October 28, 1412: Death of Margrethe I, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Part III.

Tags

Eric of Pomerania, Feast Day of St. Margaret of Antioch, Kalmar Union, King Valdemar IV of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Queen Margrethe I of Denmark

Union of Kalmar

On July 20, Margrethe capitalized on the general rejoicing by publishing the famous Treaty of Kalmar, “a masterly document that sealed the union of Norway, Sweden and Denmark”. The date she chose was no coincidence – it was the Feast Day of St. Margaret of Antioch, who like the Lady King herself, was cast off by her father and thrown into prison.

The Treaty proposed “everlasting union”, which reflected her dearest ambition, that “all three realms should exist together in harmony and love, and whatever befalleth one, war and rumors of war, or the onslaught of foreigners, that shall be for all three, and each kingdom shall help the others in all fealty …and hereafter the Nordic realms shall have one king, and not several”.

Well aware of regional pride and prejudice, Margrethe played a careful strategy, assuring her subjects that each state would be governed according to the laws and customs of each, no new laws would be introduced without the consent of the subjects, officials from governors to soldiers would be recruited from the native populations, thus showing her subjects that they would enjoy every benefit of union without any threat to national identity.

To weld the united kingdoms still more closely together, Margrethe summoned a congress of the three Councils of the Realm to Kalmar in June 1397, and on Trinity Sunday, June 17, Eric of Pomerania was crowned king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The Act of Union resulting from this was never completed. Scholars continue to debate the reasons, but the Union existed de facto through the early 16th century reign of King Christian II, and the union of Denmark and Norway continued until 1814.

A few years after the Kalmar Union, the 18-year-old Eric of Pomerania was declared of age and homage was rendered to him in all his three kingdoms, although Margrethe was the effective ruler of Scandinavia throughout her lifetime.

Kalmar Union and royal policy

So long as the union was insecure, Margrethe had tolerated the presence of the Riksråd, but their influence was minor and the Royal authority remained supreme. The offices of High Constable and Earl Marshal were left vacant; the Danehof fell into ruin, and “the great Queen, an ideal despot”, ruled through her court officials, who served as a superior kind of clerk.

In any event, law and order were well maintained and the licence of the nobility was sternly repressed. The kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were treated as integral parts of the Danish State, and national aspirations were frowned upon or checked, though Norway, being more loyal, was treated more indulgently than Sweden.

In 1396, according to Grethe Jacobsen, she issued an ordinance that one should to a higher degree than hitherto respect and enforce peace towards church (pax dei), houses, farms, legal assemblies, workers in the fields – and women, expressed in the word “kvindefred”.

Jacobsen believes that as punishment for rape was normally not associated with the other forms for upholding peace in the tradition of pax dei, this may be an expression of Margrethe’s perception of women as being particularly vulnerable in times of unrest, and for her own interpretation of the ruler as protector of personae miserabiles, which included maidens and widows.

Another testament was her dispositions of 1411 through which she distributed the sum of 500 marcs among the women who had been ‘violated and debased’ during the wars between Sweden and Denmark 1388–1389.

Margrethe recovered for the Crown all the landed property that had been alienated in the troubled times before the reign of Valdemar IV. This so-called reduktion, or land-recovery, was carried out with the utmost rigour, and hundreds of estates fell into the hands of the crown. She also reformed the Danish currency, substituting good silver coins for the old and worthless copper tokens, to the great advantage both of herself and of the state. She always had large sums of money at her disposal, and much of it was given to charity.

October 28, 1412: Death of Margrethe I, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Part I.

Tags

Kalamar Union, King Haakon VI of Norway, King Magnus IV-VII of Sweden and Norway, King Valdemar IV of Denmark, Queen Margrethe I of Denmark, Queen of Norway, Queen of Sweden

Margrethe I (March 1353 – October 28, 1412) was ruler of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (which included Finland) from the late 1380s until her death, and the founder of the Kalmar Union that joined the Scandinavian kingdoms together for over a century. She had been Norway’s queen consort 1363–1380 and Sweden’s 1363–1364, since then titled Queen. Margrethe was known as a wise, energetic and capable leader, who governed with “farsighted tact and caution,” earning the nickname “Semiramis of the North”.

