_Unionism versus Patriotism--Margaret, Engelbrekt and Charles Knutsson_
Queen Margaret, the successor of Albrecht, for the first time in
history united the three Scandinavian countries and their dependencies
under one rule. Born in a prison in which King Valdemar of Denmark had
placed his consort, Queen Hedvig, there remained in the character of
Margaret something of the rigor and chill of her uncomely birthplace.
When she was seven, she was engaged to King Hakon of Norway, and
married to him at eleven years of age. In Norway, her education
was continued for several years after her marriage under the stern
supervision of Dame Martha, a daughter of St. Birgitta, who often
applied corporal punishment to the young queen. Margaret early gave
evidence of self-control and power of reflection, and her mind
developed at the expense of her heart. Her son Olaf became king of
Denmark upon Valdemar’s death, in 1375, and king of Norway upon that of
Hakon, in 1380. Upon his death, in 1387, Margaret succeeded him, and
two years later laid Sweden under her sceptre.
Albrecht was captured, but the Germans still were in possession of
several Swedish strongholds. These yielded to Margaret, one after
the other, except Stockholm. In the capital, the German influx of
soldiers and merchants had made the foreign population exceedingly
large. They now acted as oppressors. A secret league was formed which
captured a great number of prominent Swedish citizens, who were cruelly
tortured with wooden saws and then thrown into an old shed on the
islet of Kæpplingeholm. The shed was ignited and the poor prisoners
suffered a terrible death. German freebooters, especially the Vitalen
or Victuallen Brotherhood, who provided the fortress of Stockholm with
victuals, were plundering in the Baltic and Lake Mælar, and were the
allies of the Germans of Stockholm. Margaret was powerless against
them until she entered into an alliance with the Hanseatic towns. This
ended the war; Stockholm surrendered and peace was made, in 1395.
The plunders by sea-rovers in the Baltic were put an end to during
Margaret’s reign, but cost heroic efforts and much money, while the
influence of the Hansa grew into menacing proportions.
Margaret was anxious to place the dynasty of the North firmly within
her line of descent. In 1389, she selected her sister’s grandson,
Eric of Pomerania, then six years old, her successor, and he was thus
proclaimed in Norway. In 1395, Eric was chosen king of Denmark and,
in 1396, of Sweden. At his Swedish coronation in Kalmar, in 1397,
Queen Margaret, who remained at his side as the real ruler, had the
outline drawn of an _Act of Union_, which should forever unite the
three Scandinavian kingdoms under one ruler. Each country was to
preserve its constitution, laws and traditions unmolested, but they
were to support each other in times of war. When a king was to be
chosen, representatives of equal numbers from each country were to
meet in Halmstad, the sons of kings to be favored by choice. This Act
of Union was never carried into effect, according to legal forms. The
sketch or outline of it, such as it is still preserved, was signed by
representatives of the three countries, although not in equal numbers;
but why Queen Margaret never allowed it to be enlarged into a legally
binding document is not known. Her favorite idea was therein embodied,
and she appeared to have an all-powerful influence over those necessary
to carry it through.
Margaret made it her object to strengthen the crown and reduce the
power of the nobles. She cared naught about keeping her promises to the
latter, confiscating their castles and possessions, and annulling their
privileges. When they complained, reminding her of her promises in her
letters to them, she replied: “Keep my letters; I shall certainly keep
your castles.” All nobles created by Albrecht were entirely deprived
of their privileges if they could not prove their due qualifications.
The majority of forts erected during the war were pulled down. No taxes
were longer imposed, except through written order of the government.
These reforms were all rigorously carried out, according to the
“Restitution of Nykœping” of 1396. Margaret succeeded in a remarkable
way in reducing to normal proportions the power and influence of the
Swedish nobility. The nobles, who were all-powerful and absolutely
unyielding in Albrecht’s days, bowed to her gracefully and received
meekly her severe conditions. An explanation can be found in the fact
that they had no leader of authority and power among them, after the
death of Bo Jonsson Grip. Further, Margaret was careful not to fill the
important offices of drotsete and marsk, when vacant, thus making the
personal presence and interference of the sovereign necessary on all
important occasions.
