May 4, 1394: Birth of Philippa of England, Queen Consort of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

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Eric of Pomerania, Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Norway, Kingdom of Sweden, Mary de Bohun, Philippa of England, Queen Margrethe I of Denmark, Regent, Scandinavia, Union of Kalmar

Philippa of England (June 4, 1394 – January 5, 1430), also known as Philippa of Lancaster, was Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1406 to 1430 by marriage to King Eric of Pomerania during the Kalmar Union. She was the daughter of King Henry IV of England by his first spouse Mary de Bohun and the younger sister of King Henry V. Queen Philippa participated significantly in state affairs during the reign of her spouse, and served as regent of Denmark from 1423 to 1425.

Philippa of England

Family and Early life

Philippa was born to Henry Bolingbroke and Mary de Bohun, at Peterborough Castle, Peterborough. Her father became king in 1399. She is mentioned a couple of times during her childhood: in 1403, she was present at her widowed father’s wedding to Joan of Navarre, and the same year, she made a pilgrimage to Canterbury. She mainly lived at Berkhamsted Castle and Windsor Castle.

Henry IV’s first wife Mary de Bohun died at Peterborough Castle, giving birth to her last child Philippa of England. She was buried in the collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, Leicester on July 6, 1394.

Henry IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

Through Mary de Bohun was also a descendant of the Kings of England. Mary was a daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford (1341-1373) by his wife Joan FitzAlan (1347/8–1419), a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster. Through her mother, Mary was descended from Llywelyn the Great.

Mary’s grandmother (Philippe’s great-grandmother) Eleanor of Lancaster, Countess of Arundel (sometimes called Eleanor Plantagenet; 1318-1372) was the fifth daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Leicester and Lancaster and Maud Chaworth. Henry, 3rd Earl of Leicester and Lancaster (c. 1281 – 22 September 1345) was a grandson of King Henry III (1216–1272) of England and was one of the principals behind the deposition of King Edward II (1307–1327), his first cousin.

Marriage

In 1400 or 1401, King Henry IV suggested to Queen Margarethe I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden that an alliance be formed between England and the Kalmar Union through a double wedding between Henry’s daughter Philippa to the heir to the Nordic thrones, Eric of Pomerania, and Henry’s son Henry to Eric’s sister Catherine.

Eric of Pomerania (1381 or 1382 – September 24, 1459) was the ruler of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union from 1396 until 1439, succeeding his grandaunt, Queen Margarethe I. He is numbered Eric III as King of Norway (1389–1442), Eric VII as King of Denmark (1396–1439) and Eric XIII as King of Sweden (1396–1434, 1436–39). Later, in all three countries he became more commonly known as Eric of Pomerania.

Eric of Pomerania, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Queen Margarethe could not agree to the terms and the marriage between Henry and Catherine never occurred. In 1405, however, a Scandinavian embassy composed of two envoys from each of the three Nordic kingdoms arrived in England, and the marriage between Philippa and Eric was proclaimed.

The November 26, 1405, Philippa was married to Eric by proxy in Westminster, with the Swedish nobleman Ture Bengtsson Bielke as the stand-in for the groom, and on December 8, she was formally proclaimed Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the presence of the Nordic ambassadors.

Philippa left England from Lynn in August 1406 with an entourage of male and female English nobles and arrived in Helsingborg in September, where she was greeted by Eric and Queen Margaret. The wedding between Philippa and Eric of Pomerania took place on October 26, 1406 in Lund Cathedral.

Philippa was the first documented princess in history to wear a white wedding dress during a royal wedding ceremony: she wore a tunic with a cloak in white silk bordered with grey squirrel and ermine. The wedding ceremony was followed by her coronation.

The festivities lasted until November, during which several men were knighted and Philippa’s dowry was officially received by the court chamberlain and clerics from the three kingdoms. Philippa was in turn granted dower lands in all three kingdoms: Närke and Örebro In Sweden, Fyn with Odense and Nasbyhoved in Danmark, and Romerike in Norway.

