479 



WALDEMAR III. 



WALES, WILLIAM. 



the king, and not having obtained satisfaction, he treacherously seized 

 him in the island of Laaland, brought him on board a vessel ready for 

 that purpose, and carried him to Schwerin. The numerous enemies of 

 the king protected the count, and even Frederic II. acted in a way 

 which clearly showed that he was pleased with the fate of his rival iu 

 the North. Pope Honorius III. alone took the part of the captive 

 king, whose assistance he wished to have in his contest with the 

 emperor; and by his mediation Waldemar was released in 1225, on 

 condition of paying 45,000 marks of silver, an enormous sum for the 

 time, ceding Holstein to its legal possessor Count Adolphus IV., and 

 renouncing the sovereignty of Mecklenburg, which from that time was 

 governed by the descendants of its ancient Slavonic kings, the pro- 

 genitors of the present house of Mecklenburg, who did homage to 

 the emperor. No sooner was Waldemar restored to liberty than he 

 forgot his promises, and aimed at recovering those provinces which he 

 had ceded, and which had been occupied by his enemies. The first in 

 importance among his enemies were Count Adolphus IV. of Holstein, 

 and the citizens of Liibeck, who, during the military government of 

 Waldemar, had prudently attracted to their town the commerce of 

 the Baltic. Waldemar had now to learn that all power was transient 

 which owes its existence merely to the military genius of a king, and 

 is not the result of the well-directed activity of the community. The 

 king was powerful, without having the means of preserving his power, 

 and those industrious citizens, being possessed of such means, were for- 

 midable even before they knew it. In the battle of Bornhovd, a village 

 not far from Eutin in Holstein, the Danish army was totally routed, 

 by tho united forces of Liibeck, Holstein, and some neighbouring 

 prince?, and the king narrowly escaped death or captivity. He con- 

 cluded peace in 1229, and was fortunate in escaping new humiliations. 

 He renewed the war with Liibeck in 1234, but his iiavy was destroyed, 

 and he was compelled to grant extensive privileges to the commerce of 

 this town, which soou became known as the head of the Hanseatic 

 confederation. Waldemar employed the rest of his life in the peaceful 

 government of the remainder of his empire. During his reign the 

 clergy and nobility rose to great influence, and the freemen gradually 

 lost their political rights, which we may conclude from the circumstance 

 that the ancient 'things,' or 'dings,' that is, meetings of the whole 

 community, were changed into 'herredage/ or 'lords' days,' that is, 

 assemblies of the lords temporal and spiritual. Waldemar ordered the 

 laws of Jutland to be collected : this is the ' Jydske Lov,' which is still 

 in use in Jutland. It is contained in the great collections of the Danish 

 laws, and there are also several separate editions of it. Waldemar II., 

 sometimes called the Great, and with more justice than his father, 

 died on the 28th of March 1241. His first wife was Margaretha 

 Dankmar, daughter of Przemisl Ottokar I., king of Bohemia. After 

 her death he married Berengaria, daughter of Sancho I., king of 

 Portugal. His eldest son Waldemar, who was married to Eleonora, 

 daughter of Alphonso II., king of Portugal, died before his father, 

 without leaving issue. He was Duke of Sleswig, and is often called 

 King Waldemar III., but he never reigned. The successor of Walde- 

 mar II. was his second son, Erik VI., Plogpenning. 



WALDEMAR III. (IV.), surnamed Atterdag, was the son of King 

 Christopher, who was deposed and banished in 1326. Waldemar was 

 chosen king in hia stead, but on account of his youth he was placed 

 under the guardianship of Gerd, or Gerhard, count of Holstein, of the 

 house of Schauenburg, surnamed the Arbiter of the North. The 

 Danes, having been oppressed by Gerd, recalled Christopher, in whose 

 hands young Waldemar voluntarily placed his authority. Gerd forced 

 the king to cede him half of his kingdom, and after the death of 

 Christopher, in 1331, he again became guardian of Waldemar, and 

 continued so for nine years. His pupil however was not in Denmark, 

 but was educated at the court of Louis of .Bavaria, emperor of Ger- 

 many. After the murder of Gerd, in 1340, the Danes recalled Walde- 

 mar, who made his peace with the sons of Gerd, and sold the province 

 of Scania to Magnus, king of Sweden. In 1347 he also sold Esthland, 

 Kurland, and Livonia, which had been conquered by Waldemar II., 

 to the grand-master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, for 18,000 marks 

 of silver. With the money he raised an army, and although he 

 renounced Livonia and the sister-provinces, he attacked King Magnus 

 of Sweden, in 1361, and forced him to cede Scania. He also conquered 

 the island of Gothland, which remained a Danish province till 1645. 

 He was less successful in two wars with the Hanseatic towns, and he 

 did not obtain peace until he had given up almost the whole commerce 

 of Denmark into the hands of those powerful citizens, who treated the 

 king with great haughtiness. The treaty by which the second war 

 was finished, in 1364, was particularly humiliating for the king: the 

 treaty of peace begins : ' We, the burgomasters, aldermen and citizens 

 of the towns of Liibeck, &c., promise to grant an eternal peace to 

 Waldemar, king of Denmark, the Wends, and Goths/ This is the 

 first instance of the title of king of the Goths having been given to the 

 king of Denmark, and it seems that Waldemar assumed it after the 

 conquest of the island of Gothland. The title is still used in Den- 

 mark. In 1363 Waldemar gave his daughter Margaretha in marriage 

 to Hagen or Hakou, the son and heir of Magnus, king of Norway. In 

 1369 he waa again involved in war with the Hanseatic towns, and 

 after the destruction of his navy, as well as his army, he begged for 

 peace, in 1370, and ceded to these towns the province of Scania for 

 fifteen years. 



