Part 32

"Do you remember Hatuna? It will not be better for you here than it was for me there, for you shall have the same fate, though it has tarried so long."

Hatuna was the place where the king had previously been taken prisoner by his brothers, in somewhat the same treacherous manner. But they had not treated him with the same shameful cruelty with which he now treated them.

They were taken barefooted deep into the tower and fastened in a dungeon, with a great chain on their legs, while their servants in the town were taken prisoners and locked up in one ward to the number of twenty, all their possessions being divided among their captors. This being done, the king clapped his hands, saying:

"The Holy Ghost bless my queen! Now I have all Sweden in my hand!"

When he set out soon afterwards on an errand of conquest, he left his brothers in the charge of a Livonian knight, who had evidently been bidden to treat them harshly, for he removed them to the lowest dungeon and placed a beam upon their legs. They were fastened to the wall by thick iron round the throat and chains weighing one hundred and forty pounds were riveted on their wrists, the other end being fastened to the beam. When the chain was fastened upon Erik it was done with such violence that a piece of iron broke out, cutting him on the eye so that blood ran down his cheek.

Their dungeon was at the bottom of the tower, where they lay on the bare rock, a pool of water lying between them. Their food was wretched, their clothing was wretched, and there was every indication that their wicked brother did not wish to have them leave that prison alive.

But the cruel and treacherous king did not find it so easy to bring all Sweden under his rule. The news of his wicked act got abroad and spread through the land, exciting general horror and detestation. When he rode up to Stockholm to take possession he found it closed against him and the burghers made a sally against him, putting his forces to flight. It was the same way everywhere, the whole country rising against him. The wicked king now began to learn that the way of the transgressor is hard, and in his fury of disappointment he locked the door of the dungeon in which his brothers lay and threw the key into the stream, leaving them to die of starvation.

But the poor victims were to be thoroughly avenged, for the people were implacable in their wrath, and in a short time had so environed the king that the fortresses of Nykoeping and Stegeborg were alone left to him, and both of these were besieged.

Nykoeping was soon so severely pressed that the garrison brought up the dead bodies of the dukes and laid them under a dais outside the castle, saying to the besiegers:

"Your siege will now answer no purpose, for the dukes are dead and King Birger is heir to all the kingdom."

"No one can hope to win an inheritance by murder," they replied. "We now serve as our ruler, Lord Magnus, Duke Erik's son."

The bodies of the murdered dukes were carried to Stockholm, where they were buried with much ceremony. But the siege of the castle was continued until the garrison was forced to surrender. On obtaining possession of it the enraged people razed it to the ground.

Stegeborg, where Prince Magnus, King Birger's son, was in command, held out much longer. The king and queen, with Brunke, their confederate, were in Gothland, which province alone they held, and from which they sent a number of ships to Stegeborg with provisions and troops. These had no sooner appeared in the river Skares, however, than they were attacked and taken, leaving Prince Magnus as bad off as ever. When this news was brought to the king and queen they exclaimed in despair:

"Where shall we turn now, since God has sent us such a misfortune?"

Brunke, the cruel chancellor, volunteered to lead an expedition himself, saying that he would no more spare the dukes' people than they had spared the king's. Gathering some vessels, he had them strongly planked all around, and loading these with provisions and the remainder of the king's forces, he set out for Stegeborg.

On entering the Skares the people attacked him with stones and other missiles, but he and his men protected themselves behind the planks. Seeing this, fire-rafts were sent off from the shore against the ships, and despite all that could be done to keep them off they drifted upon the vessels, setting three of them on fire, from which the flames spread to the others.

Brunke and his men leaped overboard, hoping to escape by swimming, but they were all taken and Brunke and three of his chiefs sent to Stockholm, where they were soon afterwards beheaded. Stegeborg was now in a desperate state and was soon forced to surrender, on the condition that the life of Prince Magnus should be spared. This condition was not kept, notwithstanding the fact that he was innocent of his father's crime. The indignant people were not willing to leave any scion of their wicked king alive and the poor boy's head was cut off.

Thus the unholy treachery of King Birger met with retribution. Sir Matts Kettilmundson, the brave knight who had shown such courage in Russia, was made Administrator of the kingdom and soon defeated a Danish army which had been sent to King Birger's aid. Then Birger and his wicked queen were obliged to flee to Sweden, where grief soon brought him to his death-bed. Queen Martha lived long, but it was a life made bitter by memory of her crimes and Heaven's retribution.

