Editing Margaret I of Denmark (section)

==Regency ==
Her first act after her father's death in 1375 was to procure the election of her infant son [[Olaf IV of Norway|Olaf]] as king of Denmark, despite the claims of her elder sister [[Ingeborg of Denmark, Duchess of Mecklenburg|Ingeborg]]'s husband [[Henry III, Duke of Mecklenburg]], and their son [[Albert IV, Duke of Mecklenburg|Albert]]. Margaret insisted that Olaf be proclaimed rightful heir of Sweden, among his other titles. He was too young to rule in his own right, and Margaret proved herself a competent and shrewd ruler in the years that followed. On the death of Haakon in 1380, Olaf succeeded him as King of Norway. Olaf died suddenly in 1387, aged 16, and Margaret, who had ruled both kingdoms in his name, was chosen Regent of Norway and Denmark in the following year. She had already proven her keen statesmanship by recovering possession of [[Schleswig]] from the [[Holstein]]-Rendsburg Counts. The Counts had held it for more than a generation and received it back as a fief by the [[Treaty of Nyborg (1386)|Compact of Nyborg in 1386]],{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=702}} but under such stringent conditions that the Danish Crown received all the advantages of the arrangement. By this compact, the often rebellious [[Jutes|Jutish]] nobility lost the support they had previously enjoyed in Schleswig and Holstein. Margaret, free from fear of domestic sedition, could now give her undivided attention to [[Sweden]], where mutinous nobles, led by Birger (son of Bridget and brother of Martha),{{sfn|Magill|2012|p=627}} were already in arms against their unpopular King [[Albert of Sweden|Albert]]. Several of the powerful nobles wrote to Margaret that if she would help rid Sweden of Albert, she would become their regent. She quickly gathered an army and invaded Sweden.
[[File:King_Albrecht_begs_Queen_Margaret_for_Mercy.png|thumb|right|King Albert begs Queen Margaret for mercy, as imagined in 1589. [[Royal Library, Denmark|The Royal Library]], Denmark.]]
At a conference held at [[Dalaborg]] Castle in March 1388, the Swedes were compelled to accept all of Margaret's conditions, elected her "Sovereign Lady and Ruler", and committed themselves to accept any king she chose to appoint. Albert, who had called her "King Pantsless" returned from Mecklenburg with an army of mercenaries. On 24 February 1389, the decisive battle took place at either Aasle or Falan near [[Falköping]]. General {{ill|Henrik Parow|sv}}, the Mecklenburger commander of Margaret's forces, was killed in battle, but he managed to win it for her.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Daniel Scott|first1=Franklin|title=Sweden, the Nation's History|date=1988|publisher=SIU Press|isbn=9780809314898|page=82|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qv8zxie3A18C&pg=PA82}}</ref> Margaret was now the omnipotent mistress of three kingdoms.{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=702}}

[[Stockholm]], then almost entirely a German city, still held out. Fear of Margaret induced both the Mecklenburg princes and the [[Wends|Wendish]] towns to hasten to its assistance; and the Baltic and the North Sea speedily swarmed with the privateers of the [[Victual Brothers]]. The [[Hanseatic League]] intervened, and under the Compact of Lindholm (1395), Margaret released Albert on his promise to pay 60,000 marks within three years. Meanwhile, the Hansa were to hold Stockholm as surety. Albert failed to pay his ransom within the stipulated time, and the Hansa surrendered Stockholm to Margaret in September 1398 in exchange for commercial privileges.

===Erik of Pomerania===
[[File:Kalmarischeunion 1397 (Palácio da Pena).png|thumb|upright|An allegory of the inception of the [[Kalmar Union]]: Queen Margaret crowning [[Erik of Pomerania]] king of Norway, as depicted in a stained-glass window at [[Pena Palace]], [[Portugal]].]]
It had been understood that Margaret should, at the first convenient opportunity, provide the three kingdoms with a king who was to be a kinsman of all the three old dynasties, although in Norway it was specified that she would continue ruling alongside the new king, while in Sweden, the nobles assured Margaret that they were content to do without a king throughout her lifetime, which they hoped would be long.{{sfn|White|2010|p=56}} In 1389 she proclaimed her great-nephew, Bogislav, who changed his name to [[Erik of Pomerania]] (grandson of Henry of Mecklenburg), king of Norway, having adopted him and his sister [[Catherine of Pomerania-Stolp|Catherine]]. In 1396, homage was rendered to him in Denmark and Sweden, while Margaret once again assumed the regency during his minority.