Waldemar III. died in 1373, the last of the first Danish dynasty, 

 which had ruled in Denmark from the beginning of Danish history. 

 He left two daughters : Ingeborg, married to Henry, duke of Mecklen- 

 burg; and Margaretha, married to Hakou of Norway, as already 

 observed. After the death of Waldemar, one part of the Danes 

 wished to chose Albrecht, duke of Mecklenburg, the son of Ingeborg, 

 for their king, while another part voted for Olaua, the son of Marga- 

 retha. A civil war broke out, which however was soon terminated by 

 an agreement that Olaus should be king. But on account of hia 

 youth, Olaus was put under the guardianship of his mother Marga- 

 retha, who afterwards succeeded in uniting the three Scandinavian 

 kingdoms by the Union of Kalmar. 



WALDO, or VALDO, PETER, was born at Vaux, on the borders 

 of the Rhone, iu France, early in the 12th century. He acquired a 

 large fortune by commerce in Lyon, when the sudden death of a 

 friend occasioned him to devote himself to a religious life. He sold 

 his goods, and gave the produce to the poor; he caused the Four 

 Gospels to be translated into his native language by Stephanus de 

 Eva, about 1160, and read and explained them to the recipients of hia 

 alma. In 1170, from a frequent reading of the Scriptures, he arrived 

 at the conviction that ho had equally with the priests the ri<,'ht of 

 preaching the word of God. This theory involved him immediately 

 in a persecution. In 1179 the doctrine was formally condemned by a 

 general council held in the Lateran at Rome, and the condemnation 

 has been repeated more than once. Forced to quit Lyon he retired 

 to the mountains of Dauphind, and thence, it is said, to those of Pied- 

 mont. Here his followers and adherents increased, and he has thence 

 been assumed to be the founder of the reformed creed of the Vaudois; 

 though Theodore Beza, and Jean L6ger, the historian of the sect, con- 

 tend, and we think with justice, that the sect was of an earlier origin 

 than the time of Waldo, or rather, that the Waldenses, the followers of 

 Waldo, differ in some degree from the Vaudois, and the two were often 

 confounded by the uninitiated. Mosheim is of the contrary opinion. 

 It is probable however that the nature of his tenets, so well according 

 with those of the Vaudois, may have had considerable effect in con- 

 solidating and fixing then: creed, and a translation of the Scriptures 

 into the Vaudois tongue is attributed to him. In the earlier persecu- 

 tions of his followers they were frequently styled Leonists, from the 

 Latin name of the city of Lyon, to which Peter had belonged. He is 

 said to have visited Bohemia, and to have spread his doctrines there ; 

 and Protestants admit him as a precursor of Luther. The period of 

 his death is uncertain, but it probably took place about 1190. 



WALES, WILLIAM, an English mathematician and astronomer, 

 was born about the year 1734, of parents in humble circumstances. It 

 is not known in what manner he received the rudiments of education, 

 and it is probable that he was one of the many persons who, for their 

 attainments in science, owe more to nature and intense application 

 than to the precepts of a teacher. 



He first distinguished himself as a contributor to the ' Ladies' Diary,' 

 a work containing an extensive collection of mathematical propositions 

 with their solutions. It was begun in the year 1704 ; and under the 

 able direction of Beighton, Thomas Simpson, and Dr. Charles Hutton, 

 it had no small influence in promoting the advance of science in this 

 country during the 18th century : it may be added that it still 

 numbers among its contributors several eminent mathematicians. 

 Many of the solutions which were given by Mr. Wales, are signed 

 with his own name, but occasionally they appear under fictitious 

 signatures. 



The merit shown in these solutions appears to have procured for 

 him a recommendation to the government; and in 1768 he was ap- 

 pointed, together with Mr. Dyinond, to go to Hudson's Bay, for the 

 purpose of observing in that region the transit of Venus over the sun's 

 disc, which was to take place in the following year (June 1769). The 

 observations were made at Fort Prince of Wales, and each of the 

 observers was so fortunate as to witness the exterior and interior con- 

 tact at both the commencement and end of the transit. Mr. Wales 

 made at the same place a great number of astronomical observations, 

 an account of which was published iu the ' Philosophical Transactions ' 

 for 1769; and again, in 1772, in a separate work, entitled 'General 

 Observations made at Hudson's Bay,' &c., 4to, London. He also, prin- 

 cipally, as he observes, for amusement during the many dreary hours 

 which he passed on the shores of Hudson's Bay, computed tables of 

 the equations to equal altitudes, for facilitating the solution of the 

 problem relating to the determination of time : these tables were first 

 published in the ' Nautical Almanac ' for 1773 ; and again, in the year 

 1794, in his tract entitled 'The Method of Finding the Longitude by 

 Timekeepers,' Svo. 



Mr. Wales returned to England in 1770, and in 1772 he published 

 ' The two books of Apollonius concerning Determinate Sections,' 4to, 

 London. In the same year he was appointed, together with Mr. Bayly, 

 and with the title of astronomer, to accompany Captain Cook in his 

 second voyage for the circumnavigation of the earth; and on the 

 return of the expedition he was (in 1776) elected a fellow of the Royal 

 Society. The series of astronomical observations which had been 

 made during the voyage, with an introduction by Wales, was published 

 in 1777, at the expense of the Board of Longitude, in a quarto volume, 

 with charts and plates. In the same year was published by Wales a 

 tract entitled ' Observations on a Voyage with Captain Cook ; ' aud iu 



