Cross and Scepter (36 page)

The second observation, as already pointed out, concerns the national issue, or, perhaps more adequately, the connection between this issue and the constitutional one. We are not dealing with a union king versus a union aristocracy but with a union king versus national aristocracies. Whereas it is relatively easy to imagine a royal power common to the three kingdoms, it is very difficult to imagine the three aristocracies embracing a similar commonality. The aristocracy's main instrument was the council
of the realm, consisting of the bishops and some other clerics and the most prominent members of the lay aristocracy. It was difficult enough for each country to arrange regular meetings of this assembly. It was almost impossible to bring all three together. Although such joint meetings did occasionally take place, most often in connection with royal elections, it would have been impossible to conduct the on-going government of the countries in this way. Consequently, the only way for the aristocracy to retain its influence was to insist on the prerogatives of the national council of the realm. In this way, aristocratic and national interests tended to coincide. Characteristically, Christoffer of Bavaria had to promise in his Swedish election charter of 1441 that the country during the king's absence would be governed by indigenous court officials together with the council of the realm.

This also means that the many examples scholars have found of aristocrats pursuing their own private interests rather than national ones are of only limited interest. The great Swedish leader in the late fifteenth century, Sten Sture the Elder, may well have been a cynical power politician who cared for his own interests rather than those of the Swedish nation. The point, however, is that most of the time he found his interests better served by Swedish independence than by submission to the Danish king, as did the majority of the Swedish aristocrats most of the time.

From the king's point of view, the need to accommodate national demands meant that he had either to travel regularly between the countries—which was a usual requirement specified in the election charters—or to delegate most matters to the national council of the realm. Neither alternative was very attractive. The same applies to an experiment attempted in Erik of Pomerania's reign, when a union council was set up that consisted of a few members of the council of each country. It was not continued in the following period. It is doubtful whether such a council would prove sufficiently representative to replace the national
ones. Although the king traditionally had traveled quite a lot within his own country, the required distances increased enormously as a consequence of the union, which covered the largest territory of any political unit in Europe at the time. On the other hand, leaving most decisions to the council meant being a king in name only. Nor was the council of the realm suited to form a permanent government, the more so as government now became increasingly bureaucratic. Delegation to the council would in practice equate to establishing a permanent chancery with wide powers of decision in each country, which would reduce the king's power even more. The greater distances also meant less personal contact between the king and the aristocracy than before. Only the Danish aristocracy continued to have a regular relationship to the king, although young aristocrats from Norway and Sweden might spend some time at court. The
Sture Chronicle
even hints that Sten Sture the Elder had been a page at Christian I's court.

Regimen politicum
thus in practice meant national government, whereas
regimen regale
meant a strong union. This is also evident in its actual history. The first union, between Norway and Sweden when the king was a minor, illustrates well the aristocratic ideal. The countries were governed by the councils, partly under the leadership of a regent, and links between them were kept to a minimum. A similar practice was introduced during the short reign of Christoffer of Bavaria (1439/42–1448). By contrast, Margrete and Erik built up a union administration in Denmark, after the acquisition of Copenhagen in 1417 increasingly centered in that city, and governed the other countries from there. They managed to increase their control of local administrations by appointing men they could trust to most of the larger and more important
len
, notably those with a castle. They also imposed stricter conditions on the
lenholders
, requiring that they render account for their administrative expenses and leave the surplus to the king instead of keeping the whole in return for services.
Christian I and his successors practiced the same kind of central administration as Margrete and Erik, but, except for Christian II (1513–1523), were somewhat more cautious regarding the local administration.

To the king, loyal men meant men dependent on him, either lowborn or foreigners or both. In Sweden and Norway, noble foreigners, Danes or Germans, might serve the purpose equally as well as lowborn men, which had the additional advantage of satisfying the aristocracy nearest at hand. In Denmark, lowborn men and Germans might be used as a counterweight against the Danish aristocracy, but, on the other hand, it was easier to rule in cooperation with the council of the realm in the country that was the king's main residence. Moreover, the career opportunities the union offered Danish aristocrats were incentives for cooperation with the king and would make some amount of
regimen regale
palatable to them. Despite the common front that the Danish and Swedish aristocracies eventually formed against Erik of Pomerania, the Danish council of the realm normally sided with the king during union conflicts, and its members showed no solidarity with their Norwegian counterparts when the Norwegian council was abolished in 1536.