===Union of Kalmar===
On 20 July, Margaret capitalized on the general rejoicing by publishing the famous Treaty of Kalmar, "a masterly document that sealed the union of Norway, Sweden and Denmark".{{sfn|White|2010|p=56}} The date she chose was no coincidence – it was the Feast Day of [[Margaret the Virgin|St. Margaret of Antioch]], who like the Lady King herself, was cast off by her father and thrown into prison.{{sfn|White|2010|p=57}} The treaty proposed "everlasting union", which reflected her dearest ambition, that "all three realms should exist together in harmony and love, and whatever befalleth one, war and rumors of war, or the onslaught of foreigners, that shall be for all three, and each kingdom shall help the others in all fealty ...and hereafter the Nordic realms shall have one king, and not several."{{sfn|White|2010|p=57}}<ref name="article 4-2020">[https://narratively.com/the-king-who-became-a-pirate/ "The King Who Became a Pirate"], story by Anja Klemp Vilgaard, illustrations by Darya Malikova, edited by Shawna Kenney, April 20, 2020, narratively.com.</ref>

Well aware of regional pride and prejudice, Margaret played a careful strategy, assuring her subjects that each state would be governed according to the laws and customs of each, no new laws would be introduced without the consent of the subjects, officials from governors to soldiers would be recruited from the native populations, thus showing her subjects that they would enjoy every benefit of union without any threat to national identity.{{sfn|White|2010|pp=57-58}} To weld the united kingdoms still more closely together, Margaret summoned a congress of the three [[Rigsraadet|Councils of the Realm]] to [[Kalmar]] in June 1397, and on [[Trinity Sunday]], 17 June, Erik was crowned king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The Act of Union resulting from this was never completed. Scholars continue to debate the reasons, but the Union existed ''de facto'' through the early 16th century reign of King [[Christian II of Denmark|Christian II]], and the union of Denmark and Norway continued until 1814.{{sfn|Magill|2012|p=627}}

A few years after the [[Kalmar Union]], the 18-year-old Erik was declared of age and homage was rendered to him in all his three kingdoms, although Margaret was the effective ruler of Scandinavia throughout her lifetime.<ref name="article 4-2020"/>

===Kalmar Union and royal policy===
[[File:Kalmar Union ca. 1400.svg|thumb|right|220px|The geographical extent of the Kalmar Union in {{circa}} 1400]]
So long as the union was insecure, Margaret had tolerated the presence of the [[Riksråd]], but their influence was minor and the Royal authority remained supreme. The offices of High Constable and Earl Marshal were left vacant; the [[Danehof]] fell into ruin, and "the great Queen, an ideal despot",<ref>{{cite book|last1=Yust|first1=Walter|last2=University of Chicago|title=Encyclopædia Britannica: A New Survey of Universal Knowledge, Volume 14|date=1950|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica|page=876}}</ref> ruled through her court officials, who served as a superior kind of clerk. In any event, law and order were well maintained and the licence of the nobility was sternly repressed. The kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were treated as integral parts of the Danish State, and national aspirations were frowned upon or checked, though Norway, being more loyal, was treated more indulgently than Sweden.

