The Triumph of Riches shows a car of Plutus drawn by four white horses, driven by Fortune and followed by a motley crowd which includes Justice, Usury, Bona Fides, Sichæus, the rich husband of Queen Dido, Pythias (of whom Plutarch tells that he so loved gold that once when he returned hungry from abroad his wife placed gold before him instead of meats), and many figures, for the most part culled from the pages of Herodotus, Juvenal, and other classic authors. In the heads of Crœsus and Cleopatra it is said that Holbein painted likenesses of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. In a corner of the picture is written the distich ascribed to Sir Thomas More which we have already met with above the central portal of the German Guildhall.
The Triumph of Poverty was purely allegorical, and appears to have been considered less attractive than the former work, whether on account of its treatment, or on account of its less pleasing theme does not appear. In this case the car is drawn by two oxen and two asses, designated as Negligence and Idleness, Greed and Sloth. This canvas, too, bore some Latin verses from More's pen, which, curiously enough, have not been incorporated in his collected works.
In all public ceremonies and processions the Hanseatics seem also to have taken a notable part; as we mentioned above on the occasion of Henry the Sixth's entry. We come across another detailed account when Queen Mary went in triumph through London the day before her coronation. At Fenchurch the Genoese had dressed up a lovely boy as a girl, who was carried before the Queen and greeted her. The Hanseatics had built up a hillock in the corner of Gracechurch, whence a fountain poured forth wine. On this hillock stood four children who likewise greeted the Queen. In front of the Steelyard they had placed two casks of wine, from which they poured drink to all who passed. This liberality cost them a thousand pounds, and heavy payments to cover such expenses are not infrequent in their account books.
In England, contrary to the usual custom, the Hanseatic League never had its own church. Perhaps this need was less felt in a land that professed the same creed than in Russia. The Germans frequented the parish church of All Hallows, contenting themselves with endowing a chapel, altars, special masses, and alms. They also presented the church with costly stained glass windows, in the decoration of which the German imperial eagle figured conspicuously, and with cunningly-carved stalls reserved for the use of the Steelyard authorities. As late as the year 1747 these seats were still in the possession of the master of the Steelyard and the other representatives of the guild. In front of these stalls there always burned five of the biggest tapers the church could boast. Indeed the Hanseatics were famous for their outward observances of piety, both while they were Catholics and after they, as well as the English, became Protestants. Of course the Catholic religion made more show. Saint Barbara was a saint whom they specially affected, and on her day (December 4th) they caused a most elaborate mass to be sung and afterwards treated the priest, their English alderman, and the royal doorkeeper of the Star Chamber to fruit and wine in the Cosin's Lane Garden. At Corpus Christi they joined the great procession of all the guilds and notabilities; and on midsummer night, and the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul, they illumined their Great Hall after the ancient Saxon fashion with Yule fires and torches. After the Great Fire of London the League presented All Hallows with a carved oak screen that ran the length of the whole church. It was the work of a Hamburg carver, and excites admiration to this day. In the centre it shows the large imperial eagle, as also the arms of Queen Anne; the main work consists of twisted columns and arches.
The Germans in England seem to have adopted the purer Protestant doctrines with great caution, if not tardily. At least we have it on record, that when in 1526 a commission, headed by Sir Thomas More in person, proceeded to make a domiciliary search of the Steelyard for writings of Luther, nothing was found but Old and New Testaments and German prayer books, while the whole body, both young and old, swore at St. Paul's Cross that there was not a heretic among them. Soon afterwards the Reformation was firmly established in England, as it already was in most of the cities belonging to the League, and from that time forward the Steelyard associates attended the English Protestant service in All Hallows Church.
Such were the life, the habits, and the nature, of the German community that made its English centre in the Steelyard, and which, so long as it was in harmony with the times, conferred many advantages not only upon themselves, but upon the people among whom they dwelt. For in thrifty activity the English in those days could not be compared with the Hanseatics, while in point of wealth no one could compete with these Germans, excepting only the Italian money-changers of Lombard Street, then, as still, a favourite locality of banking houses. But the Italians were exclusively occupied with financial transactions, while the Germans devoted themselves exclusively to mercantile affairs.
VIII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE.
The notices that have come down to us about the organization of our League are scanty, although we possess a vast number of minutes concerning their diets. It is doubtful whether there was even a fixed mode of governing and government, whether the whole was not rather in a state of flux controlled by the circumstances of the moment. That certain traditional modes of administration obtained, however, seems indisputable. It raises a smile to read that when some problem seemed insoluble, or some venture proved a failure, our naïve Hanseatics registered in their books, "of this matter let those think who come after us," thus throwing the burden upon the following generation.