Another issue of national relevance was foreign policy. As we have seen, the three countries had widely different interests in this field, but the union monarchs normally pursued the traditional Danish aim of expansion in Northern Germany. This was a particularly prominent concern under Erik of Pomerania, whose main aim was to get hold of the Duchy of Schleswig, the southern part of the country that had been given as a fief to a sideline of the dynasty in the thirteenth century and whose duke was now the count of the neighboring area of Holstein, a fief under the emperor. Erik carried out a prolonged and costly war in these areas, which was financed by increased taxation in all three countries, and which contributed to the resentment against
him in Sweden. Christian I in 1460 managed to get control not only of Schleswig but also of Holstein, against the payment of 30,000 marks silver, almost as much as the sum Magnus Eriksson had paid for Scania (above p. 244). To finance this, he imposed a tax in Sweden that led to his deposition four years later.

Increased taxation was normally resented by the common people, but it might be supported by the elites if they found that it served their interests. However, the Swedish and Norwegian elites would hardly be interested in Danish conquest in Northern Germany. In the case of Sweden, there was the additional problem that the Danish kings' policy in Germany often brought them into conflict with the Hanseatic League, on which the Swedes depended for their export of iron. Such conflicts might also create problems for the Norwegians, although there were more varied attitudes to the Hansa in that country. Otherwise, the Norwegians were as uninterested in Danish expansion in Germany as the Swedes, whereas the Danish king for his part showed little interest in the traditional Norwegian possessions in the Atlantic Islands. Thus, when Christian I married his daughter to the King of Scotland in 1468, he mortgaged the Orkneys and Shetland in order to pay her dowry, which resulted in the islands being permanently ceded to Scotland. This was probably also Christian's intention; he preferred a good relationship with Scotland to some distant islands that probably produced little profit. The Norwegian council of the realm was offended, however, and Christian's successors had to promise in their election charters that they would redeem the islands, a promise that they never kept.

The incompatible aims of Danish and Swedish foreign policy were revealed in a drastic way around 1500. To put pressure on the Swedes before the 1497 invasion, King Hans had concluded an alliance against Sweden with the Russian Grand Prince Ivan III (1493), who shortly before (1471) had taken control of Novgorod.
The Russians launched a massive attack against Finland and almost managed to storm Viborg, but were defeated and had to conclude a six-year peace agreement in 1497. When Russian envoys arrived in Sweden in 1501 to complain that the Swedes were not fulfilling the agreement, they revealed the previous arrangement with the Danes, which contributed to the new rebellion in Sweden in the same year.

The main argument in favor of the union for the Norwegian and Swedish aristocracies was peace. The union would eliminate rivalry between the countries, whereas the Swedes' cession from it provoked Danish attempts to force them back. It also worked in the interests of aristocrats with lands in more than one country, notably as the result of Scandinavian intermarriage, which became more frequent during the union period. Thus, the union king could often rely on the support of the aristocracy in the border region between Denmark and Sweden. In most cases, however, such aristocrats had one country as their main residence and often exchanged lands so as to concentrate most of their possession in one country. Men who established themselves in a country other than their fatherland would most often identify their interests with those of their new country. Provisions about reserving offices for the aristocracy of one country normally included such men. The majority of at least Norwegian and Swedish aristocrats were therefore more likely to prefer having
len
and offices in their home country reserved for themselves over opening up the whole of Scandinavia for competition between aristocrats from all three countries.