QUEEN MARGARET AND THE CALMAR UNION.

We have next to tell how the three kingdoms of Scandinavia, between which rivalry and hostility had often prevailed, became united into one great Scandinavian realm, under the rule of a woman, the great Queen Margaret. This was a very important event, as its results continued until our own day, the subjection of Norway, which was then achieved, not being broken until the early days of the present century. It is important to describe the various steps by which this union was brought about.

From 930, when Harold Fair-Haired, the maker of Norway, died, until 1319, when a king known by the odd title of Haakon Longlegs followed him to the grave, the throne of Norway had been nearly always filled by some one of Harold's many descendants. But with the death of Haakon the male line of King Harold's descendants was finally broken, and only a woman remained to represent that great royal stock, Princess Ingeborg, the daughter of King Haakon. This fair maiden was promised in marriage while still a child to Duke Erik, son of the late king of Sweden. They were married in 1312, and on the same day Duke Valdemar, Erik's brother, married another princess of Norway, also named Ingeborg. About four years later a son was born to each of these happy couples, and King Haakon was full of joy, for he now felt that the old royal line was restored.

One person was not pleased by the birth of these princes. This was King Birger of Sweden, who had long been at sword's point with his ambitious brothers and wanted the throne of Norway as well as that of Sweden to descend to his own son Magnus. He pretended to be pleased, however, for he had in mind a treacherous plot to destroy his brothers and their children and thus leave the way clear for his ambitious schemes. The steps he took to bring this about and their fatal end to his brothers and his son we have told in the previous tale. After the indignant people had driven King Birger from the throne the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were left in a strange plight. Magnus, the son of Duke Erik and Ingeborg, was only three years old when his grandfather, the king of Norway, died. This left him the successor to the Norse realm. But the deposition of King Birger and the execution of his son left this royal infant the king of Sweden also, so that these two kingdoms became for the first time united, and this under the rule of a three-year-old child, with regents to govern in his name. But the two countries remained separate in everything except that they had now but one king.

When King Magnus became old enough to act as monarch in reality, he took the government of both countries into his hands. But he proved unfit to govern either of them, being a weak and good-natured man, so anxious to please everybody that he pleased nobody. Born and brought up in Sweden, he knew little and cared less about affairs in Norway and the people of that country grew much incensed at his neglect of their interests. They made him promise, at a public meeting, to divide the two kingdoms between his two sons; Erik, the elder, to succeed him in Sweden, and Haakon, the younger, to be given the crown of Norway when he came of age. Events happened, as will be seen, to prevent this taking place and to combine all Scandinavia under one great queen.

This is how it came about. King Magnus made a visit to Denmark, where it was arranged to marry Prince Haakon to Margaret, daughter and heir of the Danish king, Valdemar. This marriage took place in due time, and not very long afterwards both King Magnus and Prince Haakon died and Prince Erik was poisoned by his mother, who was a wicked woman and was angry because he opposed her in one of her base schemes.

Thus as the death of King Birger had left the crowns of Sweden and Norway to a boy of three, the deaths here named left these crowns and that of Denmark also to another child, the son of Haakon and Margaret. This little fellow, Olaf by name, too young to appreciate how great he had become, did not live to enjoy his greatness. He died at the age of seventeen, leaving his royal rights to his mother Margaret.

It is interesting to learn that the turbulent kingdoms named, the land of the sea-kings and the warlike barbarians of the north, each of which had needed the hand of a strong man to control them, all now fell under the sceptre of a woman, who at first reigned over Denmark and Norway and soon added Sweden to her dominion.

But Queen Margaret was no weakling. She was a woman born to command, strong in mind and body, and more like a man than a woman. In Sweden, to which she quickly turned her attention, she had a bitter enemy in Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg, who had been declared king of that country after the death of King Magnus, and who also claimed the crown of Norway, being remotely related to its royal house.

He bitterly hated Margaret, whom he called "Queen Breechless," and by other satirical and insulting names. Finally he took the bold step to call himself king of Denmark and Norway, a baseless claim which he proposed to enforce. He made a vow never to use a hat until he had driven out Margaret, and sent her a whetstone several yards long, advising her to use it to sharpen her scissors and needles instead of using a sceptre. He was much too hasty, as he had only a weak hold upon Sweden even, whose nobles did not like his habit of bringing in Germans to fill the posts of honor and were anxious to get rid of him.