There was no fixed place of meeting for the Hanseatic diets, but most frequently these were held at Lübeck, because it was situated almost in the centre of the various activities of the League. The assemblies were held in "the name of all the cities," and those who failed to send representatives were begged "not to take it amiss" if conclusions were arrived at without their sanction. "Every town shall consider the benefit of the others, so far as is in accordance with right and honour," runs one of their quaint formulæ. "Should strife arise between the cities, which God forbid, they shall settle their dispute according to the counsels of the neighbouring towns."
There was also no fixed time for these diets; they were assembled according to urgency or press of business, but usually they were annual, and met about Whitsuntide, as that feast falls in the fine weather, when travelling was easier for the delegates of the northern towns. At the close of each diet, the deputies present decided on the time and place of the next meeting, and Lübeck and other leading cities were charged with the care of making known to the cities unrepresented the decisions arrived at by the assembly. But default to send a deputy to the diet was not lightly overlooked. Some excuse had to be given, and the validity of the excuse was sharply criticized. Sometimes a town might be busy resisting its temporal or ecclesiastical lords, an internal revolution might have occupied all its energies, the roads might be unsafe, or it might have been visited by some public calamity like the Black Death. If the diet thought that these pleas were merely subterfuges to save the expense of sending a delegate, or to avoid explaining some infraction of the rules of the League of which the city in question was guilty, a heavy money fine was imposed, and in case of absence three times repeated it might even find itself "unhansed," deprived of all the pecuniary privileges belonging to members of this powerful association. By such rigid measures did the League hold its members together. Nor was this all. A deputy who did not arrive in time for the opening of the proceedings was fined a gold mark for each day of delay, a fine that was not remitted unless the causes for his default were found on scrutiny to be in every way sufficient.
On their arrival at the meeting place, the deputies were received in state by some member of the local municipal council, and were offered the wine of honour. The conferences began about seven or eight in the morning, and lasted till one or two in the afternoon. One of the burgomasters of Lübeck was usually made president. At the first meeting he would thank the members present for having come, and these would reply to him in courteous terms. Then when all their credentials had been examined, and the excuses of the absent sifted, the diet would proceed to the business in hand. This business was heavy and varied, covering the external and internal policy of the League, the needful moneys to be raised, the state of the various foreign factories. Even private quarrels between merchants were heard here in appeal. The diet decided on peace and war, sent despatches to foreign kings and princes; threatened, warned, exhorted, those who had failed to fulfil treaty obligations. Such was its power that it rarely failed to make its voice heard, and a threat indited by the city of Lübeck was not put quietly into the waste-paper basket by the northern courts. These missives were sealed with the seal of the city in which the diet was sitting at the time. Just as in their buildings, their guildhalls, and their towers, our forefathers knew how to express a quaint conceit, so also in a simple seal they understood how to express symbolically a summary of their activity. Thus the pious and wise Lübeck bore on its city seal a ship with high bulwarks, from whose single central mast waved a flag bearing the cross. An ancient pilot steers the vessel through the waves with his left hand while his right is raised in admonition. Opposite to him sits a youth busy with the ropes, who, with his uplifted right hand, seems to point to the help of heaven. This was to symbolize that prudence, energy, and pious confidence accompanied Lübeck in all its paths. The common Hanseatic seal was only used for foreign affairs. It represented the imperial double eagle with the inscription "Signum civitatum maritimarum."
The decisions arrived at by the diet were all recorded in careful minutes, known as "recesses," of which an immense number have come down to us, escaping fire and other vicissitudes. They all testify to the thoroughly businesslike character that distinguished the League. Among other matters we often come across applications from cities to be admitted into the Hansa. Their candidature was generally addressed to Lübeck, and their claims and resources carefully scrutinized by the prudent League. As a rule the demand was conceded. The League was never sorry to see its strength grow, and its expenses diminish by being divided among a greater number of towns. Such admission, however, was made upon unequal conditions, according to the importance, the resources, and the situation of the city in question. This inequality had struck deep roots also in the very heart of the cities. The inhabitants were far removed from enjoying the same prerogatives, the Hansa was by no means a democratic association. The most important posts were reserved for a certain number of families know as patricians, who had distinguished themselves by services for the common weal, or who held power in the shape of wealth. An individual, however, could be "unhansed" as well as a city, if he had failed to observe some law of high commercial consequence, and it was even more difficult for an individual to be readmitted than a town.