The love of the Swedish people should have been Margaret’s reward
for her abolition of aristocratic oppression, if she had not been
in a position which necessitated the imposition of heavy taxes. The
existence of the common people was made weary and troublesome through
the payment of the “queen’s tax,” the “stake tax” on each hearth, the
“rump tax” on each head of cattle, and, worst of all, the “Gothland’s
release.” Bailiffs, often of foreign birth, collected these taxes
with great severity. When the queen became aware of the complaints
against her and her bailiffs, she asked in a letter to the archbishop
that the people would forgive her in God’s name. “Some of it one has
not been able to better; some we and they might well have bettered,
although what is done is done.” Without doubt, there was due reason
for the heavy taxes in the unsettled relations with other countries
which existed during Margaret’s reign; the support of the Hansa and a
war with Holstein, commenced by King Eric, were expensive. The island
of Gothland had been captured by the so-called German Order in the
last days of Albrecht’s reign. When the island was redeemed through
the payment of Swedish money, Margaret made the mistake of installing
there a Danish bailiff, and it thus for a long time remained a Danish
province. Margaret believed in the Union and counted no Scandinavian
a foreigner in either country. But it was contrary to Swedish law to
install foreigners as bailiffs and vassals, and as she appointed a
great number of Danes to Swedish fiefs, and never a Swede to Danish
positions of the same or equal importance, the Swedish complaints, on
this point, were justified.
Margaret was as severe toward the ecclesiastics as toward the nobles.
But when she noticed the forebodings of powerful resistance, she made
important concessions. She was anxious to observe religious practices,
joining the convent of Vadstena as a “worldly sister,” kissing the
hands of all the monks and nuns on that occasion. She took interest in
the conversion of the Laps, sending a baptized woman of their race, by
the name of Margaret, to preach the Gospel among them.
The war with Holstein concerning the possession of Schleswig had been
brought to an armistice, and the queen sailed to Flensburg to conduct
further negotiations. While still on board of her ship, death surprised
her, in 1412.
Margaret has been called the Semiramis of the North and well deserves
her widespread fame. During her reign, the Northern countries, through
her wisdom and strength, enjoyed a degree of order which they missed
both before and after. She put an end to the foreign influence which
had governed Sweden. Yet her rule was a disappointment, and the Union
also. She paved the way for a new foreign influence, by making a
German prince her successor and by leaning too much on the Hansa. The
aristocratic oppression was crushed by her, but she introduced the
oppression through royal bailiffs. She promised to preserve the old
territory of Sweden unmolested, but placed the island of Gothland
under Denmark. The Union of which Queen Margaret was the champion her
successors were not able to grasp or uphold in the spirit of her good
intentions. To Sweden it came in an inauspicious time when it was not
fit to receive it. Foreign oppression had irritated the people to
resistance, and discontent was to give life to patriotism. Sweden had
recently developed into one joint constitutional body, the various
provinces giving up their ancient laws for a state law, in which
the old individual traits were gathered and recognized. We know how
Sweden was settled, not by various tribes, but by pioneers who, from
the old home of culture, Scania, penetrated to the wilderness above,
settling one district after the other, which, one by one, developed
into provinces, little states by themselves, later united into one
realm with a common king. One by one these provinces had taken the
lead in the political and cultural development, often the youngest
before the oldest. Thus the Swedes, a younger branch of the Gauts, gave
their name to the country and furnished the rulers, the Guts of the
island of Gothland securing the commercial supremacy of the sea, and
the Rus of the outskirts of Upland founding the Russian empire. Now it
fell upon Dalecarlia, the most recently settled of Swedish provinces,
to save freedom and independence to a newly regenerated state which
was awakening to the consciousness of its solidarity of interests,
aspirations and duties. From Dalecarlia came the first great political
leader. From there he and his later successors received their chief
support.
_Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson_ is the earliest and greatest of the
patriotic heroes of Swedish history. To the glory of his deeds and the
noble simplicity of his character the death of a martyr gives added
lustre. Engelbrekt was born at Kopparberg, in the mining district of
Dalecarlia, where there were many German settlers. Possibly his early
ancestors were among them; but for three generations at least they had
been native-born Swedes, Engelbrekt’s father, as he himself, belonging
to the Swedish nobility, although not of the influential families.
Engelbrekt had received the chivalric education of his time at the
courts of the great nobles, being next in rank to a knight, _væpnare_
(squire), at the opening of his career. He was small of stature,
but eloquent, courageous and of a lofty mind. The integrity of his
character was absolute; his personal necessities were few and plain.
