560 Kongelov.-Autocracy in Denmark & Norway [1660-70

the privileges of all men should be maintained. The invaluable alliance of Copenhagen had in great part been inspired by ambition for civic privilege. Neither the Rigsraad nor the Estates dreamed of putting a period to their own existence. From the morrow of the King's triumph until his death in 1670, however, the history of Denmark is that of her transformation into an absolutist State. The Charter, by the grant of which according to custom Frederick had purchased the dwindling remnants of royal power, was now surrendered to him in return for a mere promise to rule as a Christian King to the satisfaction of every Estate. Within a week, the existence of the Rigsraad as an independent power had come to an end. Before the end of the year, the Estates had quitted Copenhagen, with no security for their privileges save the royal word. In January, 1661, a document was drawn up for general signature, in which the subscribers made an unconditional declaration that they had solemnly committed to the royal line absolute rule over Denmark and Norway. The pretensions of the King and the ostentation of the Queen grew unceasingly. Five years after the revolution the quintessence of autocracy was formulated in the Kongelov (King's Law), which remained a royal secret until after Frederick's death.

Meanwhile, both in Denmark and in Norway, absolutism was taking the customary means for preserving itself. Those who, like Ulfeld, might imperil the dynasty were punished with a violence born of panic. After a generation of frequent and disastrous wars, foreign policy was directed towards the preservation of peace. Frederick sought a good understanding with Gottorp and. an alliance with France, which might give him security against both Gottorp and Sweden. A new administration was built up, for which talent and royalism were necessary qualifications, and which was no longer the exclusive property of the nobles. Many high offices, both civil and military, were filled by Germans. The Rigsraad received the name of Royal Council and became a Court of law. After the Swedish fashion, Colleges or Departments of State were established, and the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway were divided into districts each governed by a sheriff with a fixed salary. The central Government showed itself active, but always paternal. Essaying no social revolution, it left the nobles opulent and the commons depressed. The former soon accepted the autocracy, and the latter did not repudiate their royal ally. Offices were now opened without distinction of birth; and Copenhagen, though baulked of its high ambitions, added to its privileges and doubled its population. Norway, too, gained in independence and privilege, though falling short of the height of her desires.

During the later years of Frederick III the Government was profoundly influenced by one of the few brilliant statesmen to whom Denmark has yet given birth. Peter Schumacher, a cosmopolitan young citizen of Copenhagen, an eye-witness of the English Restoration and of the dawning autocracy of Louis XIV, entered Frederick's service in 1663.

1663-76]

Administration of Griffenfeld

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His ability soon gave him great influence over his master and all others with whom he came in contact. It was he who, in November, 1665, expressed in the Kongelov the autocratic ideals of the King, and who became the custodian of a document which might by its absolutism have displeased the people, and which by its rules for the succession would certainly have displeased the Queen. When, in February, 1670, Frederick III was succeeded by his son Christian V, Schumacher soon displaced the German Minister Christopher Gabel and became the real ruler of the State. A disciple of Hobbes, he inspired and facilitated the wider development of autocratic power. The Kongelov was published, and its author received a grant of arms and the title of Count of Griffenfeld -a name which Louis XIV declared to be that of one of the world's greatest Ministers. Under Griffenfeld's influence there was established a new high nobility, in which he himself accepted a place, a new order of merit, that of the Dannebrog, a new system of titles, and a new aristocracy of service. At the same time, under the impetus given by Griffenfeld and by his friend Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlöve, a son of Frederick III, the Government showed great activity at home. The finances were reformed, provision made for trade and industry, immigration facilitated, and the army reorganised so as to increase its Danish constituents and diminish. the foreign. The navy became one of the largest in Europe, and Kort Adeler, the Norwegian naval hero who created it anew, found an apt pupil in Niels Juel, who was named Admiral at twenty-eight. the same time, the administration both central and provincial was systematised, and a new Privy Council of seven members was established at its head. In Norway, under Gyldenlöve, the action of Government. was equally vigorous. The seat of power remained at Copenhagen; but in administration, defence and material well-being the land made progress during the years of peace.