From the inequalities in the position of different members of the League there arose conflicts of interest which were to prove "the little rift within the lute," that by and by should "make the music mute." For instance, the interest of the maritime towns was not always that of the inland ones. Schisms and divisions were apt, above all, to take place when there was a question of beginning a war, as this could never be done without general approbation. Each town was inclined to throw the burden on its associates. For as each was solely preoccupied with its personal interests, and only entered into the League with a view to the profits it could thus obtain, there was always in the minds of the delegates a tacit reserve to make as few sacrifices as possible, and as time went on they were even ready to abandon their allies, and let the League perish if they did not find themselves directly benefited by any sacrifice demanded by the common weal.
What held them together at all was, in a word, nothing more noble or ideal than personal advantage, the fear through exclusion of losing by exclusion, the great advantages that accrued from being a member of the League. No wonder that with an ambition so little exalted the Hansa was destined not to survive until our own day. For communities like individuals must strive after some lofty ideal if their existence is to be happy, and to have a sound enduring basis. The wonder is rather that seeing what motives animated its members, the defective character of the means at its disposal, such as the lack of a standing army, and the constant mutations in its form of government, it should have attained to such mighty results as we have roughly sketched in this, the second and culminating period of its existence.
PERIOD III.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE HANSA.
INTRODUCTION.
From the law of change to which all human affairs are subject the mighty Hanseatic League was not exempt. Great though its power seemed to all outward appearance, and rich as were its members, still, for some time past, signs of decay and decline had made themselves manifest, here and there ominous rents and fissures, that threatened, if not an entire, yet a partial fall of the building.
The latter years of the fifteenth and the early years of the sixteenth centuries were a time of the greatest moment in the history of modern Europe. They mark the transition from the mediæval to the modern spirit, embracing two such potent factors in human development as the Reformation and the discovery of America. It is almost sad to think that the decrepitude of a powerful institution should have coincided with the transformation and rejuvenescence of Europe. Yet so it was. So it will ever be; we must march onward with our time, or be trodden down.
Many of the ideas of the Hansa had grown effete or were becoming gradually obsolete. Individuality in men, independence in nations were factors beginning to manifest themselves and to rebel against those notions of blind obedience and of selfish monopoly inculcated by the Hansa. The time was nearing when the old system of staple, of factories was to give place to the busy varied life of the Exchange.
The discovery that the earth was round, not flat, that Ulysses had no idle dream when he dreamed that there was another continent beyond the pillars of Hercules, was a matter of unspeakable moment to trade. When we recollect that almost to the same date belong the discovery of a maritime route to the East Indies, and the invention of printing, we cannot but recognize that a power, not willing to move with the times, but painfully, obstinately clinging to its own ideas and images, had to be left behind. The very causes for which the Hansa had been founded, insecurity of roads, want of international justice, and other barbarous and intolerant conditions, no longer existed. The League itself had developed from a liberator into an oppressor. It no longer fitted with the changing conditions; it too must change or perish. In vain did it point to ancient charters, evoke "inviolable treaties" acquired at the point of the sword or by might of wealth. It had to learn that of these treaties, as indeed of treaties in general, must be said that which is sadly, but too truly said of human promises, that they are "like pie-crust, made to be broken."
The spirit of revolution, or rather of change, was abroad. It made itself felt in manners, in institutions, in governments. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks contributed to the new development. By warning Europe of a new and menacing danger, it drew yet more closely together the different states which the Crusades had already put into relations with one another, and for which the feudal system formed a sort of common link. This same event turned the stream of sciences, letters, and arts towards Italy. On the other hand, the princes were finding out the means of diminishing the power of the feudal lords and nobles. The subjugation of the power of these vassals undermined little by little the feudal system, and allowed this worn-out institution to be replaced by institutions more in conformity with the needs of modern society.
Various states, that had been unable to develope their forces, owing to the abuse of the feudal system, moved swiftly forward, now that they were free from restraint, and, having succeeded in centralizing their power desired to give it a firm and equal step in the march onwards. Meanwhile the forces that existed in the hands of the rulers were active enough to assure the tranquillity of the people, but it was always possible to turn them from their destination; war might arise any moment out of the very institutions that ought to secure the maintenance of peace. The people, recognizing this and fearing lest ambitious rulers should form projects of aggrandizement and conquest, had recourse to that policy which the Italian republics had already initiated and in which Florence took the lead.
The democracy understood full well that it was for their good, and even essential to their very existence as a power in the state, that they should act upon the forces that determined the government, just as these re-acted upon them: that, in a word, they should mutually hold each other within the limits of the law and that general security could only arise from the equilibrium of the means of attack and defence. This new policy which demanded frequent communications between the parties interested, gave rise to the system of embassies, itself quite a new feature in international and political life, though it was really an extension of ideas and systems long ago pursued by the Hansa. In a word, the whole method of the world was changing, and it remained to be seen whether the Hansa could still keep ahead as it had hitherto done.