King Eric was a highly educated and refined man, not without a certain
ability, but entirely without discernment and patience for the various
demands and conditions of the countries over which he was set to rule.
His foreign bailiffs in Sweden, mostly Danes, with a fair sprinkling
of Germans and Italians, were still less in sympathy with his Swedish
subjects. They tried to manage them as they did the Danes and the
inhabitants of more southern countries, for centuries accustomed to
slavery, ignorant of the ancient spirit of independence of the Swedish
yeomanry, abated but not suppressed. When oppression no longer kept
within reasonable bounds, the Swedish patience came to an end, and
first in the youngest and most solitary parts of the country.
The most hated of Danish bailiffs was Jœsse Ericsson, of Westmanland
and Dalecarlia. After having confiscated the horses of the peasants,
he is said to have harnessed the men to plows and the women to
grain-loads, once suffocating five peasants. Engelbrekt felt compassion
for the misery of the suffering people and accepted the commission to
seek the king, to make complaints in their behalf. He appeared before
King Eric in Denmark, demanding punishment of the cruel bailiff and
offering to go into prison or surrender his life if not speaking the
truth, as was the custom of the time. The king gave him a letter to
the Swedish council of state, demanding an inquiry which was promptly
made. When Engelbrekt for a second time appeared with the corroboration
of his statements from the Swedish councillors, the king sent him away
in a fit of impatient rage. Upon his return, the Dalecarlians rose in
a body, selecting Engelbrekt as their leader and marching south to
Westeros. The councillors met and promised to have justice done in
the case. But things remained the same until the following spring, in
1434. At midsummer the Dalecarlians commenced operations. The fort of
Borganæs and the castle of Kœping were destroyed. Engelbrekt asked the
people of Westmanland to join him, which they did to a man, the nobles
also joining upon evidence of the determination of the popular leader.
In Upsala, Engelbrekt found the people of Upland ready to join, and he
made clear to the great multitudes the mission he had undertaken. He
now felt strong enough to take a hand in the affairs of state; with
the consent of the leading nobles reducing the taxes by one-third.
Engelbrekt called upon a young, high-spirited nobleman, Eric Puke,
to bring Norrland to revolt and destroy the forts of that district,
which commissions Puke fulfilled to the letter, thereupon reinforcing
Engelbrekt with his men. In the meantime, the people of western
Sœdermanland rose by their own determination, destroying Gripsholm;
the bailiff of the castle escaping with his treasures in boats over
Lake Mælar. In Vermland and Dal the people followed these examples
of revolt. The commander of the Stockholm fortress agreed upon an
armistice, other castles surrendering or promising to surrender.
Engelbrekt met the council of state at Vadstena, escorted by 1,000 men
of his best troops. Without fear or haughtiness, he pleaded the cause
of his country, advising the councillors in firm and eloquent words
to see to it that the foreign oppression came to an end. The council
hesitated, Bishop Knut of Linkœping stating that the oath to the king
could not be broken. To this Engelbrekt answered that the king had
pledged many oaths but kept none, for which reason the people were
freed from their oath. Upon a wholesome demonstration of force the
councillors gave in and dictated a letter in which they broke their
pledge to King Eric, yet giving as an excuse that they were compelled
to do so. The revolt had now spread to all parts of the kingdom, at
least 100,000 being armed to meet the emergency. But so carefully
and quietly was the work of liberation performed that no harm was
done in the parts where the peasant armies were moving. After having
entered Halmstad, Engelbrekt returned to Westeros, where the army was
scattered, but soon gathered again upon the report that the king with
a fleet was approaching Stockholm. Upon his arrival, the king found
Stockholm enclosed by a peasant army and returned to Denmark, forced
to agree to an armistice. At a meeting in Arboga, Engelbrekt was
elected regent. This was the first meeting in which representatives
of the merchant class and the yeomanry took part, being thus the
first _riksdag_ or parliament composed of the four Estates--noblemen,
ecclesiastics, burghers, and yeomen.
King Eric promised, upon his return to Stockholm, to govern the country
according to its laws and through Swedish men, appointing Krister
Nilsson Vasa drotsete, and Charles Knutsson Bonde marsk. But so badly
did he keep his promises that he was once more dethroned. The nobles
hastened to elect Charles Knutsson regent, but through pressure which
the peasants brought to bear it was agreed that he should share his
power with Engelbrekt and lead the siege of Stockholm, while the latter
should free the country from the bailiffs reinstalled by the king.