At

The prime object of Griffenfeld always was to secure power both for himself and for his country by keeping the peace. In 1673 he became Grand Chancellor and thenceforward devoted himself to the foreign policy of the State. Here, for a few years, his adroitness in dealing with the manifold difficulties of the time called forth universal admiration. He restored the prestige of his country, gained subsidies without fighting, and maintained peace with both Gottorp and Sweden, the apparently irreconcilable foes of Denmark. He was wise enough to see that the secular enmity between the Scandinavian nations was injurious and unnecessary. In many respects, however, he played the part of Wolsey to his master. Christian V, who much resembled his grandfather Christian IV, was a shallow and dissolute, but popular and vigorous, young soldier, who was burning to win back the lost provinces with the sword. In 1675, as will presently be shown, he seized the opportunity of fulfilling his engagements to the opponents of France and at the same time assailing Sweden. The enterprise prospered; and in the following year

C. M. H. V.

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Sweden in 1660

[1660-1

Griffenfeld was sacrificed by the autocracy which he had helped to rear. From 1675 to 1679 the so-called War of Scania raged between Denmark and her Scandinavian neighbour, whose fortunes during fourteen years of peace may now be traced.

II

In 1661, when Sweden made peace at Kardis with Russia, the last and most obstinate of her foes, it became clear how vast was the advance which she had made in fifty years. When Gustavus Adolphus ascended the throne, it had just been demonstrated by war that her power was less than that of Denmark. Charles X, on the other hand, had treated Denmark as insolently as Napoleon treated Spain. With the exception of Norway, always separated from her neighbour by a broad belt of desolation, the Swedes were masters of the vast Scandinavian peninsula. Towards the south, in Pomerania and Bremen-Verden, they had secured large outworks beyond the sea, and had thus become a formidable constituent of the Empire, with the estuaries of two great German rivers in their grasp. In the east, not only did they hold provinces enough to prevent Russia from launching a boat upon the Baltic without their leave, but they had compelled Poland to renounce her claim to much that she had regarded as rightly hers. By half a century of warfare Sweden had thus acquired the unquestionable primacy of the north.

This imposing empire, however, was reared upon a foundation whose fissures were open to every man's view. A political structure so heterogeneous bristled with problems, national and international. The international dangers of Sweden, indeed, began on her own side of the sea. Norway, which successive Swedish warrior-kings strove in vain to conquer, still menaced Sweden's flank. Yet more ominous, as events were soon to prove, was the fact that the fertile lowlands of the south, which had lately been wrested from Denmark, had not ceased to look across the Sound for their overlord. In Norway and in Scania, therefore, Denmark possessed two dangerous auxiliaries for the war of revenge which might naturally follow upon a turn such as in 1660 had been given to a struggle more ancient than the Vasa line. That she would watch her opportunity. was, moreover, rendered yet more probable by the connexion-still represented in the person of Hedwig Eleonora, the consort of Charles Xbetween Sweden and the House of Holstein-Gottorp, whose interests seemed irreconcilable with those of the Danish dynasty. There were other reasons which made Sweden suspect her neighbour. Her German possessions, Bremen and Verden on the one hand, and western Pomerania on the other, might well appear to Frederick III, as they had appeared to Axel Oxenstierna, in the light of so many parallels advanced against Denmark. The peace of Scandinavia, it was clear, had not been assured in 1660; yet for her discord meant weakness. So long as Sweden and Denmark remained consistently hostile, foreign nations would never fail

1660-72] Sweden's dangers abroad and at home

563

to play off the one against the other, and Sweden could never obtain that naval supremacy which was the first essential of a Baltic empire.