Queen and Regent

Queen Philippa and King Eric lived in Kalmar Castle in Sweden with their court the first three years of their marriage. Philippa was given her own court, supervised by her chief lady in waiting, Lady Katarina Knutsdotter, a granddaughter of Saint Bridget of Sweden through Lady Märta Ulfsdotter, who had been the chief lady in waiting of Queen Margarethe herself.

From 1409 onward, and particularly after the death of Queen Margarethe I in 1412, when Eric became King de facto, the royal couple mainly resided in Denmark. However, Philippa frequently returned to Sweden, and as she had lived there during her first years in Scandinavia, she was given a close relationship to Sweden, of the three Kingdoms, from the beginning.

Queen Philippa was actively involved in state affairs. By the Pomeranian Act of Succession of 1416, Eric named his cousin Bogusław IX of Pomerania as heir to the three Kingdoms if his marriage to Philippa remained childless. When Eric left to participate in warfare in Femern in 1420, the Act was amended and Philippa was given an active role. The revised Act stated that upon the death of Eric, Queen Philippa should be appointed Regent of the realm until Bogusław could be instated as King; and should Bogusław inherit the three Kingdoms while still a minor, Philippa would serve as Regent during his minority.

Eric evidently had great trust in Philippa. Both ancient and modern authors give a favourable account of her rule. It is said that in certain matters she was more efficient than Eric. However, scholars have largely accepted this judgment of the Queen without going into detail. Her great dower lands in Sweden increased Philippa’s interest in this Kingdom, and while Eric preferred to reside in Denmark, Philippa made such frequent and long visits in Sweden, where she acted as Eric’s proxy while present, that she was the de facto Regent of Sweden for the most part of the 1420s, though not formally made such.

In the spring of 1426, Philippa was sent to Sweden by Eric where she summoned the Swedish council in Vadstena and managed to secure support and funds for the Dano-Hanseatic War (1426–35) despite the Swedish opposition to this war. In January 1427, when the war was going the wrong way for Eric, she summoned the Swedish council to Nyköping, where she again managed to secure Swedish support for Eric in his war. At this visit, she also acquired additional Swedish estates to support her future in Sweden, where she evidently planned to retire as a widow.

In March 1427 she returned to Denmark where she stayed for three years during the war. In 1428, Philippa successfully organized the defense of the Danish capital against the attack of the Hanseatic League during the 1428 bombardment of Copenhagen. She was hailed as a heroine by the people of Copenhagen for rallying the citizens to fight the Hanseatic fleet in Copenhagen Harbor.

In late 1429, Philippa left for Sweden, officially on a mission from Eric to secure support for his war in Sweden, where the war had been opposed from the start. In Sweden, she traveled to Vadstena Abbey as usual, where she was welcomed by a delegation of Swedish riksråd. Not long after her arrival, however, she fell ill.

This was an attack of some kind of a recurring illness which had been noted to affect her at times for at least the previous five years. The queen bore a stillborn boy and her health deteriorated after the stillbirth. She died on January 5, 1430 at the age of 35 and was buried in the Cloister Church at Vadstena, close to Linköping in Östergötland, Sweden. She made several donations to Vadstena Abbey in her will. After her death Eric formed a relationship with a former lady-in-waiting of Philippa’s, Cecilia.

A Brief history of the twin Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein: Part I

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Adolph III, Charlemagne, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein, Duchy of Holstein, Duchy of Schleswig, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Denmark, London Protocol 1852, Scandinavia, Valdemar II of Denmark

Duchy of Schleswig

Early history

Roman sources place the homeland of the tribe of Jutes north of the river Eider and that of the Angles south of it. The Angles in turn bordered the neighbouring Saxons. By the early Middle Ages, the region was inhabited by three groups:
* Danes (including assimilated Jutes), who lived north of the Danevirke and the Eckernförde Bay,
* North Frisians, who lived in most of North Frisia, including on the North Frisian Islands, and
* Saxons (including Germanized Wagrians and Wends), who lived in the area south of the Danes and the Frisians.

During the 14th century, the population on Schleswig began to speak Low German alongside Danish, but otherwise the ethno-linguistic borders remained remarkably stable until around 1800, with the exception of the population in the towns that became increasingly German from the 14th century onwards.

