Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. The Folkungers. A.D. 1250—1365 - V. Foreign Kings. The Union, until the Administration of the Stures. A.D. 1365—1470
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a. d. 1
1359—65.]
Magnus dethroned.
The union ape.
ALBERT OF MECKLENBURG.
Dislike to the new king.
German favourites.
59
sacked, that it never recovered its former
prosperity.
The Swedish council now induced the king’s
younger son, Haco of Norway, to seize his person
(a. d. 1361), to break off his own betrothal to
Margaret, daughter of Waldemar, who afterwards became
so famous, and choose instead Elizabeth, sister of
Count Henry of Holstein, for his consort. The
new bride, while on her voyage to Sweden, being
driven by a storm on the Danish coast, was detained
there. Haco, now elected also king of Sweden,
reconciled himself nevertheless with his father, and
concluded the marriage he had formerly resolved
upon with Margaret, after which, Magnus banished
twenty-four of the most powerful among the
Swedish barons. These, repairing to Germany,
offered the crown of their native country to Albert
Duke of Mecklenburg, a son of Euphemia, sister of
king Magnus. Thereupon he set sail with a fleet
for Sweden, where he arrived escorted by the
exiled lords. Albert was chosen king in
Stockholm, on the 30th of November, 1363, and in the
following year he received the homage of his
subjects at the Mora Stone. Both Magnus and his
son were declared to have forfeited the crown,
and they were unsuccessful in an attempt to assert
their cause by arms, losing the battle of Enkoping
in 1365. Magnus was made prisoner, and did not
recover his liberty until the peace with Norway, in
1371. Subsequently he received certain revenues
which were allotted to him in Sweden for his
subsistence ; he spent the residue of his days with his
son, and was drowned, in 1374, in the
neighbourhood of Bergen. The Norwegians, over whom he
had reigned in peace, if we except some
disturbances in 1339, styled him Magnus the Good. Thus
ended the power of the Folkunger family in
Sweden.
CHAPTER V.
FOREIGN KINGS. THE UNION, UNTIL THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE STURES.
albert of mecklenburg. margaret and eric of pomerania. engelbert. christ0piiek of bavaria.
charles canuteson agai.nst christian of oldenburg.
a. d. I3C5—1470.
In the Swedish commonwealth, the place of the
sovereign was now really vacant. The name
indeed was still retained, aud the magnates, who
could not endure that one of their own number
should wear the crown, imposed a succession of
foreign princes upon their countrymen. The
domination of the stranger made even such a king as
Magnus Ericson to be regretted, and for a long
time after his death it was common to hear the
people extol his government, when they compared
it with the tyranny of the foreigners. The fate of
the throne and the country was decided by the
holders of power from the casual motives of
temporary interest, and by such was the famous union
of the three northern kingdoms produced—a mere
incident, which bears some resemblance to a
design. But of a consciousness of what such a union
was, or of what it might become, no glimpse is to
be perceived, either among its founders or in any
other quarter. Hence external colligation produced
division within, and the union is only a great name
which has passed away without a meaning. The
fountains of history flow more plentifully in this
troubled period. The narrative of the great Rhyme
Chronicle becomes more copious ; Eric Olaveson 7
in his Latin, the brothers Olave and Lawrence
Peterson in their Swedish chronicles8, afford much
valuable light for the explanation of the period of
the union, which was in part their own. Even
Joannes Magnus, however much he may have
invented in his account of the more ancient period,
may for the annals of that which we are now
approaching, be consulted with profit, if with
caution. The works of his brother Olaus Magnus are
of importance, with reference to the knowledge of
old northern manners 9.
Albert’s victory over his rival did not leave him
master of the kingdom. The deposed sovereign
had still during his captivity a strong party, and
the governors of most of the castles continued
faithful to him for several years. By the
preference which Albert showed for his countrymen of
Germany, and his lavish bounty to them, great
disgusts were excited. The Upper Swedes sent
a proclamation to the inhabitants of Gothland, or
the dwellers below the great forest, complaining of
the oppressions and slavery they endured at the
hands of king Albert and his Germans, renouncing
fealty and obedience to him as a perjurer and
traitor, and exhorting every man to return to his
allegiance to the good and honourable lord, king
Magnus, and to set him free from captivity. "If
the councillors of the realm," they add, " will aid
us, we will gladly pray their help ; if not, the guilt
will be theirs, and the loss as well theirs as ours."
The foreign notions, especially, which the king and
those about him entertained respecting the serfdom
of the common people appear to have awakened
among them general indignation, and increased
their impatience of the overweening arrogance of
the strangers, which is depicted with so much life
’ The Chronica Erici Olai, in the Script. Rer. Suec. t. ii.,
comes down to the year 1464. The author, who was dean
and professor of theology at Upsala, died in I486.
8 First printed in S. R. S. t. i. ii. They come down to the
massacre of Stockholm in 1520. The chronicle of Laurentius
Petri is a compilation from that of his brother, omitting such
passages as gave offence to Gustavus I., and adding the
history of the kings, and military achievements of the extra-
neous Goths, which Johannes Magnus treated diffusely, but
which Olaus Petri, to the discontent of the king, excluded.
9 Joannis Magni Gothorum Sueonumque Historia, or, as
the title runs in the first edition, Historia de omnibus
Gothorum Sueonumque regibus, &c., appeared at Rome in 1554,
under the revision of his brother Olaus Magnus, who
published in the year following his own Historia de gentibus
septentrionalibus, earumque diversis statibus, conditionibus
moribus, &c.
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