In 1396, according to Grethe Jacobsen, she issued an ordinance that one should to a higher degree than hitherto respect and enforce peace towards church (''pax dei''), houses, farms, legal assemblies, workers in the fields – and women, expressed in the word "kvindefred". Jacobsen believes that as punishment for rape was normally not associated with the other forms for upholding peace in the tradition of pax dei, this may be an expression of Margrete's perception of women as being particularly vulnerable in times of unrest, and for her own interpretation of the ruler as protector of ''personae miserabiles'', which included maidens and widows. Another testament was her dispositions of 1411 through which she distributed the sum of 500 marcs among the women who had been 'violated and debased' during the wars between Sweden and Denmark 1388–1389.{{sfn|Jacobsen|pp=9-10}}
[[File:Royal Arms of Margaret I of Denmark.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Margaret's Royal Arms combined the arms of the three kingdoms, according to the [[Nationalmuseum]].]]
Margaret recovered for the Crown all the landed property that had been alienated in the troubled times before the reign of Valdemar IV. This so-called ''reduktion'', or land-recovery, was carried out with the utmost rigour, and hundreds of estates fell into the hands of the crown. She also reformed the Danish currency, substituting good silver coins for the old and worthless copper tokens, to the great advantage both of herself and of the state. She always had large sums of money at her disposal, and much of it was given to charity.

According to Thomas Kingston Derry, Margaret tried to provide the union with a sound economic basis. In the process, each of her measures (recovery of crown lands from nobility and the church, new taxes and new coins) hurt the interests of powerful classes, but she prevented them from having leadership by making little use of separate councils of her three kingdoms, relying on a body of civil and ecclesiastical officials she chose with great skills instead. She placed Danes in Swedish and Norwegian bishoprics, while royal estates and castles were managed by [[castellan]]s and bailiffs of foreign extraction. While this has been criticized as promoting Danes at the expense of Swedish and Norwegian people, Derry opines that considering she employed more Germans in her native Denmark than elsewhere, she was mainly interested in securing a loyal and efficient administration.{{sfn|Derry|2000|pp=73-74}}
[[File:Dronning Margareta PI XIX 2.jpg|thumb|right|Seal of Margaret, in known use 1381–1409.]]
She travelled much, in her later years is said to have spent more time in Sweden than in Denmark. She encouraged intermarriages among the nobility of three realms. Her piety is well-known, and she gave strong backing to the canonisation of [[Bridget of Sweden|St.Brigitta]], helped to make [[Vadstena]] into a strong cultural centre and encouraged the spread of "Brigittine language", which led to many Swedish expressions coming into use among Danes and Norwegians.{{sfn|Derry|2000|p=74}}

In contrast with the foreign policy of her venturesome father, Margaret's was circumspect and unswervingly neutral in the [[Hundred Years' War|bloody war between France and England]] as well as other European conflicts.{{sfn|Magill|2012|p=627}} However, she spared no pains to recover lost Danish territory. She purchased the island of [[Gotland]] from its actual possessors, [[Albert, King of Sweden|Albert of Mecklenburg]] and the [[Livonian Order]], and the greater part of Schleswig was regained in the same way.

In 1402 Margaret entered into negotiations with King [[Henry IV of England]] about the possibility of a double-wedding alliance between [[England]] and the Nordic Union. The proposal was for King Erik to marry Henry's daughter [[Philippa of England|Philippa]], and for Henry's son, the Prince of Wales and future [[Henry V of England]], to marry Erik's sister [[Catherine of Pomerania, Countess Palatine of Neumarkt|Catherine]]. According to Marc Shell, Margaret's vision was that one day, two unions would unite to recreate [[Cnut the Great]]'s [[North Sea Empire|Empire of the North]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Shell|first1=Marc|title=Islandology: Geography, Rhetoric, Politics|date=2014|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=9780804786294|page=131|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AxBXBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA131}}</ref> The English side wanted these weddings to seal an offensive alliance that could have led the Nordic kingdoms to become involved in the [[Hundred Years' War]] against [[France]]. Margaret followed a consistent policy of not becoming involved in binding alliances and foreign wars, and therefore rejected the English proposals. However, although there was no double wedding, Erik married the 13-year-old Philippa, daughter of Henry IV of England and [[Mary de Bohun]], at [[Lund]] on 26 October 1406, sealing a purely defensive alliance. For Erik's sister Catherine, a wedding was arranged with [[John, Count Palatine of Neumarkt]]. Margaret thus acquired a South German ally, who could be useful as a counterweight to the North German Princes and cities.