During the early Viking Age, Haithabu – Scandinavia’s biggest trading centre – was located in this region, which is also the location of the interlocking fortifications known as the Danewerk or Danevirke. Its construction, and in particular its great expansion around 737, has been interpreted as an indication of the emergence of a unified Danish state. Towards the end of the Early Middle Ages, Schleswig formed part of the historical Lands of Denmark as Denmark unified out of a number of petty chiefdoms in the 8th to 10th centuries in the wake of Viking expansion.

The southern boundary of Denmark in the region of the Eider River and the Danevirke was a source of continuous dispute. The Treaty of Heiligen was signed in 811 between the Danish King Hemming and Charlemagne, by which the border was established at the Eider. During the 10th century, there were several wars between East Francia and Denmark. In 1027, Conrad II of Germany and Canute the Great again fixed their mutual border at the Eider.

In 1115, King Niels created his nephew Canute Lavard – a son of his predecessor Eric I – Earl of Schleswig, a title used for only a short time before the recipient began to style himself Duke.

Valdemar II was the second son of King Valdemar I of Denmark and Sophia of Minsk, the daughter of Richeza of Poland, Queen Dowager of Sweden and Volodar Giebovich, Prince of Minsk. When his father died, young Valdemar was only twelve years old. He was named Duke of Southern Jutland (Latin: dux slesvicensis, literally Duchy of Schleswig).

Young Duke Valdemar of Schleswig (prior to becoming King of Denmark) faced a threat from Adolph III, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein. The Count tried to stir up other German Counts to take southern Jutland from Denmark, and to assist Bishop Valdemar’s plot to take the Danish throne. With the Bishop again in prison, Duke Valdemar went after Count Adolph, and with his own troop levies, he marched south and captured Adolph’s new fortress at Rendsburg. He defeated and captured Count Adolph III at the Battle of Stellau in 1201, and imprisoned him in a cell next to Bishop Valdemar. Two years later, due to an illness, Count Adolph III was able to buy his way out of prison by ceding all of Schleswig, north of the Elbe, to Duke Valdemar. In November 1202, Duke Valdemar’s elder brother, King Canute VI, died unexpectedly at the age of 40, leaving no heirs.

In the 1230s, Southern Jutland (the Duchy of Schleswig) was allotted as an appanage to Abel Valdemarsen (1218 – June 29, 1252) was Duke of Schleswig from 1232 to 1252 and King of Denmark from 1250 until his death in 1252. He was the son of Valdemar II by his second wife, Berengaria of Portugal, and brother to Eric IV and Christopher I, and Canute’s great-grandson.

Abel, having wrested the Danish throne for himself for a brief period, left the Duchy of Schleswig to his sons and their successors, who pressed claims to the throne of Denmark for much of the next century, so that the Danish kings were at odds with their cousins, the Duke of Schleswig.

Feuds and marital alliances brought the Abel dynasty into a close connection with the German Duchy of Holstein by the 15th century. The latter was a fief subordinate to the Holy Roman Empire, while Schleswig remained a Danish fief. These dual loyalties were to become a main root of the dispute between the German states and Denmark in the 19th century, when the ideas of romantic nationalism and the nation-state gained popular support.

Early modern times

The title of Duke of Schleswig was inherited in 1460 by the hereditary kings of Norway, who were also regularly elected kings of Denmark simultaneously, and their sons (unlike Denmark, which was not hereditary). This was an anomaly– a king holding a ducal title of which he as king was the fount and liege lord. The title and anomaly survived presumably because it was already co-regally held by the king’s sons. Between 1544 and 1713/20, the ducal reign had become a condominium, with the royal House of Oldenburg and its cadet branch House of Holstein-Gottorp jointly holding the stake. A third branch in the condominium, the short-lived House of Haderslev, was already extinct in 1580 by the time of John the Elder.

