477 



WALDEMAR I. 



WALDEMAR II. 



478 



Mary, daughter of Sir John Webbe of Hathcrop, in the county of 

 Gloucester, Barouct. 



James, who was his eldest son, was born on the 14th of March, 1715. 

 Attaching himself to the court, aud becoming a favourite of George II., 

 he was in 1743 appointed a lord of the bedchamber; and in April 

 1751, among the changes which took place on the death of Frederick, 

 Prince of Wale*, he was made steward and warden (or master) of the 

 Stannaries. About a year and a half after this, in December 1752, 

 Lord Waldegrave, at the earnest request of the king, was prevailed 

 upon to accept the office of governor to the young Prince of Wales, 

 which Lord Harcourt had resigned. In 1756 Lord Waldegrave ob- 

 tained a grant of the reversion of one of the tellerships of the exche- 

 quer, and iu less than two months after he came into possession of this 

 lucrative appointment by tho death of Horace, Lord Walpole. In 

 1759 he married Maria, the second of the three natural daughters of 

 Sir Edward Walpole, K.B. (second son of Sir Robert), by Maria Cle- 

 ments, a milliner's apprentice, whose father was postmaster at 

 Darlington. This lady, equally distinguished by her beauty and her 

 virtues, was twenty years younger than the earl; and in 1766, after 

 his death, remarried William Henry, duke of Gloucester, brother of 

 George III., whom she also survived, dying in 1807, at the age of 

 seventy-two. She was the mother of the late Duke of Gloucester, and 

 of the Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester. 



The most important political transaction in which Earl Walde- 

 grave was engaged, was the attempt into which he was forced by 

 the king, in June 1757, to form a ministry, with himself at its head. 

 He was actually appointed first lord of the treasury. " The public," 

 says Walpole, " was not more astonished at that designation than the 

 earl himself." Of the negociations connected with this project, which 

 was abandoned after a few days, a sketch is given by Walpole (' Me- 

 moires,' ii. 220-223), but the most ample details have been preserved 

 by the earl himself. Proposals were also made to him to take office in 

 the last days of Lord Bute's administration, in the end of March 1763. 

 The day after he had finally declined these overture?, on the 1st of 

 April, he was attacked by small-pox, and his death followed on the 

 28th of that month. Leaving only three daughters, he was succeeded 

 in the earldom by his brother John. 



An account of the political and court transactions of a portion of his 

 own time by Earl Waldegrave was published under the title of 

 'Memoirs from 1754 to 1758,' in a quarto volume, in 1821. This 

 work, which had evidently been prepared with the intention that it 

 should be given to the public, is a clear, full, and trustworthy narra- 

 tive, and throws much light upon the restless and complicated in- 

 trigues of the latter part of the reign of George II. It leaves a very 

 favourable impression of the writer, of his clear-headedness, as well as 

 of his sincerity and frankness, although it has nothing of the manner 

 of an anxious or systematic defence of his conduct. 



WALDEMAR I., King of Denmark, reigned from A.D. 1157 to 1181. 

 He was the son of Knud, or Cauut, duke of Sleswig, aud king of the 

 Obotrites in Mecklenburg, a prince of the first royal dynasty of Den- 

 mark. He was born on the 15th of January 1131, eight days after the 

 murder of his father, who perished during the civil troubles which 

 then desolated Denmark. To save her sou from a similar fate, his 

 mother, Ingeborg, a Russian princess, fled with him to her native 

 country, where the young prince lived during the earlier part of his 

 youth. He afterwards returned to Denmark, and on the death of 

 King Erik IV., Emund, in 1139, Waldemar was chosen king, but on 

 account of his youth he was put under the guardianship of Erik, sur- 

 named Lam, the son-in-law of the lato King Erik III., Eiegod. Erik 

 Lam, disregarding the rights of his ward, usurped the royal authority 

 and reigned as Erik V., till 1147, when he resigned and retired to a 

 convent. The guardianship of young Waldemar was now disputed 

 between Svend Eriksen and Knud Magnusen, both royal princes, and 

 the contest having been terminated by a decision of the Emperor 

 Frederic I., Barbarossa, which was favourable to Sveud, that prince 

 assumed the title of king, and in 1156 murdered Knud, who had like- 

 wise styled himself king, and reigned in a part of Denmark as Knud or 

 Canut V. Svend also intended to murder Waldemar, who however 

 escaped and made war on Svend, commonly called Sueno IV., whom 

 he defeated in the battle of Viborg, when the usurper was slain by 

 some plundering peasants. This battle was fought on the 22nd of 

 September 1157, and from this day dates the reign of Waldemar, 

 whose rights to the crown were no longer disputed. 



Duriug the first years of his reign Waldemar was occupied with 

 restoring domestic peace to his kingdom. In 1168 he made an alliance 

 with Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, for the purpose of subjugating 

 the Obotrites and other Wendish or Slavonian nations in the north- 

 eastern part of Germany, over which the kings of Denmark and the 

 emperors of Germany had hitherto exercised a nominal authority. 

 The Danish army and navy were commanded by Absalon, the warlike 

 archbishop of Roeskild, who took Arcona, the capital of the Wendish 

 empire, in the island of Rugi'U, and broke the idols of Swantewit and 

 other gods of the heathen Wendes. In 1170 he took Julin, the Con- 

 stantinople of tho north (Krantz, ' Wandalia,' lib. iii.), and the northern 

 limit of an overland trade with Asia Minor, Persia, and India, the 

 direction of which we may now trace, since the discovery of numerous 

 Arabic coins along the banks of the Dnieper aud the Volga. (Rasmussen, 

 'De Orientia Commercio cum Russia et Scandinavia Medio Aevo ;' a 



rare book, extracts from which are given in ' Journal Afliatique,' vol. v., 

 1824, p. 340, &c.) 



