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been not the least brilliant,—all this had occasioned
the imposition of new taxes, from which the clergy
themselves were not, according to the usage,
exempted. A portion even of the tithes was
confiscated to the public necessities, and the king,
instigated by Thorkel Canuteson, entertained a design
of incarcerating the prelates who proved refractory.
The bishop of Westeras, the former ally of the
marshal in his Finnish crusade, fled into Norway.
Nevertheless, in the same year, the succession of
Birger’s son Magnus, who was still of tender age,
was guaranteed, with the consent of the dukes as
well as of the bishops and nobles, and the king
engaged by a proclamation never to separate his
interests from those of the marshal, or to prefer
any other to him. In 1304 the dissensions between
the brothers at length openly broke out. The
dukes were obliged to give surety that they would
not leave the kingdom without the royal permission,
nor appear in the king’s presence without
summons, or with a greater retinue than he should
appoint, and never enter into any plot against him,
his consort, or his children. In no long time
thereafter they were called before the king; Eric was
the only one who ventured to appear. Several
heads of complaints were read, upon which the
king angrily bade him begone from his sight, and
soon afterwards commanded both his brothers into
banishment. Intestine war ensued, in which the
dukes were supported by Norway, and the western
provinces of the kingdom were plundered. Next
year, however, a reconciliation was effected, of
which Thorkel Canuteson was the sacrifice. The
marshal was seized in the presence of the king and
the dukes, and exclaimed to Birger, “For this
shame will be your part, lord king, so long as you
live.” He was thrown upon a horse’s back, his
feet being bound under its belly, and so was
dragged night and day to Stockholm, where his head
fell under the axe of the executioner on the sixth
of February, 1306. Duke Waldemar repudiated
his wife, the marshal’s daughter, under the pretext
that they were within the bounds of spiritual affinity,
her father having held the duke at the baptismal
font.
Scarcely had eight months passed away since the
death of Thorkel Canuteson, before king Birger was
the prisoner of his brothers. On a friendly visit to
the royal mansion of Hatuna in Upland, having
secretly brought with them a train of armed
followers, they fell upon the king and took him
captive with his wife and children, the crown prince
alone escaping in the arms of a faithful servant,
who carried him into Denmark, and placed him at
the knee of king Eric Menved. Connected by a
double tie of affinity with Birger, the Danish
monarch made his cause his own, and assailed the
dukes. In consequence of this, Birger, who had
been meanwhile kept close prisoner in the castle of
Nyköping, was liberated in 1308, and declared
himself satisfied to retain that portion of his
kingdom of which the dukes might leave him the
possession. Immediately on his release he repaired to
Denmark, and returning with his father-in-law at
the head of a Danish army, he advanced to
Nykœping, and laid siege to the place. Duke Eric had
in the mean time quarrelled with Haco, king of
Norway, for the possession of North Halland, and
the war had already commenced upon this side, when
a conference was held at Helsingborg (a. d. 1310),
the three kings, the Swedish dukes, and several
princes being present, and a treaty was concluded.
By this compact the kingdom was in fact divided
between Birger and his brothers, who acknowledged
him indeed as their feudal superior, but were
otherwise to be independent in their several duchies.
Not long afterwards the misunderstandings with
Norway, which had again broken out, were removed
by the marriage of duke Eric with a daughter, and
that of Waldemar with a niece of the Norwegian
king [1], amidst festivities of which the contemporary
description recalls all the pomp of the age of
chivalry. “Yet these dukes,” says Eric Olaveson in
his chronicle, “who violently grasped at dominion,
brought manifold plagues upon the land by their
feuds and harryings, by the intolerable sorning, or
rather hostile incursions of themselves and their
companies of vagabond followers; by the heaviest
imposts, obliging the peasant sometimes to pay
thrice in a year a contribution to the amount of
one mark each time (which was double the price of
a cow [2]); wherefore these lords, though they are
styled bounteous and pranksome, were so to the
extreme misery of the poor.” Yet they seem to have
been less disliked by the people than was the king.
The Helsingers expelled his bailiff; the Gottlanders
on one occasion seized his person; the Smalanders
elected a prince of their own, whom Birger
eventually succeeded in cutting off.
Thus several years passed away in general distress,
aggravated by failure of the crops and a
pestilence, but without any eruption of public
hostilities between the brothers. Towards the close
of 1317 duke Waldemar, journeying from Œland
to Stockholm, took his way to Nykœping, where
Birger usually held his court. His welcome by the
king and queen appeared so cordial that he
promised to visit them anew, and also to persuade his
brother to bear him company. The dukes arrived,
although they were warned by the way not to
deliver themselves together into the hands of the
king, and the seeming warmth of their reception
so totally removed every suspicion from their
minds, that they caused all their people to take
quarters in the town, while they themselves
remained in the castle. After they had betaken
themselves to rest, heavy with wine, king Birger,
late in the night, caused his men to arm, and
ordered the dukes to be seized. Of three Swedish
knights who refused to execute the order, two
were themselves laid in fetters. There were others
who showed greater willingness, foreigners for the
most part, of whom many served in the courts of
all these princes. The dukes were seized and
bound, the king himself being present, “with
glaring eyes, and sorely enraged,” and demanding of his
brothers, “whether they remembered the game of
Hatuna?” Thereupon they were thrown into the
castle dungeon, and chains riveted upon their
limbs. When the plunder taken from them and
their companions, who were imprisoned in the
town, was divided, the king clapped his hands as
one in ecstasy [3], blessed the counsels of his queen,
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