DENMARK 



757 



anarchy mnl inglorious decadence of the authority 

 of the crown, during which the kingdom wan 

 brought to i IK- lirink of annihilation. I'ndcr his 

 great-grandson, Waldeiuar IV., Denmark made a 

 transient recovery of tin- conquests of the older 

 AValdemars, rousing the jealousy of the llatiseatic 

 League (q.v,), and tlie national laws were codilied. 

 From his death in i:{7"> till 141'2, his daughter, the 

 great Margaret, widow of llakon VI. of Norway, 

 ruled not only that country and Denmark, lmt in 

 .inline oi lime Sweden also, with BO lie) it yet firm 

 a hand that for once in the course of their history 

 the three rival Scandinavian kingdoms were con- 

 tent to act in harmony. Margaret 8 successor, Eric, 

 the son of her niece, for whose sake she had striven 

 to give permanence, by the act known as the Union 

 of Calinar ( 131)7), to the amalgamation of the three 

 sovereignties into one, undid her glorious work 

 with fatal rapidity, lost the allegiance and the 

 crowns of his triple kingdom, and ended his disas- 

 trous existence in misery and olwcurity. After the 

 short reign of his nephew, Christopher of Bavaria 

 ( 1440-48), the Danes exerted their ancient right of 

 election to the throne, and chose for their king 

 Christian of Oldenburg, a descendant of the old 

 royal family through his maternal ancestress, 

 Kikissa, the great-granddaughter of Waldemar II. 

 Christian I. (1448-81), who was at the same time 

 elected Duke of Sleswick and Holstein, was the 

 founder of the Oldenburg line, which continued 

 unbroken till the death of Frederick VII. in 1863. 

 His reign was followed by half a century of inter- 

 national struggles in Scandinavia. The insane 

 tyranny of Christian II. (q.v.) cost that monarch 

 his throne and freedom ; the Danes chose his 

 uncle Frederick I. to be their king, while Sweden 

 was for ever separated from Denmark, and rose 

 under the Vasas (see GUSTAVUS I.) to be a powerful 

 state. 



Under Christian III: (1536-59), the Reforma- 

 tion was established in Denmark. Christian IV. 

 (q.v.), after his brief share in the Thirty Years' 

 War, proved one of the ablest of all the Danish 

 rulers. His liberal and wise policy was, however, 

 cramped in every direction by the arrogant nobles, 

 to whose treasonable supineness Denmark owes the 

 reverses by which she lost (1658) all the posses- 

 sinus she had hitherto retained in Sweden ; and 

 with the relinquishment of these, and consequently 

 of the undivided control of the passage of the 

 Sound, the country's former international im- 

 portance came linafly to an end. The national 

 disgraces and abasement which followed led, in 

 1600, under Christian's son, Frederick III., to the 

 rising of the people against the nobles, and their 

 surrunder into the hands of the king of the supreme 

 power. For the next hundred years, chiefly marked 

 by wars with Sweden, the peasantry were kept in 

 serfdom, and the middle classes dcpre-sed ; but by 

 the end of the 18th century the peasants had 

 been gradually emancipated, while many improve- 

 ments had been effected in the mode of administer- 

 ing the laws, and the Danish kings, although 

 autocrats, exercised a mild rule. The miseries <.f 

 the reign of Frederick VI., who governed as regent 

 from 1784, brought the country to the verge of ruin. 

 Denmark having joined Russia in a compact of the 

 Northern Powers hostile to England, a licet was 

 sent into the Baltic, and considerable injuries were 



the regent's part to violate 

 ke sides with Napoleon, 



cious of an intention on 



his neutrality and take 



demanded the surrender of the entire Danish navy, 



to be restored at the conclusion of peace. A refund 



was followed by the bombardment of Coj>enhagen 



in September 1807, and the fleet was given up; 



but thiM treatment drove Denmark into Napoleon ' 

 aim-, and with him the kingdom wan okflfHl i" 