At least from a Swedish point of view, the arguments against the union would seem to outweigh those in its favor. In Norway, the weakest of the three countries, the peace argument seems to have been strongest. The Norwegian aristocracy remained loyal to Erik of Pomerania longer than its Danish and Swedish counterparts did, and there were no serious attempts to elect a separate
Norwegian king. The Norwegian alternative to the union with Denmark was therefore a union with Sweden. Karl Knutsson had considerable support in Norway in 1448–1450 but finally had to give up. The most serious rebellion in Norway, which started in 1501, was closely connected with that in Sweden and, if successful, would probably have led to some kind of union with Sweden.

Against this background, it comes as no surprise that the union of the three countries eventually collapsed. Sweden became a fully independent kingdom under its own king and Norway became a Danish dependency. It is a more open question when the point of no return was reached. The fact that the Swedes did not elect their own king in the period between Karl's death in 1470 and Gustaf Vasa's election in 1523 may indicate that they regarded the union as a possibility throughout the period. However, a more plausible explanation is that they intended to keep the Danish king at bay by means of endless negotiations, while ostensibly keeping the door open for a revival of the union. In addition, the protectors may have been afraid of offending their fellow aristocrats by claiming a higher rank; Karl Knutsson's failures would likely have served as a warning.

Although the union was renewed as late as in 1520, it seems gradually to have become a less realistic alternative. In 1457, the Swedes on their own initiative chased Karl Knutsson out of the country and invited Christian I to be their king. In 1497, there was a rebellion against Sten Sture, but it would hardly have succeeded had not King Hans arrived with an army. In the years between 1517 and 1520, Christian II repeatedly mobilized great and costly armies against the Swedes and was repeatedly defeated. His last and greatest mobilization only succeeded because Sten Sture was killed. Even then Christian was aided by a Swedish opposition movement, which was, however, more anti-Sture than pro-Danish. Thus, Swedish support for a union was gradually diminishing between 1457 and 1520. Whether or not a different course of action by Christian might have saved it in the 1520s,
remains an open question, but the most likely answer is no. In any case, the best he could hope to achieve would be to become a figurehead in the aristocratic republic of Sweden. By contrast, Gustaf and his successors developed a strong monarchy in Sweden, partly based on the foundations laid by the Stures, which made Sweden into a great European power in the next century.

Recently, however, Harald Gustafsson has argued that the union was a realistic alternative throughout the period and that even Gustaf Vasa's election in 1523 did not put a definitive end to it. Gustaf did not confine his ambitions to Sweden but tried to get hold of as much as he could from the other countries as well. He occupied the Bohuslän region of Norway and parts of Halland and Blekinge in Denmark, and he tried to hold on to them as long as possible. Gustaf was an ambitious man who may well have wanted to extend the borders of Sweden. However, when he proclaimed himself king on June 6, 1523, he knew not only that the Danes had rebelled against Christian, but also that their candidate to the throne was Christian's uncle Frederik. Although Gustaf would not have declined the union throne for patriotic reasons, it seems extremely unlikely that he believed it would be offered to him. In addition to satisfying personal ambition, Gustaf's election must have aimed at blocking any attempt to renew the union under a new and more acceptable Danish ruler.

As we have seen, dynastic unions were a common phenomenon in the later Middle Ages. The likelihood of any such union becoming permanent seems to have been greatest when one of the partners was significantly stronger than the other, and when they were situated close to one another. Castile and Aragon (from 1479) and England and Scotland (from 1603) are examples of this. However, both of these unions met with considerable problems later in their history and within both there has recently been a revival of separatist movements. A successful example that does not fit this pattern is Poland-Lithuania, in union from 1386. The populations in the two countries were about equal, but the
territory of Lithuania was about three times as large as that of Poland. This was a loose union, however, and the two countries themselves were not very centralized, which meant that there was no strong incentive to oppose the union. The Habsburg Empire would also seem to be an exception. It consisted of a large number of countries without any core area strong enough to dominate the others. Considerable diplomacy was therefore needed to hold it together, but the emperor also had some extra advantages: the imperial title, which gave some prestige and symbolic power, and the Counter Reformation, which enabled him to defeat the Protestants in Bohemia and achieve stricter control of the country. Finally, the threat from the Turks enabled him to come forward as a liberator of Christians from Turkish rule.