While other nations were looking about them all round the globe, the Hansa was, as ever, occupied in securing to itself the monopoly of the Baltic basin, in order that no other peoples should deprive them of the wealth of Scandinavia. And yet this "monopoly of the herring and the cod-fish," as it has been named, was steadily becoming less and less valuable. More than half of Europe was Protestant and no longer fasted; wax was no more required in quantities for Church ceremonials and the evidences of personal piety; the imitation of Italian and Spanish fashions in dress caused less demand for the furs of the North. The English were among the chief commercial rivals of the Hansa at this date, and after them the Dutch, those very Dutch whose cities had at one time formed part of the League, but who had seceded after the wars with Waldemar, finding it more profitable to keep friends with the Danes.
It is strange that this combination of merchants, generally so astute, should not have recognized whither the stream of things was tending.
Nor in its perplexities could it find any help from the emperor. The German Empire was suffering from the same ills as the League, and with equal steps was advancing towards its dissolution. Until now the Hansa had gone on its triumphal way in spite of all inner and outer political complications, indeed had rather profited than lost by these. This was now altered. It was now no longer a body animated by one will, one spirit. The disintegrating element of religious discord had entered among its members, they were mixed up with the bloody doctrinal wars, that followed the Reformation and ravaged Germany, and they were divided among themselves on this very point. At last, after the treaty of Augsburg (1555), which restored to Germany a more or less agitated peace of some fifty years, there followed the terrible, devastating Thirty Years' War, which gave the death blow to the League.
The Thirty Years' War left behind it only a heap of ruins. It had consequences so disastrous that from some of them Germany has not recovered even to this day. It caused her to lag in the onward march of progress, and for all her military strength at this present moment, she has not yet overtaken her neighbours and contemporaries in many important points of civilization, that are more unfailing sources of a nation's power than mere brute strength in arms or tactical skill in battle.
One of the first serious causes of decline in the Hanseatic power was due to the fact that as time went on and conditions of trade altered, the interests of the maritime and continental cities were no longer identical. The sea-board towns used to furnish to the inland the means of selling the produce of industries with profit in the countries east, north, and west of the Baltic. The Hanseatic ships and factories facilitated this distribution of goods. But when other nations, and, above all, the merchants of the Netherlands, and after them the English, Danes, and Swedes carried on a part of this commerce with their own ships, the inland cities no longer had the same interest in remaining united with the maritime. They even thought that their union with the League was more onerous than useful, and began to grow restive and would no longer pay their dues to the general fund, which consequently became much weakened and impoverished. Thus there were not only enemies from without, but enemies from within to contend against. "A house divided against itself cannot stand" is a saying of which our Hansa was very soon to learn the full truth.
But before the final collapse came the League was to know one more moment of proud prosperity, a moment which, had it been wisely and unselfishly used would have secured to the Hansa a prolonged dictatorship in Northern Europe.
After this rapid survey we will consider these events in detail and order.
I.
STORM CLOUDS.
The centre of the Hansa's power had ever been the Baltic Ocean. On its shores the idea of the League had first taken shape: here it had grown and flourished, and here also it was to receive its death blow. As we have said, in the course of the fifteenth century the Dutch gradually came forward as serious competitors of the League. Their geographical position made them freer than the Hanseatics; enclosed in a sort of inland basin to which at any moment they might lose the key, their astuteness was not less keen than that of their rivals, and like their rivals they wisely made use of any quarrels or dissensions that might be abroad. They were not slow, therefore, to discern that the Scandinavian people and also the Scandinavian kings groaned under the heavy despotism exercised by these German merchants. They proposed themselves as substitutes for the Hansa, offering money and support to the kings and easier and better conditions of trade to the natives. These proposals were unofficially accepted. Neither rulers nor ruled as yet dared oppose themselves openly to the League, but they were not sorry to see its power reduced.
For awhile the Hansa were able to keep their rivals in check, worrying them by piracy on the one hand, and insisting on their ancient claims and trade rights on the other.
But Charles V. had ascended the throne; the greatest emperor that had ever governed in Germany since his namesake Charles the Great. He was ruler not only of Germany, but of Spain and the Netherlands, and to the latter people he was especially well disposed. He looked with no friendly eye upon the League, which made itself a power within his territory, and he was not sorry to see it weakened by competition. When the Sound, their Danish Hellespont, the gold mine of the League, continued to be jealously guarded by them, and its navigation denied to other nations, Charles V. declared quite openly that "he would rather miss three royal crowns, than that his Burgunders should be excluded from the Sound." This was a sort of challenge to the Hansa. Let us hear how other circumstances came about to enforce it from other quarters.