it- Illltil the clow of 1 < I .'I 



lly the > "i:,Tfwt of Vienna. iMuuark WM com- 



No 



d to cede Noi way to Swi-den. From thin j*-nc 

 a spirit of discontent grew up in th ductile*, 

 degenerating into mutual aiiiinmiity between thi 

 l.ini-h and Herman population, which led to an 

 open rupture with Denmark in 1K4M, imm-<luiU-|y 

 after the accession of Frederick VII. (For the 

 whole ipH-siion, Hue Si.KswicK HousTKIN.) After 

 alternate hostilities and armistice*, the War wan 

 virtually concluded in 1850, by the victory of the 

 Danes at Idsted ; but in 180') the quarrel wu 

 renewed. On the death of Frederick in that year, 

 Prince Christian of Meswick H"Utcin-<;iuckborg 

 ascended the throne under the title of Chrifttian 

 IX., in conformity with the act known ax the Treaty 

 of London of 185*2, by which the succesmon to the 

 Danish crown had been settled on him and hi 

 descendants by his wife, Princess Louise f Heate- 

 Cassel, niece of King Christian VIII. of Denmark. 

 A pretender, backed by German influence and help, 

 at once started up in the person of tlte eldest son 

 of the Duke of Augustenborg, who assumed the 

 title of Duke Frederick VIII. of Sleswick- Holstein; 

 but his cause was speedily merged and lost sight of 

 by Prussia and Austria in their direct aim of incor- 

 porating the duchies with the German Confedera- 

 tion. Denmark, unaided by England and France, 

 allies on whose support she had relied, was forced 

 to go single-handed into the unequal contest. After 

 a brave but utterly futile attempt at resistance, the 

 Danes found themselves forced to submit to the 

 terms dictated by their powerful foes, and resign 

 not only Lauenburg and Holstein, but the ancient 

 crown -appanage 01 Sleswick. By the peace of 

 Vienna, 1864, the Danish king l>ound himself to 

 abide by the decision which Prussia and Austria 

 should adopt in regard to the destiny of the severed 

 Danish provinces. The dissensions U-tween these 

 two great powers, which led to the A ustro- Prussian 

 war of 1866, resulted in the triumph of Prussia, 

 and since then the duchies have remained an in- 

 tegral part of that state. Since the war, Denmark. 

 although reduced to the narrow limits of the islands 

 and Jutland, has recovered from its fall, and has 

 greatly prospered, in spite of the spread of social- 

 istic opinions, and the political dissensions that 

 have ranged the government and Landst hing. sup- 

 ported by the press of the capital, against tlie 

 Folke thing and majority of the people. 



For tlie geography and statistics, tlie best Daninh work* 

 are those of Lnlev, Trap, Grove, Falbe-Haiux-n, O. 

 Nielsen, and Scharling : see also Both ( 2d ed. 2 vola. 

 Iss-j S5), Miss Otte's Denmark and Iceland ( 188U 

 Murray's Handbook (<>th ed. IS',13), and Denmark; Ht 

 Historti and 7'//rr/i/i /, /xi//i/fi//r, <{*., by various 

 specialists ( Lond. IH'.U ). For the history, works by 

 Paludin-Miiller. Barfod, Fabricius, Allen, and Thonfla, 

 and Miss Otte's Scandinavian Hittory (1875). 



DANISH LANGUAGE AND LITER AIT RE. The 

 Danish language has sprung from the 

 eastern or Danish Swedish branch of the < 



the 



i'/ii (or liHi/un ttaniai), which was the common 

 e by which the language of all the SH-andi- 

 ians'was designated in the middle age* oy t 

 southern race- of the Teutonic stock. r r " ln 

 llth to the 18th eentury the Danish Swediahbi 

 of the old Scandinavian ln-came more and in 

 markedly distinct from the Norwegian 1 

 branch, 'through its replacing the old dlpbl 

 with single long \owel^. and dropping the initial A 

 lK.>fore /, .., and r ; while the latter became cnarac- 

 teii.ed bv a further modification of the a sound, 

 l.v the lo'ss of v before r, and by a series of con- 



tractions of consonants. 

 of the 12th and 13th 



In the provincial lam 

 centuries, wlucu (alter 



