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of levies of country-people, took post at Hofva in
West-Gothland, to defend against them the
entrance of the Tiwed forest. Waldemar with his
court remained in the rear at Ramundeboda, in
the heart of the wood, and abandoned himself
to complete security. The king slept, it is said, the
queen was playing chess, and made herself merry
respecting duke Magnus, when a blood-stained
messenger announced the overthrow and flight of the
army. Waldemar, with his consort, and a son three
years old, fled through the forests of Vermeland
into Norway. He returned, was made prisoner,
and obliged to submit to the conditions imposed by
Magnus, according to which he was to be left in
possession of Gothland. Magnus was crowned
in 1279, at Upsala, whither the archiepiscopal see
had been removed from old Upsala. Waldemar,
indeed, made some endeavours to recover his
dominions by Norwegian mediation, and when the king
of Denmark embraced his party, by Danish
cooperation, but he soon gave up all for lost, and
consoled himself with a new mistress. An old account
says: In the year 1279, Waldemar delivered his
part of the kingdom into the hands of his brother
Magnus, and betook himself to Denmark, moved
by his love for a certain woman called Christina.
After this we find him deserting his wife for the
arms of three successive paramours, renewing more
than once both his claim to the throne, and his
renunciation, and at last, in 1288, consigned to
imprisonment in the castle of Nykœping. His captivity,
however, was at no time rigorous [1], and became
still more easy after the death of Magnus; though
his son Eric was now also arrested, and obliged to
share his own lot. Waldemar died in prison in
1302 [2]. Thereafter his son was released, and
resided for some time in Norway; he is styled duke
in Norwegian records [3], and was in 1322 one of
the councillors of king Magnus Ericson.
Magnus had been first elevated to the throne by
the Uplanders, an appellation by which the Rhyme
Chronicle designates the inhabitants of Sweden
Proper generally. These appear to have forgotten
neither their former privilege of nominating and
deposing kings, nor their old spirit of contentious
turbulence, for we find them taking up arms in
every rising of the Folkungers. Magnus, as well
as his father, had to quell one of these
insurrections after the close of the war with Denmark,
which was confined to mutual predatory inroads.
The favour and confidence which he lavished on
foreigners in preference to his own countrymen,
was intolerable to the Upper Swedes, and the
more, that this partiality was not unfrequently
rewarded with ingratitude. Peter Porse, an exiled
Dane who had won his good graces, made the king
prisoner in the very castle of which the royal
confidence had entrusted to him the custody, in order
to enforce payment of a debt which he claimed.
Magnus is said, nevertheless, to have remained as
much attached to him as before. Ingemar Nilson,
another Danish knight whom the king favoured,
and had married to his kinswoman Helena, was
the object of universal hatred. The Folkungers
excited fresh disturbances. Proceeding from
menace to violence, they slew Ingemar Nilson (a. d.
1278), seized the king’s father-in-law, Count Gerard
of Holstein, who had come on a visit to his
daughter, and compelled the queen to take refuge in a
convent. Apparently they were not indisposed to
replace Waldemar on the throne, and Magnus,
who felt the danger of his position, resorted to
dissimulation, and endeavoured to mollify the revolters
by caresses and promises. Letters and records of
this time attest his seeming intimacy with Birger
Philipson, one of the insurgent chiefs. He
accepted their hospitality, and invited them to his
manor of Galaquist near Skara. Here, where the
assassination of the king’s favourite had taken place,
they were seized and thrown into prison. Afterwards
they were removed to Stockholm, where four
of the ringleaders were beheaded in 1280, many
others also losing life and property. It is with
some surprise we find the Roman law of treason
adduced against the rebels on this occasion [4]. This
was the third and last insurrection of the
Folkungers during three successive reigns. Of that
dreaded name we no longer hear anything, although
it is known, that besides the branch which was
elevated to the throne, other important members
of the family had survived their last fatal disaster.
This seems to prove that it was latterly used
oftenest as the appellation of a party, denoting the
most powerful of those military leagues and factions
which the long-continued civil wars had generated.
It is worthy of remark, that subsequently (a. d.
1285), the king, in the ordinance of Skenninge,
forbids under the severest penalties, all party
associations or “secret confederacies,” especially among
the nobility, as a deeply-rooted evil, of which the
kingdom had had painful experience. Whosoever,
by writing, oath, or in any other mode should give
consent to such an union, his estates should be
wasted and he should be declared to have lost his
peace for ever, unless the king’s pardon were
interposed.
Much light is thrown on the condition of the
country, by the statutes that were now passed, after
the cessation of civil discords. These perhaps
have been regarded too much as the offspring of
a legislation novel in its principles; though they
relate rather to an order of society previously
subsisting, and it is chiefly in this point of view that
they are instructive. It is usually stated that king
Magnus introduced diets of lords (herredagarna)
for the transaction of public affairs, and thereby
deprived the people of their legislative rights, which
had been exercised in the old general assemblies
(allshärjarting). But these had for the most part
disappeared with the ancient sacrifices, and could
not again be revived in the form of diets, so long as
the coutests regarding religion and the throne
continued. Amidst the disputes and counter-elections
of opposite parties, and the struggles of rival
dynasties, the real power had already long passed
into the hands of the magnates. Surrounded by
bands of martial followers, between whom a
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