It may be remembered that since the days of Waldemar Atterdag, the League had always had a voice in the election of a ruler to one of the three northern kingdoms, and that it regarded with no friendly eye the attempts made at a union of those kingdoms under one common head.
In 1513 Christian II. had ascended the Danish throne. He was an unscrupulous and cruel ruler, known to posterity as the Nero of the North. Before ascending the throne of Denmark he had been governor of Norway, and in that capacity had conceived a bitter hatred against the overbearing foreigners, "those German cobblers," as he called them, who once even ventured to close against him the gates of his own town of Bergen. He had already favoured by all ways in his power the trade of non-Hanseatics, and tried to obtain some gentler treatment for the oppressed burghers of Bergen. Still so great was yet the fear of the Hansa, that when in 1513 Christian was crowned King of Denmark, he made no difficulties about renewing all Hanseatic treaties and privileges, and only stipulated that the harbours of Norway should also be accessible to the Netherlanders. In return he desired their assistance against Sweden, with which country he was at war.
For a time the League, and above all Lübeck, were rejoiced at this new king and his attitude towards them, but not many years had passed before they found out that they had to do with a more logical and altogether sterner man than any of his predecessors had been. Christian hated the Hansa, and rebelled against the subjection of the Sound, a Danish sea, to foreign control, and the absolute sway of the Hansa in his markets. Among many unwise words and deeds that live bound up with his memory, it was not the most unwise which he repeated after Sigbrit Willem, the mother of his beloved and lovely friend, Digveke (Little Dove), "that good friendship must be maintained with the Netherlands, and that Copenhagen must be made the staple place of the North."
Unfortunately for Christian, though he could repeat Sigbrit's sayings, and perhaps also in a measure recognize their wisdom, he had not the natural capacity to carry them into execution. This clever woman recognized that the aim of the king should be to reinstate the Scandinavian Union, to break the power of the aristocracy and the clergy, and to free his impoverished people from the fetters in which the Hansa had bound them for nine centuries. This was all right and well, but it needed to be carried into effect with tact and moderation. Christian did not possess these gifts; he made himself personally detested by his cruelty and his overbearing manner, he knew not that generosity which so gracefully becomes a victor. After conquering Sweden, he soiled his victory by causing the most illustrious personages of the kingdom to be executed, and still worse he stained his personal honour by violating the conditions of an armistice in causing Gustavus Ericson, of the house of Vasa, to be carried off captive to Denmark. It did not improve matters when Christian explained that he required him as a hostage. He caused Gustavus to be shut up in the strong fortress of Kalo in Jutland. Here the captive was put on his parole, and it is said suffered none of the rigours of custody. But the food put before him, salt junk, sour ale, black bread, and rancid herrings, cannot have comforted his enforced captivity in the material sense, while he confessed to having been maddened by the talk of the soldiers who guarded him, and who boasted that they would soon hold all Sweden, and jestingly parcelled out among themselves the wealth and beauty of the nation.
This young man so unjustly imprisoned was destined to become the avenger of his fatherland, and those of his fellow-countrymen who had perished upon the scaffold. He resolved to escape, hoping to reach Sweden in time to defend his country, or to take advantage of any favourable juncture that might arise.
It was in September, 1519, that, early one raw autumn morning, Gustavus managed to escape from the Castle of Kalo, disguised as a drover of oxen. He made his way to the city of Lübeck, and threw himself upon the protection of the burgomaster and council. Needless to say the town gave a generous welcome to the man who was foe of their foe—the King of Denmark. But it was not long ere his whereabouts became known, and Christian sent messengers to Lübeck, demanding in high-handed language that Gustavus should be handed over to him. He complained that Vasa had effected his escape contrary to his pledged word as a knight. Gustavus spoke in his own defence.
"I was captured," he said, "contrary to all justice and all plighted faith. It is notorious that I went to the king's fleet as a hostage. Let any one who can, point out the place where I was made prisoner in battle, or declare the crime for which I deserved chains. Call me not then a prisoner, but a man seized upon unjustly, over-reached, betrayed. I am now in a free city, and before a government renowned for justice and for defending the persecuted. Shall I then be altogether deceived in the confidence I have placed in them? or can breach of faith be reasonably objected to me by one who never himself kept faith or promise? or can it be wondered at that I should free myself from prison which I deserved by no fault, except that of trusting to the assurances of a king."
