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Captivity of Albert.
Piracy in the Baltic.
MARGARET AND ERIC.
Treaty of Calmar,
July 20, 1397.
CI
in which he himself and his son Eric, with several
German princes and knights, were made prisoners.
This victory, which threw open the kingdom to
Margaret, was won by the high marshal of
Sweden, Eric Kiellson7. Margaret, in revenge for the
boastful and contemptuous sayings in which Albert
had indulged himself at her expense, received him
with contumely, set a fool’s cap on his heads, and
threw both father and son into the dungeon of
Lundholm castle in Scania, where they remained
for seven years.
During this whole period Sweden was a prey to
all the horrors of party hatreds and wars, almost
no other trace of a government being visible than
the taxes imposed by Margaret. The capital and
many of the castles were in the hands of the
Germans, and from these stations they made incursions
in all directions through the country with plunder
and conflagration. In Stockholm an old grudge
subsisted among the Germans and Swedes, a hostile
outbreak of which king Albert had with difficulty
averted, and the Swedish burgesses were now
treacherously assaulted by the Teutonic faction.
A proscription list, including seventy of the
principal Swedes, had been drawn up twelve years
before, and was now again produced and publicly
read9. Those of the selected victims who were
still to be found were seized and laid in fetters,
some of them being tortured with carpenters’ saws;
at length they were shut up in an old building and
burned alive.
The towns of Wismar and Rostock, as also the
Duke of Mecklenburg, embraced Albert’s cause,
relieved Stockholm, and gave protection in their
harbours to every pirate who chose to seek plunder
on the Swedish coast. These sea-robbers formed
the original stock of the freebooters who long
afterwards continued to infest the waters of the Baltic
Several Swedish towns were laid in ashes; in the
country some held with Albert, others with
Margaret. The people also suffered from failures of
the crops, as in 1391, in which year, to quote the
words of the complaint, " Nothing grew upon the
earth, and the little that sprung up was snatched
away by robbers or forceful sorners, so that one
might easily find a hundred yeomen, who together
did not possess half a ton of barley or a load of
hay 2." The nobles fortified their houses, and so
many petty robber fortresses arose, that the general
demolition of these castles was afterwards found
necessary. " In Sweden at this time," says the
Rhyme Chronicle, "there were enemies od all
sides, son against father, and brother against
brother." Other writers lament that the fields lay
unfilled, and that the land had well-nigh become
7 He is said by our later historians to have been of the
family of Vasa; but lie did not, bear their arms, and is called
Puke in the Diary of Vadstena.
8 Sie liess ihm aucli eine cappe schneide,
Hatte fiinfzehn ellen in die weite,
Der timpel wohl neunzelin ellen langk.
A cap she caused set on his head,
That had full fifteen ells in breadth,
The peak was nineteen good ells long.
(Mecklenburg Rhyme Chronicle in Behr,
Rer. Mecleburgicarum lib. ii. c. 7.)
9 In the council-chamber of the town, at a conventicle of
the German burgesses and soldiery. Olave Peterson, S. R. S.
i. 33. 277 ; Eric Oiaveson, ii. 1. 119. The latter states that
the burgomasters were at this time all Germans. Trans.
a desert. Peace was at length restored by a treaty
which in 1395 set Albert and his son at liberty.
They bound themselves to pay not less than 60,000
marks of silver3, for which the Hanse towns found
security, receiving the town of Stockholm in pledge
for the sum. Part of the ransom was discharged
by the women of Mecklenburg, with the generous
sacrifice of their jewels ; the last arrears were
remitted upon the delivery of Stockholm into the
hands of Margaret. Albert’s son died in Gottland
in 1397 ; he himself did not fully renounce his
pretensions until 1405, and is said, though the
authorities differ, to have died in 1412.
Sweden was now sufficiently depressed to accept
the conditions offered by Margaret. Eric Duke of
Pomerania4, her grand-nephew, had been already
declared the future sovereign of Denmark and
Norway ; he was now also elected king of Sweden
by the council, in presence of Margaret, on the 1 ltli
day of July, 1396, and received the formal homage
of the people at the Mora Stone. What Albert
had fruitlessly attempted was now effected with
full consent of the Magnates. All the estates of
the crown that had come into their possession since
" the war between king Magnus and the men of
the realm began," in 1363, were resumed, it now
being settled that the occupiers, especially the heirs
of Boece Jonson, were to arrange their differences
with the crown within a determinate time. It was
likewise decreed that all new castles, erected within
the above-mentioned period, should be destroyed,
unless exempted by special grace ; that all the
privileges of nobility, so lavishly bestowed by king
Albert, should be revoked, unless acquired on the
terms prescribed by law ; and that all landed
yeomen, whom the nobility had made their vassals,
should again pay gavel to the crown.
The coronation of the new sovereign took place
in the following year at Calmar, where the chief
spiritual and temporal barons of Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden assembled. Here, on St. Margaret’s
day, the 20th of July (a. d. 1397), was concluded
that union which was for the future to combine the
three kingdoms of the north under a common
sceptre. The chief conditions, besides those
relating to Margaret personally, stipulated that peace
and amity should thenceforth prevail between the
kingdoms ; that the election of the king should in
future be transacted conjointly, the sons of the
sovereign being preferred, if such existed ; each
realm was to be governed according to its own
laws ; fugitives from one country were not to be
protected in another ; all were bound to take arms
for the common defence, nor were the subjects of
any of the three to pretend any right of not serving
1 These were called Vitalians or Victualling Brethren,
because they exercised their piracy under pretext of supplying
Stockholm during its investment with provisions.
4 Letter of the chapter of Linkbping in this year.
3 Each of 45 Luheck shillings, about 3s. 6d. sterling, so
that the ransom would be about £10,500. T.
4 His father was Wratislaus VII., duke of Pomerania, his
mother Mary, daughter of Henry, duke of Mecklenburg,
brother of king Albert, and Ingeborg, sister of Queen
Margaret.
Margaret . Ingeborg–Henry . Albert
Mary-Wratislaus
I
Eric.
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