In the wider sphere of Europe, Sweden occupied a position of greater insecurity than in Scandinavia. Her outworks in Germany, for which she had striven so long, afforded her some security, but at the cost of some danger. With the city of Bremen she had already had one armed conflict, and was soon (in 1666) to enter on another. Her lands between Weser and Elbe were standing provocations to several German Princes, while those to the west of the Oder challenged others, of whom the Great Elector was the chief. The dominion of an alien race in one part of Germany affronted the whole Germanic body, and by binding the Swedes to the House of Habsburg aggravated the difficulties of their international position. In an age of rivalry between France, her old ally, and the Emperor, it was a serious matter for Sweden that she had now become a German Power. So far as Poland was concerned, it seemed as though the quarrel which had endured for two generations had been settled at Oliva. But the Baltic Provinces, inhabited inland by a turbulent native nobility and a population of serfs, offered difficulties of their own. Peace with the Tsar, moreover, could never be deemed safe so long as the Swedish empire was flung right across the path of Russian national aspiration; and for some years it was anticipated that the treaty which had cost so much labour at Kardis would be broken. To hold the gates of Russia was, moreover, to hazard conflict with the Maritime Powers; while the Dutch were particularly sensitive to the efforts of Sweden to transfer her commerce into the hands of her own subjects.

The dangers of Sweden's international position, however, might well be deemed less formidable and less acute than those which menaced her nearer home. Many of her potential enemies might be foiled by diplomacy, or embroiled with each other, or even be forced at the end of a successful war to make further sacrifices to Sweden. But the social and economic diseases which were afflicting the body politic would yield only to treatment which must be perilous and which might be fatal. The Swedish State was young, and its constitution could not yet be deemed mature. Though raised to greatness and in a measure ordered and organised by Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna, its basis was changing before its structure had been firmly built. The Church still asserted great independence of the State. The nobles still maintained that no law could survive their veto. Charles XI, a sickly child, formed the sole barrier against a disputed succession. The testament of his father, Charles X, provided for a regency; but, at the risk of civil war, the will was so far set aside that Adolphus John, the brother of the late King, was excluded from all share in the Government. For twelve years, until the King's majority (December, 1672), Sweden had to endure an administration which possessed ill-defined powers, was uncertain as to

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Poverty of Sweden.

The Regency [1660-72

the division of power between the Regents and the Council (Råd), and was compelled to submit to the uncertain interference of Estates which were themselves engaged in an internecine struggle. The approach of Queen Christina, who more than once showed a disposition to resume her Crown, sufficed to throw both Church and State into a panic.

In its dissensions and uncertainty, moreover, the administration did but reflect society in Sweden. Now, as under Christina, peace brought out the national defects. War, it has often been asserted, was at this time the most lucrative industry of Sweden. It is untrue, indeed, that in any given year the State had drawn pecuniary profit from her campaigns. Individual soldiers, such as the Wrangels, had grown rich; but the peasants and the Treasury looked to peace for financial salvation. It is none the less true that the sole national enterprise in which Sweden excelled was war, and that peace soon made it apparent that the moral fibre of the nation had softened. Many of the nobles had become luxurious, arrogant, and rapacious. Jealous of every vestige of wealth and power in non-noble hands, they quarrelled among themselves about precedence with a violence that made every festival a likely occasion for strife. Industry and commerce, inchoate in almost everything except furniture of war, but feebly adjusted themselves to the changed conditions. There was hardly a section of the population without a long list of grievances against every other section. And, when the levies of Charles X were disbanded, the homesteads which should have supported them in time of peace were found too often to have been alienated to private persons by the Crown.

The decay of the political structure designed to sustain the army formed but part of the formidable problem with which the Regency was confronted. Despite her imposing empire and the pomp of a few great nobles, Sweden remained one of the poorest and least populous countries of Europe. Her exchequer was empty. Her bank was tottering. Her civil service had long remained unpaid. To meet the most pressing claims of the army, disbanded in 1660, the Councillors were obliged to pledge their private credit, while the sum of 30,000 dollars for the English sailors was raised by pawning the cannon from the fleet. The National Debt approached 10,500,000 dollars, at a time when Crown lands to the annual value of some millions had passed into the hands of the nobles.

The Regency of five great Officers of State under the nominal presidency of the Queen Dowager, which took the reins after a sharp conflict between the noble and the non-noble Estates, contained no statesman of commanding genius. The youthful Queen Hedwig Eleonora was a dilettante rather than a politician. But in the aged and unbending aristocrat Per Brahe, who had sat in the Council since the days of Gustavus Adolphus, the Regents possessed a Steward worthy alike of the honoured name which he bore and of the almost regal patrimony which had long prospered under his paternal hand. The Treasurer, the