The shrewd burgesses who listened to Gustavus's defence were not misled by his rhetoric, but motives of policy told in his favour. They knew that if Christian were once undisturbed king of the three northern kingdoms, he would possess a power which, as he had already shown, he would not use to the advantage of the League. Here was a young nobleman of fearless character and high talent, a man who hated the king with hereditary hatred and personal animosity. Might he not become a thorn in his side and a clog upon his movements?
This was the view of the matter taken by the burgomaster of Lübeck and put forcibly before his colleagues. It was therefore agreed emphatically to refuse the king's demands, and, instead of giving up Gustavus, to furnish him rather with the means to return to his own country. "For who knows," said the worthy council, "what he may do when he gets there."
To this refusal to deliver up the hostage the King of Denmark replied, through his ambassadors, that he should make a house-to-house search for his prisoner. That was truly more than the proud city could stomach. They answered in the most haughty terms that they should never permit such an interference with their home rights and privileges, and in the presence of the Danish ambassadors reassured the fugitive of their protection and friendship.
When the news of this reply reached Christian, he regarded it as an act of great audacity. From this moment he became a yet more embittered enemy of the Hansa, whose chief city and spokesman he very properly recognized was Lübeck. He harassed them continually in fresh ways; he carried on a yet more envenomed war against the Swedes, of whom he knew the League to be the secret ally and the chief support.
At first success favoured his arms; he broke faith in all directions—plundered, ravaged, sacked. But at last he made the cup of wrath against him overflow by his cruel execution of ninety noble Swedes, in the autumn of 1520; vaunting the deed in insolent heartless words. He had shown them, he said, "how he roasted his Michaelmas goose." Further, in his wanton presumption he did not hesitate to give active expression to his hatred against Lübeck. When congratulated by his councillors that he could now rejoice in the possession of the three northern crowns, he replied: "So long as Lübeck is not in my power, I cannot be happy in my kingdoms."
Shortly after this, Christian set out for the Netherlands to visit his imperial brother-in-law at Ghent. The objects of his journey were various. He wanted to obtain the payment of his consort's marriage portion; to solicit the emperor's aid against his uncle, Frederick of Schleswig Holstein; and yet more to obtain his tacit, if not active assistance, against the Hansa towns on the Baltic, and especially against Lübeck.
It was on the occasion of this visit that Charles V., accompanied by Christian and Margaret of Austria, laid the foundation-stone of Antwerp Cathedral. After this ceremony they returned to Brussels, where Christian entertained his friends at a banquet. Among the guests was the great German painter, Albert Dürer, then visiting the Low Countries. He was then and there commissioned to paint the Danish king's portrait—a portrait that all contemporaries greatly admired as a faithful reproduction of Christian's manly beauty. The artist received thirty florins—a sum that seemed to him munificent, and called forth expressions of real gratitude.
Soon after, Christian presented a petition to the young and inexperienced Charles, in which he begged, as a gift from him, "a little town on the German side of his dominions, called Lübeck, so that when sometimes he passed over to Germany he might possess a place of his own in which to rest." Charles, enlightened by the burgomaster of Cologne to the effect that Lübeck was no "little town," but one of the four imperial cities, and a chief centre of the Hanseatic League, refused his brother-in-law's petition in decisive terms. Nor did Christian fare better with his other demands; Charles had been warned against him, and had been taught to see in him a possible heretic. It is even related that in his anger Christian tore from his neck the Order of the Golden Fleece, given to him by the emperor, and trod it under foot in disdain.
Christian returned home to find fresh difficulties awaiting him, for in his absence Gustavus Vasa had not been idle. This restless patriot had lingered but eight months in the hospitable German city. Young, full of enthusiasm and fire, he longed to be actively at work to aid his oppressed compatriots; and one morning, in the spring of 1520, after confessing his obligations and his gratitude to the Lübeckers, he stole over to the Swedish coast in a little fishing-smack, and landed in territory that was groaning under Christian's oppressions.
At first, Gustavus, who at once assumed the rôle of leader of revolt, could not make himself heard among the peasants. They replied to his instigations in their apathy of oppression with, "Salt and herrings will not fail us as long as we obey the king, but if we rise we are sure of ruin." But Gustavus was undaunted, though he knew a price was put upon his head. For months he scoured the country, travelling by by-paths, sleeping one night in the woods, another in the open fields; assuming now this, now that disguise. Gradually he gathered a following around him, which grew in importance day by day. His influence increased above all after the tidings of the "Bloodbath," for so the terrible massacre came to be called, perpetrated by Christian upon the nobles of Stockholm, on the occasion when he offered them a banquet, apparently of peace, but which proved to them a feast of death.