Upon his second tour through the country, Engelbrekt was seized by
illness, but being called to Stockholm by an important state affair,
he started over the lakes thither from Œrebro. One evening he stopped
at an islet in Lake Hielmar for the night. When he saw a boat approach
with Mons Bengtsson on board he staggered on a crutch down to receive
him. This man sprang ashore and assaulted Engelbrekt, who tried to ward
off the blows of the axe with his crutch, but failing to do so he was
killed on the spot, in April, 1436. The perpetrator of this beastly
murder was a son of a noble with whom Engelbrekt had been engaged in
some controversy which he had recently settled to the satisfaction
of both parties. The murderer escaped; but, although shielded from
punishment by Marsk Charles Knutsson, he was shunned by everybody, his
high-born and wealthy relations for several centuries refusing to carry
the proud family name (Natt och Dag) upon which he had brought shame.
The memory of Engelbrekt is one of the most honored and most beloved in
Swedish history. He waged the first battle against the oppression which
foreign intrigues had brought upon his country, and saved from the
peril of slavery the ancient freedom and independence of the Swedish
people.
Through a remarkable coincidence, a cousin of Engelbrekt’s murderer,
Nils Bosson, a young follower of the popular hero, who took his
mother’s family name of Sture, was to become the father and grandfather
of two of the most revered of Engelbrekt’s successors; Nils Bosson
himself being as sympathetic and upright a type of nobleman as any
time or country has produced.
Charles Knutsson, after Engelbrekt’s death, was the most influential
man in Sweden. But he was a very different man. Belonging to the
highest aristocracy, he was himself of great wealth, highly talented,
well read, and a great traveller. He was exceedingly handsome,
dignified, amiable, eloquent, and possessed a voice of unusual charm
and strength. But he was a prey to ambition, determined to make his
way to the throne, but little careful in the selection of his means
toward that end. He aroused the suspicion and hatred of Eric Puke,
whom he irritated to revolt only to get him in his power. This noble
but headstrong man was executed for treason, while Drotsete Krister
Nilsson, who signed the death-warrant in the interest of Charles,
himself was persecuted by the latter and deprived of all his fiefs save
one. Charles showed great severity in punishing the peasants, who were
Puke’s supporters, four of them being burned alive; thus losing the
popular sympathy, while becoming an object of envy in the eyes of the
nobles. These recalled King Eric, who was again found impossible and
soon dethroned also in Denmark.
_Christopher of Bavaria_, a nephew of Eric, was elected to succeed him
(in 1440) by the nobles of Denmark and Sweden. He was a good-natured
man, who allowed the aristocrats of Sweden to rule as they pleased,
only keeping an eye on Charles Knutsson. Christopher died in 1448.
During his reign a new state law was issued in 1442, called “King
Christopher’s land’s law,” although the king probably had very little
to do with its form or stipulations. It offered a few improvements, but
in general so closely resembled the older state law that the one was
often mistaken for the other and both remained valid until 1736.
_Charles Knutsson (Charles VIII.)_ returned from Finland, which duchy
had been held under his supremacy, four months after Christopher’s
death, and was by an overwhelming majority elected king of Sweden.
Shortly after his coronation at Upsala he was elected king of Norway
and crowned at Drontheim, in 1449. His reign opened with a lucky
expedition to the island of Gothland. But in the following year King
Charles lost both Gothland and Norway to Christian of Denmark, with
whom the Unionist party of Sweden entered into secret plots against
the king. Invasions and intrigues followed. Christian invaded Smaland,
East Gothland and Vermland, to which Charles responded by an invasion
of Scania, destroying the old town of Lund with nineteen of its twenty
churches, the cathedral alone being spared. Christian took revenge by
an invasion of West Gothland, capturing Lœdœse. Another Danish army
marched through East Gothland, but met defeat at Holaveden through an
onslaught made by Swedish peasants. The valiant Tord Bonde, a cousin
of King Charles, took the Danes by surprise, recapturing Lœdœse. An
armistice of two years was agreed on, in May, 1453.
