1831.] The Hanse Towns. 513 



Dane or Swede, with whom he probably had long personal intercourse 

 and whom at least, he must have felt entitled to the claims of a common 

 nature. A counter-revolution commenced. The former senate were 

 restored. Their first act was to return to the peaceful maxims of their 

 ancestors. They proposed a truce. A congress was held at Hamburgh,* 

 and the war of Lubeck was at end. 



The Count of Oldenburgh, who had flattered himself with the hope 

 of seizing a territory in the general dismemberment still held out in 

 Malmae and Copenhagen. But he was pushed vigorously. Famine 

 finished the sieges, and Christiern the Second, made his triumphal entry 

 into Copenhagen, on a day which is still recorded as the second birth of 

 the throne, t 



The fate of the " regents/' of Lubeck, Wullemwur and Meyer, is but 

 a part uf the customary picture of popular ambition. Those men, who 

 had been idolized in the day of their prosperity, had now become objects 

 of the fiercest aversion. All the misfortunes of the war were heaped 

 upon their heads, their splendid talents and services were forgotten in 

 this indiscriminate calumny. Their noble expenditures for the state 

 were imputed to avarice. Their intelligence, valour, and grandeur of 

 design which had raised Lubeck to the summit of the League, were now 

 converted into presumption, rashness and personal cupidity. Their fate 

 may be easily conjectured. They had raised a spirit which was too 

 strong for them to lay, and in making the populace the arbiters of the 

 republic, they had signed their own death-warrant. "They were" 

 justly says the historian, " undoubtedly no common men. They had 

 given proof of great courage, and of genius firm, vast, and daring. They 

 clearly belonged to that class of mankind, fortunately a small one, which 

 possesses all qualities for the overthrow of established things, and for the 

 termination of their own career on either the throne or the scaffold." J 

 The ' ' regents" died by the hands of the public executioner. 



The establishment of the factories was one of the most characteristic 

 and effective conceptions of the League. Among the jealous and half- 

 barbarian people of Europe, the merchant was always an object of 

 mingled envy and contempt, and the Hanse Towns had found at an early 

 period that an unprotected commerce was only an allurement to plunder. 

 Their only resource was to form large communities in the principal coun- 

 tries, capable of giving protection to their traders, of receiving their car- 

 goes direct, and by their superior knowledge of local circumstances, fitted 

 to avail themselves directly of all the advantages of their position. To 

 those who recognize a factory under its modern aspect, the solemn and 

 formal rules of the ancient school of commerce must appear singularly 

 forbidding. The age was one of cloisters and chivalry, and the Han- 

 seatic factories curiously combined the spirit of both. The factory at 

 Bergen, the model of them all, was at once a fortress and a convent. Its 

 tenants were at once knights, and recluses. Its buildings spread over 

 a large quarter of the city, and its walls were regularly mounted by 

 guards attended by dogs of extraordinary ferocity, trained to fly equally 

 at friend or foe. No person was permitted to pass the gates after night- 

 fal. To prevent the influence of external manners or interests, all alli- 

 ance with the people of the country was strictly prohibited. Its inmates 



* 1536. f 14 th July, 1536. 



$ Mallet. Histoire de la Ligne. 



M.M. Nciv Series.-*VoL. XL No. 65. 3 U 