Chief among Gustavus's allies were the people of Dalecarlia, among whom he went on his mission of revolt dressed in their native dress. This land of valleys is inhabited by a people who have many points of resemblance with the Scotch Highlanders; thinking themselves, as these do, of a superior caste and adhering even to this day to an exaggerated and antiquated mode of dress. Like the Highlanders, too, they are frugal; they are accustomed to drink only water, and often in case of necessity eat bread made of the inner rind of the birch tree, which grows so freely in their woods. It is said that one of the Danish commanders, learning this, exclaimed "A people who can live upon wood and drink water the devil himself could not conquer, much less any other. Let us go hence."
When the Danes heard of the army of peasants that was rising against them, they at first treated the news with great contempt. "If the skies rained peasants," they said, "we would fight them all." But they were soon to see that these peasants were not to be lightly despised. It was before Upsala that Gustavus's army, aided by troops sent to him from Lübeck made its first attack on the Danes. There was a heavy snowfall during the battle, in consequence of which the Danish cavalry and artillery proved of no avail, while the peasants with their irregular mode of warfare were less impeded by the elements. The victory was theirs, and the Danes had to confess that their boast was foolish, "For when God withdraws his hand from a warrior a poor peasant is as good as he."
From this moment success followed success and the prospects of the cause of Gustavus grew steadily brighter. His instructions to his followers were that "they must teach the tyrant that Swedes must be ruled by love, not ground down by cruelty."
In August, 1521, Gustavus was elected administrator of Sweden, and was virtually ruler of the land, though the whole was not yet in his possession. The time of shifts, disguises, and humiliations was now over. The scenes of these, however, the barns where Gustavus threshed, the different spots where he was in the greatest peril—are still pointed out with veneration by the descendants of those peasants who succoured him in his adversity, and boasted that they were the first to help him to a crown.
In this juncture Christian saw himself obliged to send out yet more ships and men against Gustavus. To meet the re-enforced enemy, Vasa turned to Lübeck in 1522 and begged of "his fathers, brothers, friends, and dear neighbours of that town," under promise of eternal gratitude, to help him against "the tyrant," saying he would in his turn and time "accord to them milder privileges and everything that could be to their profit." The burghers decided to accede to this request; ten strong ships were armed to aid Gustavus Vasa and sent out to meet the Danish fleet.
Meanwhile they did not neglect to use the weapons of diplomacy; weapons so often successfully employed by them during their career. They remembered that Duke Frederick of Schleswig Holstein was uncle to Christian II., and that the two had ever been at feud. It occurred to them that it would be well to gain the duke as their ally, promising him the Danish throne in event of their victory; of course in return for important privileges; the Hansa would have been untrue to themselves and their traditional policy had they for one moment left out of sight their own advantages.
This proposal met with assent, and the consequence was that a powerful enemy was thus raised up in the centre of the king's dominions. Christian, following the counsel of Sigbrit, planned another wholesale massacre of the nobles whom he believed favourable to Frederick's cause. The matter got known, and in consequence a council was held by them in which they drew up a deed, renouncing their allegiance to Christian and choosing Frederick in his place to fill the Danish throne.
A question arose as to who should convey the perilous document to the king. A certain monk of Jutland offered to bear the ill tidings. He met the king as he was proceeding to one of his castles. Assuming an open and cheerful countenance he managed to get himself asked to dinner by the king, and continued to amuse him and divert all suspicions till the king retired to rest. Then, placing the despatch in one of his gloves, he left it on the table, went quietly out and escaped by a boat which he had ordered to be in readiness. A page who found the despatch next morning carried it to the king.
Christian, who till then had blustered and disbelieved in real danger, grew alarmed when he read this unexpected paper. He wrote to those who subscribed it saying "that he submitted himself to the emperor and other disinterested princes as his judges. As to the massacre at Stockholm, he would atone for it; he would fill the country with churches and monasteries, and undergo any penance which the Pope might impose. The Council and States should have from him fresh securities, if only they would retract their step and turn from him this dishonour they had meditated." The nobles replied that they acknowledged no tribunal superior to their own; that the king had perjured himself so often that they could not trust him; that he had confessed himself guilty, that the deeds by which he had freed them from their allegiance were known to all the world, and that they had chosen the Duke of Holstein as his successor.
And indeed Frederick, Duke of Holstein, was proclaimed king of Denmark in January, 1523. The Hansa fleet by sea, the support of the clergy and nobles by land—that clergy and those nobles whom Christian had oppressed—conduced to this result.
A manifesto put forth by Lübeck made known to the Emperor of Germany and the Empire how "the city after long patience and repeated prayers, in consideration of her oaths and duties towards the Holy Roman Empire and remembering the inevitable damage done to body, honour, and goods, had taken up arms to prosecute the wanton insurer and aggressor of the Holy Roman Empire."