Following the Protestant Reformation, when Latin was replaced as the medium of church service by the vernacular languages, the diocese of Schleswig was divided and an autonomous archdeaconry of Haderslev created. On the west coast, the Danish diocese of Ribe ended about 5 km (3 miles) north of the present border. This created a new cultural dividing line in the duchy because German was used for church services and teaching in the diocese of Schleswig and Danish was used in the diocese of Ribe and the archdeaconry of Haderslev. This line corresponds remarkably closely with the present border.

In the 17th century a series of wars between Denmark and Sweden—which Denmark lost—devastated the region economically. However, the nobility responded with a new agricultural system that restored prosperity. In the period 1600 to 1800 the region experienced the growth of manorialism of the sort common in the rye-growing regions of eastern Germany. The manors were large holdings with the work done by feudal peasant farmers. They specialized in high quality dairy products. Feudal lordship was combined with technical modernization, and the distinction between unfree labour and paid work was often vague. The feudal system was gradually abolished in the late 18th century, starting with the crown lands in 1765 and later the estates of the nobility. In 1805 all serfdom was abolished and land tenure reforms allowed former peasants to own their own farms.

19th century and the rise of nationalism

From around 1800 to 1840, the Danish-speaking population on the Angeln peninsula between Schleswig and Flensburg began to switch to Low German and in the same period many North Frisians also switched to Low German. This linguistic change created a new de facto dividing line between German and Danish speakers north of Tønder and south of Flensburg. From around 1830, large segments of the population began to identify with either German or Danish nationality and mobilized politically. In Denmark, the National Liberal Party used the Schleswig Question as part of their agitation and demanded that the Duchy be incorporated into the Danish kingdom under the slogan “Denmark to the Eider”.

This caused a conflict between Denmark and the German states over Schleswig and Holstein, which led to the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the 19th century. When the National Liberals came to power in Denmark in 1848, it provoked an uprising of ethnic Germans who supported Schleswig’s ties with Holstein. This led to the First War of Schleswig. Denmark was victorious and the Prussian troops were ordered to pull out of Schleswig and Holstein following the London Protocol of 1852.

Royal Numbering ~ Norway

Tags

Christian IX of Denmark, Denmark, Haakon VII, Kingdom of Norway, Norway, Olaf III, Olaf IV, Olaf V, Scandinavia, Sweden, Union of Kalmar

The last three days of this week I will spend on the topic of royal numbering by examining the three Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Norway: Norway shares a similarity with England in that prior to being a unified kingdom Norway consisted of several smaller kingdoms. Harald I Fairhair King of Norway from 872 to 930 is said to be the first king of a unified state. Most early kings of Norway are known more by their sobriquet than their ordinals. During the history of Norway the problem with numbering the kings is that there were times when brothers ruled jointly or there were rival kings. All in all the numbering has been consistent with all the names except for the name Olaf. Olaf Magnusson was king of Norway 1103-1115 and was the son of King Magnus III Barefoot and Sigrid, daughter of Sakse of Vik.

Olaf was a co-king together with his half-brothers Sigurd Jorsalfar and Øystein Magnusson after his father Magnus died in 1103. He was king of Norway in twelve years, but did not like their brothers leave a lasting impression. He died at the age of 17 and and never ruled his share of the kingdom on his own and his brothers acted as his regent on his behalf. Historians judge him as to be insignificant and when numbering the kings of Norway they left Olaf out from numbering. He should have been counted as Olaf IV but that ordinal was assigned to King Olaf Haakonsson (1380-1387).

In the middle ages Norway and Denmark, along with Sweden formed the Union of Kalmar in 1397 uniting all three Scandinavian states under one Monarch. Sweden broke away from this union in 1523 and the union of Norway and Denmark lasted until 1814. However in 1814 Norway was not able to gain its independence and fell under the control of Sweden. It wasn’t until 1905 when Norway became an independent state. They chose a monarchical form of government and chose the second son of King Christian IX of Denmark, Prince Carl of Denmark as their king. He chose the Norwegian name of Haakon and became King Haakon VII and he ruled until 1957. His son, Olaf V of Norway 1957-1991, reigned using the ordinal “V” but would have been Olav VI, had the co-king Olaf Magnusson been numbered and not ignored by historians.

Copyright 2012 WJFoley