After these defeats the Wendes of Riigen, Mecklenburg, and the 

 most western part of Pomerauia recognised the Danish king as their 

 sovereign, and Waldemar did homage for his conquests to the Emperor 

 Frederic I., whom he met at Lona-le-Saulnier, in the present Franche- 

 Comte". It has been said that he also did homage for his kingdom of 

 Denmark, and this opinion, which has roused the national pride of co 

 many Danish historians, is not without foundation. The title of 

 King of the Wendes, which is still retained among the other titles of 

 the kings of Denmark, dates from the conquests of Bishop Absalon. 

 Waldemar also acquired the most southern part of Norway, which he 

 took from King Erling. The latter years of his reign were troubled 

 by a rebellion of Eskild, bishop of Lund, in Scania, which province 

 belonged to Denmark at that time. Waldemar died on the 12th of 

 May 1181 (some say 1182), at Wordingborg, and it was said that he 

 was poisoned. Waldemar I. was not a warrior only, he is equally dis- 

 tinguished as a legislator; he ordered the laws of several of his 

 provinces to be collected, and he added his own, which are still pre- 

 served in the great collections of the Danish law. The Danes call him 

 'the Great;' but, without prejudice to bis merits, this title is more 

 than he deserves. Waldernar's successor was his eldest son Knud or 

 Canut VI., whom he had by Sophia, princess of Pomerania. 



(Holberg, Baron af, Dannemark's lliges Histone,\o\. L, p. 208-247; 

 Krantz, Saxonia ; Wandalia ; Mallet, Hisloii'e du Danemark.) 



WALDEMAR II., surnamed Seier, or ' the Victorious,' king of Den- 

 mark, who reigned from 1202 to 1241, was the second son of Walde- 

 mar I. His brother, King Knud, or Canut VI., conferred upon him 

 the duchy of Sleswig, and was assisted by him in the consolidation of 

 the Danish government in the Baltic provinces, which had been con- 

 quered by W T aldemar I., and in those of which some parts were 

 conquered during the reign of Knud VI., namely, Estland, Kurland, 

 and Livonia. During the rebellion of Waldemar, bishop of Sleswig, 

 who likewise belonged to the royal houae of Denmark, and who was 

 assisted by Adolphus III., count of Holstein, he took the field for his 

 brother, and they succeeded in conquering Holstein, and in driving 

 out the rebellious prelate, who fled to Germany (1200). After the 

 death of Knud in 1203, Waldemar ascended the throne, and his 

 subjects, as well as his neighbours, soon found that Denmark was 

 ruled by a great king. He finally established the Danish authority in 

 the Wendish provinces, the population of which, a headstrong but not 

 uncivilised race, was still ready for rebellion. The Danish possessions 

 in Esthlaud, Kurland, and Livonia having been menaced by the natives, 

 Waldemar availed himself of the occasion to carry a plan into exe- 

 cution which, if not his own idea, was at least realised by him. This 

 was to found a Baltic empire, consisting of Denmark, the key and 

 centre of the whole, Holstein, Mecklenburg, all Pomerania, Kurland, 

 Livonia, Esthland, the large islands in the middle part of the Baltic, 

 and the southern part of Sweden and Norway. The same plan was after- 

 wards conceived and partly realised by the great Gustavus Adolphus of 

 Sweden, and similar empires were founded by the Carthaginians in the 

 Mediterranean, by Mithridates round the Pontus, and on a smaller 

 scale by Venice round the Adriatic Sea and the Archipelago. If this 

 Danish empire was of short duration, it was the result of two causes 

 which have been and always will be equally dangerous to such 

 empires. The immense extent of narrow tracts along the sea-shore 

 afford innumerable points of attack to the continental nations who 

 are excluded from the coast by those tracts, and they can only be 

 defended by a great navy, the chief condition of which is an extensive 

 commerce. Now Denmark being the centre and key of that empire, 

 only the military condition of its existence was fulfilled, while the 

 commercial condition only existed temporarily. The Sound was not 

 then, as it is now, frequented by ships of all nations, for the commerce 

 in the Baltic had a more southerly direction from Russia towards the 

 coasts of Pomerania and Holstein, whence the merchandise was carried 

 overland to Germany and France. However, for a short period, 

 Waldemar, being in possession of Wisby, Julin (or at leaat the mouth 

 of the Oder, for the town is said to have been entirely (1) destroyed by 

 Bishop Absalon), and also of Liibeck, was enabled, by the advantages 

 which he derived from the merchandise of those towns, to raise that 

 formidable force, the greater part of which he employed in the con- 

 quest of Livonia and the adjoining provinces. His army consisted of 

 160,000 men, and he had a navy of 1200 ships. He sailed for Livonia 

 in 1219. The main body of the army, consisting of Danes, and com- 

 manded by Andreas, bishop of Lund, was surprised by the natives and 

 in danger of being cut to pieces, when it was relieved by the king's 

 Wendish and German auxiliaries, who won the day. Tradition says 

 that in the midst of danger a flag fell from heaven, at the sight of 

 which the Danes recovered their courage. This was the ' Danebrog,' 

 in memory of which the Order of the Danebrog was founded. The 

 campaign resulted in the conquest of Esthland, Livonia, and Kurland, 

 and a Danish bishop took up his residence at Riga. During the con- 

 test of Frederic II. and Otho of Brunswick for the imperial crown, 

 Waldemar assisted Frederic, who in his turn acknowledged him as 

 king of the Slavonians or Wends, a title which had already been 

 assumed by Waldemar I. Waldemar was now the ruler of the North, 

 but his greatness was humbled by the treachery of a petty German 

 count. Henry, count of Schwerin, had some reason to complain of 