This manifesto was one of the little farces the Hanseatic League loved to play with their supposed liege lord and sovereign, the Emperor of Germany, each time they took independent action and showed by deeds how little they heeded his authority or wishes.
In vain Christian, after his deposition, tried to rally his subjects around him. Fearing probably that revenge would be taken upon his person for his cruel massacres in Sweden, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Choosing twenty of his best and fastest ships, he placed on board of them all the State papers, all the gold and silver that had been hoarded in the public buildings, and the State jewels. On April 13, 1523, he, his wife and three children together with Sigbrit, "the last packed away in a chest with the treasures," quaintly writes a contemporary chronicler, went on board the largest of the vessels, whereupon they all set sail for the Netherlands. It was nothing more or less than flight, and an acknowledgment that Gustavus Vasa and his ally the Hansa, through its representative Lübeck had conquered; that the League, though declining in might, was still able, as in the most glorious times of its history, to play with kings like dice, deposing and installing them.
Two years later the same city of Lübeck was called upon to arbitrate in a conflict between the two kings, which it thus had made, Frederick of Denmark and Gustavus of Sweden. As the price of its intervention and of the sacrifices it had made on their behalf, the city, in the name of the League, of course, asked great favours, favours which were accorded by treaty, and which were to be the last smiles of Fortune, about to become fickle to the union she had favoured so long.
Meanwhile, in June, 1523, Gustavus Vasa had been, by unanimous consent, elected King of Sweden. It is amusing to read that Stockholm, the last city to surrender to its new ruler, the last faithful to Christian, refused, even after it had capitulated, to deliver up the keys of the gates to Gustavus. The governor handed them over to two Lübeck councillors, present on the occasion, with the words, "We present to the imperial city of Lübeck the kingdom and the city, and not to that rogue, Gustavus Erikson, who stands there."
It must not be supposed, however, that Christian so quietly and easily abandoned his Danish crown to his uncle and rival. He made many attempts to enlist the various courts in his favour. Especially did he try to gain the help of his brother-in-law, the emperor, but the League was too clever and too strong for him. He did get together an army of mercenaries, but his means of paying them soon ran out, though to attain that end he pawned or sold all his treasures and the queen's jewels. At last, he had to fly in terror from his own soldiers who were enraged at his inability either to pay them their wages, or at least lead them to some town they could plunder.
Nevertheless, Christian was not daunted. He was a man not easily dismayed. He intrigued on every hand to regain his kingdom, and at last, fancying that the Lutheran doctrines he had embraced prejudiced the emperor against him, he formally renounced Protestantism and returned into the bosom of the Romish Church.
Christian had not erred in his calculations. This step induced Charles to be more favourable to him, and for a while he lent him his countenance, soon, however, to withdraw it. Still the brief favour sufficed to enable him to get together a strong army to attack Denmark. Frederick, alarmed, turned to Lübeck for aid, and did not turn in vain. Indeed, his ambassadors admitted that "Lübeckers had shown themselves in this time of need, not like mere neighbours, but like fathers to Denmark."
After many vicissitudes of fortune, Christian at last abandoned the idea of regaining his old rights by force of arms. He craved an interview with his uncle and a free passage to Copenhagen. This safe passage was accorded to him and its terms were couched in the most sacred and solemn words. The Hanseatic representatives enforced the promise on their own account. Not suspecting treachery, unwarned, Christian stepped on board the vessel that was to convey him to the Danish capital, and arrived in Copenhagen with the fond hope that Frederick would receive him like the prodigal son. Instead of allowing him to land at once, however, he was detained in the harbour for five days, under the pretext that Frederick was absent, and at last when permitted to set foot on dry land, he was invited to meet the king at Flensburg, and was told that the fleet had orders to carry him thither.
Then, and only then, the unfortunate man suspected that he had been betrayed. And so it was. Frederick and his councillors pronounced the safe conduct null and void; Christian was taken prisoner, and amid fierce ejaculations of rage and despair, was locked up in the "Blue Tower" of the Castle of Sonderburg. Here for fifteen years in company with his favourite dwarf, Christian had to suffer painful confinement that only ended with his death. His confinement was unjust, no doubt, but it was richly merited.
Unmourned by his relations, or the aristocracy he had oppressed, Christian's memory lived among the peasants and lower classes, of whom he had been the supposed friend, a friendship that no doubt had no higher aim than his own ends, but which never had occasion to show its true character. His name, consequently, became a watchword among the people, and inspired those who soon after were to be the leaders in great convulsions in the Scandinavian provinces. But this is outside the course of my history.