Margrethe was born in March 1353 as the sixth and youngest child of King Valdemar IV and Helvig of Schleswig. She was born in the prison of Søborg Castle, where her father had already confined her mother. She was baptised in Roskilde and in 1359, at the age of six, engaged to the 18-year-old King Haakon VI of Norway, the youngest son of the Swedish-Norwegian king Magnus IV-VII.

As part of the marriage contract it is presumed that a treaty was signed ensuring Magnus the assistance of King Valdemar in a dispute with his second son, Eric XII of Sweden, who in 1356 held dominion over Southern Sweden. Margrethe’s marriage was thus a part of the Nordic power struggle.

There was dissatisfaction with this in some circles, and the political activist Bridget of Sweden described the agreement in a letter to the Pope as “children playing with dolls”. The goal of the marriage for King Valdemar was regaining Scania, which since 1332 had been mortgaged to Sweden.

Per contemporary sources, the marriage contract contained an agreement to give Helsingborg Castle back to Denmark, but that was not enough for Valdemar, who in June 1359 took a large army across Øresund and soon occupied Scania.

The attack was ostensibly to support Magnus against Erik, but in June 1359, Erik died. As a result, the balance of power changed, and all agreements between Magnus and Valdemar were terminated, including the marriage contract between Margrethe and Haakon.

This did not result in the withdrawal of Valdemar from Scania; he instead continued his conquests on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Visby, which was populated by Germans, was the main town on the island and was the key to domination of the Baltic Sea.

On July 27, 1361 a battle was fought between a well-equipped Danish army and an array of local Gotland peasants. The Danes won the battle and took Visby, while the Germans did not take part. King Magnus and the Hanseatic League could not disregard this provocation, and a trade embargo against Denmark was immediately enacted, with agreement about necessary military action.

At the same time, negotiations opened between King Magnus and Heinrich of Holstein about a marriage between Haakon and the latter’s sister Elizabeth. On 17 December 17, 1362, a ship left with Elizabeth bound for Sweden. A storm, however, diverted her to the Danish island Bornholm, where the archbishop of Lund declared the wedding a violation of church law because Haakon had already been engaged to Margaret.

The Swedish and Hanseatic armies also ultimately withdrew from their siege of Helsingborg. Following this, a truce was concluded with the Hanseatic States and King Magnus abandoning the war, meaning the marriage of the now 10-year-old Margrethe and King Haakon was again relevant. The wedding was held in Copenhagen on April 9, 1363.

The marriage of Haakon and Margrethe was an alliance, and Margrethe likely remained in Denmark for some time after the wedding, but ultimately was taken to Akershus in Oslo Fjord where she was raised by Merete Ulvsdatter. Merete Ulvsdatter was a distinguished noblewoman and daughter of Bridget of Sweden, as well as the wife of Knut Algotsson, who was one of King Magnus’s faithful followers.

Margrethe was brought up with Merete Ulvsdatter’s daughter Ingegerd, who likely instructed her in matters of religion and monarchy. Merete’s daughters, Ingegerd and Catherine, became her closest female friends, with Margrethe later showing favoritism to Ingegerd, who became an abbess, as well as her monastery.

It is also likely, though, that her promotion of the Bridgettines was also out of piety and political interest to help the process of integration. Her academic studies were probably limited, but it is assumed that in addition to reading and writing she also was instructed in statecraft. She displayed an early talent for ruling and appears to have held real power.

In the years after Margrethe’s wedding Scandinavia saw a series of major political upheavals. A few months after her wedding, her only brother, Christopher, Duke of Lolland, died, leaving her father without an obvious male heir. In 1364 the Swedish nobles deposed Magnus and Margrethe’s husband King Haakon from the Swedish throne and elected Albert of Mecklenburg as king of Sweden.