DENMARK 69 



Drontheim in Norway, to the Swedes. Frederic sought to elude 

 these severe terms : but Charles took Cronenburg, and once more 

 besieged Copenhagen by sea and land. The steady intrepid conduct 

 of Frederic, under these misfortunes, endeared him to his subjects ; 

 and the citizens of Copenhagen made an admirable defence, till a 

 Du.ch fleet arrived in the Baltic, and beat the Swedish fleet. The 

 fortune of war was now entirely changed in favour of Frederic, who 

 showed on every occasion great abilities, boih civil and military ; and, 

 having forced Charles to raise the siege of Copenhagen, might have 

 carried the war into Sweden, had not the English fleet, under Montague, 

 appeared in the Baltic. This enabled Charles to besiege Copenhagen a 

 third time ; but France and England offering their mediation, a peace 

 was concluded in that capital, by which the island of Bornholm was 

 restored to the Danes ; but the island of Rugen, and the provinces of 

 Bleckingen, Hochland, and Schonen, remained with the Swedes. 



Though this peace did not restore to Denmark all she had lost, yet 

 the magnanimous behaviour of Frederic, under the most imminent 

 dangers, and his attention to the safety of his subjects, even preferably 

 to his own, greatly endeared him in their eyes; and he at length be- 

 came absolute, in the manner already related. Frederic was succeed- 

 ed, in 1670, by his son Christian V, who obliged the duke of Holstein 

 Gottorp to renounce all the advantages he had gained by the treaty of 

 Roschild. He then recovered a number of places in Schonen : but 

 his army was defeated in the bloody battle of Lunden, by Charles XI, 

 of Sweden. This defeat did not put an end to the war, which Christian 

 obstinately continued, till he was defeated entirely at the battle of 

 Landscroon : and having almost exhausted his dominians in military 

 operations, and being in a manner abandoned by all his allies, he was 

 forced to sign a treaty, on the terms prescribed by France, in 1679. 

 Christian afterwards became the ally and subsidiary of Lewis XIV, 

 and died in 1690. He was succeeded by Frederic IV, who, like his 

 predecessors, maintained his pretensions upon Holstein, and proba- 

 bly must have become master of that duchy, had not the English and 

 Dutch fleets raised the siege of Tonningen, while the young king of 

 Sweden, Charles XII, wno was then no more than sixteen years of 

 age, landed within eight miles of Copenhagen, to assist his brother- 

 in-law the duke of Holstein. Charles probably would have made him- 

 self master of Copenhagen, had not his Danish majesty agreed to the 

 peace of Travendahl, which was entirely in the duke's favour. By 

 another treaty concluded with the States-General, Charles obliged 

 himself to furnish a body of troops, who were to be paid by the con- 

 federates, and afterwards took a very active part against the French 

 in the wars of queen Anne. 



Notwithstanding this peace, Frederic was perpetually engaged in 

 wars with the Swedes ; and while Charles XII, was an exile at Bender, 

 he made a descent upon Swedish Pomerania, and another, in the year 

 1712, upon Bremen, and took the city of Stade. His troops, however, 

 were totally defeated by the Swedes at Gadesbuch, and his favourite 

 city of Altona was laid in ashes. Frederic revenged himself by seiz- 

 ing great part of Ducal Holstein, and forcing the Swedish general, 

 count Steinbock, to surrender himself prisoner, with all his troops. 

 In the year 1716, the successes of Frederic were so great, by taking 

 Tonningen and Stralsund, by driving the Swedes out of Norway, and 

 reducing Wismar in Pomerania, that his allies began to suspect he 

 was aiming at the sovereignty of all Scandinavia. Upon the return of 