In the battle against open and secret enemies things turned out badly
for King Charles. The best supporter of his cause, his cousin Tord, was
murdered by a Danish traitor in his service, in 1456, and a new and
dangerous enemy was encountered in the Church. The king had confiscated
to the crown a number of estates which the Church had gained in an
illegal way. While preparing for an expedition to Œland, and having
instructed the archbishop to gather troops for him, Charles learned
that this man, Jœns Bengtsson Oxenstierna, had turned against him. The
archbishop deposited his ecclesiastical robe at the high altar of the
Upsala cathedral and started, sword in hand, with his forces to meet
the king. Charles tried to surprise him, but was himself caught in a
trap and met his enemy on the ice of Lake Mælar. The encounter proved
a defeat to Charles, who in haste stored his treasures in a convent in
Stockholm and sailed for Dantzic.
_Christian_ of Denmark was called in by the archbishop and chosen king
of Sweden. Christian was a sagacious ruler, but his great need of
money, incurred by the redeeming of Schleswig and Holstein, made him
unpopular. As the easy-going Christopher had been surnamed “Bark-king,”
on account of dearth experienced in Sweden during his reign, when the
people had to mix bark with their flour, thus Christian, on account of
his avidity, was called “The Bottomless Purse.” During Christian’s war
with Russia, the archbishop was commissioned to collect the increased
taxes, but failing to do so, to the full extent demanded, he was
imprisoned at the command of the king. This caused indignation.
Kettil Karlsson Vasa, a nephew of the archbishop, and the bishop of
Linkœping, revolted and defeated the king and his army at Haraker’s
church, in Westmanland, in 1464. The victors then marched on Stockholm.
The popular opinion of the country demanded the reinstallation of
King Charles. The peasants wanted him “because Sweden was of old a
kingdom, not a regent’s land or a diocese.” King Charles returned in
the same year, but soon left the throne again on account of a conflict
with Bishop Kettil. This latter turned to Christian, promising a
safe return to the crown if he set free the archbishop. Christian
immediately did so, the worthy bishops commencing operations against
Charles, who, defeated and forsaken by all, abdicated his throne,
January 30, 1465. The once upon a time richest man of Sweden was now
deprived of all, Christian having taken his hidden treasures. He
retired to Raseborg, a castle in Finland, which after some hesitation
was granted him. “We have,” wrote he, “in such manner departed from
Sweden, that never longeth us to return thither the third time.” He
also complained of his misery in the following strophe of assonance
verse:
While I was lord of Fogelwick
Then I was both mighty and rich,
But since made the king of Svea land
I am a poor and unhappy man.
Great confusion reigned in Sweden during the next two years. Bishop
Kettil, who styled himself regent, tried to conduct the government
in common with the archbishop, but the great nobles did their own
pleasure. At last one of them, Ivar Axelson Tott, who had the island of
Gothland in fief, joined the party of Charles, marrying his daughter.
His brother, Eric Axelson, was made regent. Nils Bosson Sture had
been repeatedly asked to accept this dignity, as also the crown, but
he refused. He and Sten Sture, of the original Sture family, who led
the army under Bishop Kettil at Haraker, now made possible the second
reinstallation of Charles, in 1467, the ambitious archbishop dying in
the same year. But Charles was old and weary of the vanities of life,
for which he had made so many sacrifices. It was only the valor and
strength of the two Stures that made it possible for him to keep the
crown and to die in the purple, in 1470. He designated Sten Sture as
his successor at the rudder of state, but warned him not to seek the
crown. “That ambition,” he said, “has crushed my happiness and cost my
life.”
Charles is very sympathetically dealt with in the New Rhymed, or
Charles Chronicle, probably written by one of his men, who flatters
him, as did the Old Chronicle the ill-fated Duke Eric. Still the
Charles Chronicle and its continuations, the Sture Chronicles, are
very important historic sources of these periods of Unionism versus
Patriotism, from Margaret to Gustavus Vasa. The less reliable Prose
Chronicle and the later historic works by Ericus Olai, Johannis Magnus
and Olaus Petri, also throw light upon them. What all of these have
in common is a fiery patriotic spirit, entirely lacking in the placid
and artistic lines of the Old Chronicle as compared to the New. With
the seeds of patriotism were sowed those of national hatred against a
foreign foe. That the Dane and not the German was destined to be this
national enemy was disastrous to the Union of the North, but probably
a gain for the cultural development of Sweden. This period is rich
in shorter poems on political men and conditions, all of a strongly
democratic flavor. Among these the song about his friend Engelbrekt, by
Bishop Thomas of Strengnæs, occupies a high place, but a still higher
one the Song of Liberty, by the same high-minded patriot.