to think that discretion was the better part of valour, and that
it would be well to absent themselves awhile.
Into this state of affairs Wullenweber, by his unexpected return,
dropped like a bombshell. He saw that energetic steps were needful here.
He did not hesitate for a moment to take them. A meeting of the
Forty-six was held, who were charged to invite the burghers to a general
assembly in St. Mary's Church. More than a thousand persons replied to
the summons. Wullenweber mounted the pulpit. In ardent words he
expressed his patriotic intentions, and related in detail the reasons
for his abrupt departure from Hamburg. He also complained most bitterly
of the conduct of those who should have supported him. Next day he
addressed a similar meeting in the guildhall, and spoke, if possible,
in stronger terms, openly accusing his opponents of envy, and saying he
was well aware that some among them even intended to attack him at night
in his house, and to make him prisoner.
The upshot of his two speeches was that the democratic party once more
gained the upper hand; that it was agreed that Wullenweber should act
entirely according to his own discretion in the matter with the
Netherlanders; that three of the municipal councillors inimical to him
should be removed from their place; and that various burghers, whom he
designated as "of Swedish or Netherlandish sympathy," should either be
banished or imprisoned.
With his power thus increased, Wullenweber returned to Hamburg, and the
congress was reopened. Since, however, he could gain no support from the
other Hanseatic cities for his policy of continuing the war with the
Netherlands, he at last consented to accept a truce of four years; a
truce which he recognized would leave his hands free for the execution
of his other plans.
Nor did he hesitate for a moment to put them into action. Riders and
foot messengers were engaged in all directions; the "peace ships" were
put into war condition; emissaries were sent to the sister towns to
explain fully the purpose of the new attack upon the Scandinavian North,
and to ask what assistance they proposed to render in money, ships, and
men.
Wullenweber's plan was really a stroke of genius, and by no means so
foolhardy or foolish as his enemies have since tried to prove it. It
was: to form around the whole Baltic basin a sort of German
confederation, and had it succeeded, or rather had it not been impeded
by the petty vacillating policy of the other cities, it would have
marked a re-birth of the Hansa, and there would have been no power in
the North that could have opposed it.
In May, 1534, hostilities began with Denmark, and Sweden was also
threatened with armed intervention, in case the broken promises to the
Hansa were still left unfulfilled. To the people, the counter promise
was made that they should have nothing to fear from the Hansa's armies,
"if they did not second the arrogance of their king."