1831.] The Hanse T&ivns. 509 



immediate dissolution. Her policy had been bold, but temperate ; that 

 of Eric, her successor, was at once feeble and violent. The Swedes, by 

 nature a singularly restless people, soon declared themselves neglected for 

 the Danes. The Danes pronounced that they were robbed with impunity 

 by the Hanseatic monopolists. The Norwegians were jealous of both, 

 and demanded why they should pay obedience to a king who scorned 

 their crown, and who never visited their capital ? As if only for the 

 purpose of embarrassing himself inextricably, Eric made war on the 

 Count of Holstein, by whose military skill he was perpetually baffled. 

 He provoked the Hanseatics by impeding the herring fishery, and he 

 alienated the German princes by the alternate indolence and rashness of 

 his character. The internal dissensions of the League alone prevented 

 them from now wrenching the tyrant from his throne. But he was not 

 to escape the natural fate of weakness and guilt in high places. The 

 Swedish revolt was renewed under more active auspices. Denmark 

 declared itself beggared by his wars and personal waste. Eric in 

 vain attempted to save himself, by making peace with Holstein, after 

 nine years of ruinous hostility. With equally fruitless effect he aban- 

 doned to the League all its monopolies. The cry of his people still 

 arose, that he was unfit to reign ; until with his mistress, Cecilia, not 

 less obnoxious than himself, and with whatever wealth he could seize, 

 he retired into Gothland. Denmark gave its crown to Christopher, 

 Duke of Bavaria, a son of Eric's sister. The exiled monarch, in wrath, 

 poverty, or despair, turned pirate, and robbed all nations in his exile, 

 as he had robbed his subjects on his throne. This career could not be 

 suffered long : he fled from Gothland, and shortly after died in Pome- 

 rania, obscure and scorned. 



The League had already shewn that it was equal to the highest efforts 

 in the struggle for its rights. But there was reserved for it a yet loftier 

 display for the rights of others. Sweden, whose remoteness from the stir- 

 ring scenes of Europe, and whose barrenness have never saved it from the 

 whole wild game of ambition, intrigue, tyranny, and war Sweden, the 

 country of revolution, was now suffering under the sternest calamity 

 which can afflict the heart of a proud and gallant people. Christiern 

 the Dane, who, even among his own people, had earned for himself the 

 title of Christiern the Bad, had suddenly marched an army of mer- 

 cenaries into Sweden, surprised its forces, seized the young heir to the 

 throne, Gustavus Vasa, and mastered the country, which he delivered 

 over to the savage licence of his soldiery. 



It is for the honour of human nature that there is a point at which 

 oppression works its own ruin. The peasants met in their morasses and 

 mountains, the nobles, as each could elude the vigilance of the tyrant, 

 joined them ; insurrection burst out, and, to complete the peril of the 

 Danes, the young Gustavus escaped from the place of his confinement, 

 and was declared leader of the patriots of Sweden. But the source 

 of this heroic resistance was found in the counting-houses of the League. 

 Hatred of the tyrant, fear of the result of accumulating the power of 

 three crowns on his head, and not less the natural compassion which 

 men of intelligent and civilized minds feel for undeserved misfortune, 

 were motives which roused the whole energy of the Hanse Towns. 

 They sent a fleet into the Baltic, assisted Gustavus in his escape, sup- 

 plied him with money, and were rewarded for their efforts, by seeing the 

 dreaded Union of Calmar* totally and finally dissolved. 



1520. 



