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 and after several unsuccessful attempts a compromise was effected in 819 when the parties agreed to share the realm. In 820 Herioldus was baptized at Mainz and received from the emperor a grant of Riustringen in N.E. Friesland. In 827 he was expelled from his kingdom, but St Anskar, who had been sent with Herioldus to preach Christianity, remained at his post. In 836 we find one Horic as king of the Danes; he was probably a son of Godefridus. During his reign there was trouble with the emperor as to the overlordship of Frisia. In the meantime Herioldus remained on friendly terms with Lothair and received a further grant of Walcheren and the neighbouring districts. In 850 Horic was attacked by his own nephews and compelled to share the kingdom with them, while in 852 Herioldus was charged with treachery and slain by the Franks. In 854 a revolution took place in Denmark itself. Horic’s nephew Godwin, returning from exile with a large following of Northmen, overthrew his uncle in a three days’ battle in which all members of the royal house except one boy are said to have perished. This boy now became king as “Horicus junior.” Of his reign we know practically nothing. The next kings mentioned are Sigafrid and Halfdane, who were sons of the great Viking leader Ragnarr Loðbrok. There is also mention of a third king named Godefridus. The exact chronology and relationship of these kings it is impossible to determine, but we know that Healfdene died in Scotland in 877, while Godefridus was treacherously slain by Henry of Saxony in 885. During these and the next few years there is mention of more than one king of the names Sigefridus and Godefridus: the most important event associated with their names is that two kings Sigefridus and Godefridus fell in the great battle on the Dyle in 891.

We now have the names of several kings, Heiligo, Olaph (of Swedish origin), and his sons Chnob and Gurth. Then come a Danish ruler Sigeric, followed by Hardegon, son of Swein, coming from Norway. At some date after 916 we find mention of one “Hardecnuth Urm” ruling among the Danes. Adam of Bremen, from whom these details come, was himself uncertain whether “so many kings or rather tyrants of the Danes ruled together or succeeded one another at short intervals.” Hardecnuth Urm is to be identified with the famous Gorm the old, who married Thyra Danmarkarbót: their son was Harold Bluetooth.

Medieval and Modern.—Danish history first becomes authentic at the beginning of the 9th century. The Danes, the southernmost branch of the Scandinavian family, referred to by Alfred (c. 890) as occupying Jutland, the islands and Scania, were, in 777, strong enough to defy the Frank empire by harbouring its fugitives. Five years later we find a Danish king, Sigfrid, among the princes who assembled at Lippe in 782 to make their submission to Charles the Great. About the same time Willibrord, from his see at Utrecht, made an unsuccessful attempt to convert the “wild Danes.” These three salient facts are practically the sum of our knowledge of early Danish history previous to the Viking period. That mysterious upheaval, most generally attributed to a love of adventure, stimulated by the pressure of over-population, began with the ravaging of Lindisfarne in 793, and virtually terminated with the establishment of Rollo in Normandy (911). There can be little doubt that the earlier of these expeditions were from Denmark, though the term Northmen was originally applied indiscriminately to all these terrible visitants from the unknown north. The rovers who first chastened and finally colonized southern England and Normandy were certainly Danes.

The Viking raids were one of the determining causes of the establishment of the feudal monarchies of western Europe, but the untameable freebooters were themselves finally subdued by the Church. At first sight it seems curious that Christianity should have been so slow to reach Denmark. But we must bear in mind that one very important consequence of the Viking raids was to annihilate the geographical remoteness which had hitherto separated Denmark from the Christian world. Previously to 793 there lay between Jutland and England a sea which no keel had traversed within the memory of man. The few and peaceful traders who explored those northern waters were careful never to lose sight of the Saxon, Frisian and Frankish shores during their passage. Nor was communication with the west by land any easier. For generations the obstinately heathen Saxons had lain, a compact and impenetrable mass, between Scandinavia and the Frank empire, nor were the measures adopted by Charles the Great for the conversion of the Saxons to the true faith very much to the liking of their warlike Danish neighbours on the other side. But by the time that Charles had succeeded in “converting” the Saxons, the Viking raids were already at their height, and though generally triumphant, necessity occasionally taught the Northmen the value of concessions. Thus it was the desire to secure his Jutish kingdom which induced Harold Klak, in 826, to sail up the Rhine to Ingelheim, and there accept baptism, with his wife, his son Godfred and 400 of his suite, acknowledging the emperor as his overlord, and taking back with him to Denmark the missionary monk Ansgar. Ansgar preached in Denmark from 826 to 861, but it was not till after the subsidence of the Viking raids that Adaldag, archbishop of Hamburg, could open a new and successful mission, which resulted in the erection of the bishoprics of Schleswig, Ribe and Aarhus (c. 948), though the real conversion of Denmark must be dated from the baptism of King Harold Bluetooth (960).

Meanwhile the Danish monarchy was attempting to aggrandize itself at the expense of the Germans, the Wends who then occupied the Baltic littoral as far as the Vistula, and the other Scandinavian kingdoms. Harold Bluetooth (940-986) subdued German territory south of the Eider, extended the Danevirke, Denmark’s great line of defensive fortifications, to the south of Schleswig and planted the military colony of Julin or Jomsborg, at the mouth of the Oder. Part of Norway was first seized after the united Danes and Swedes had defeated and slain King Olaf Trygvessön at the battle of Svolde (1000); and between 1028 and 1035 Canute the Great added the whole kingdom to his own; but the union did not long survive him. Equally short-lived was the Danish dominion in England, which originated in a great Viking expedition of King Sweyn I.

The period between the death of Canute the Great and the accession of Valdemar I. was a troublous time for Denmark. The kingdom was harassed almost incessantly, and more than once partitioned, by pretenders to the throne, who did not scruple to invoke the interference of the neighbouring monarchs, and even of the heathen Wends, who established themselves for a time on the southern islands. Yet, throughout this chaos, one thing made for future stability, and that was the growth and consolidation of a national church, which culminated in the erection of the archbishopric of Lund (c. 1104) and the consequent ecclesiastical independence of Denmark. The third archbishop of Lund was Absalon (1128–1201), Denmark’s first great statesman, who so materially assisted Valdemar I. (1157–1182) and Canute VI. (1182–1202) to establish the dominion of Denmark over the Baltic, mainly at the expense of the Wends. The policy of Absalon was continued on a still vaster scale by Valdemar II. (1202–1241), at a time when the German kingdom was too weak and distracted to intervene to save its seaboard; but the treachery of a vassal and the loss of one great battle sufficed to plunge this unwieldy, unsubstantial empire in the dust. (See, , and .)

Yet the age of the Valdemars was one of the most glorious in Danish history, and it is of political importance as marking a turning-point. Favourable circumstances had, from the first, given the Danes the lead in Scandinavia. They held the richest and therefore the most populous lands, and geographically they were nearer than their neighbours to western civilization. Under the Valdemars, however, the ancient patriarchal system was merging into a more complicated development, of separate estates. The monarchy, now dominant, and far wealthier than before, rested upon the support of the great nobles, many of whom held their lands by feudal tenure, and constituted the royal Raad, or council. The clergy, fortified by royal privileges,

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I.	Writings
(in chronological order)
 * ‘The Force of Circumstances’, Undergraduate Papers. An Oxford Journal (1857-58) conducted by A.C. Swinburne, John Nicol, T.H. Green and Others (London: Mansell, 1858), no. 3 (1858), 147-54, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.3-10

 * (Anon. editor of) Statements of Christian Doctrine and Practice, extracted from the published writings of the Rev. Benjamin Jowett, M.A. (Oxford: J.H. and Jas. Parker, 1861)

 * An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times: A Prize Essay, Read in the Theatre, Oxford, July 2nd, 1862 (Oxford, 1862), reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.20-45

 * [Unsigned] ‘The Philosophy of Aristotle’, North British Review, vol. 45 (September 1866), 105-44, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.46-91

 * [Unsigned] ‘Popular Philosophy in Its Relation to Life’, North British Review, vol. 48 (March 1868), 133-62, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp. 92-125

 * ‘Special Report on Birmingham Free School, and General Report on the Counties of Stafford and Warwick’, in Schools Inquiry Commission, vol. 8: General Reports by Assistant Commissioners: Midland Counties and Northumberland (London, 1868), pp.91-253

 * ‘County of Buckingham’ and ‘County of Warwick’, in Schools Inquiry Commission, vol.12: Special Reports of Assistant Commissioners, and Digests of Information Received: South Midland Division (London, 1868), pp.175-93, 313-79

 * ‘County of Stafford’ and ‘County of Warwick’, in Schools Inquiry Commission, vol. 15: Special Reports of Assistant Commissioners, and Digests of Information Received: West Midlands Division (London, 1868, pp.365-485, 669-752

 * ‘County of Leicester’, in Schools Inquiry Commission, vol. 16: Special Reports of Assistant Commissioners, and Digests of Information Received: North Midland Division (London, 1868), pp.17-90

 * The Witness of God (privately printed [1870]), reprinted in Arnold Toynbee, ed., The Witness of God and Faith: Two Lay Sermons by the Late T.H. Green (London, 1883), and in Works, vol. 3, pp.230-52

 * Review of A.C. Fraser, The Works of George Berkeley, Academy, vol. 3 (1872), 27-8, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, at end

 * ‘General Introduction to Vol. I’ and ‘Introduction to the Moral Part of the Treatise’, in T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, eds., A Treatise of Human Nature. Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume.  Edited, with Preliminary Dissertations and Notes, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, 1874), pp.1-71, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.1-371

 * ‘On the Grading of Secondary Schools: A lecture delivered to the Birmingham Teachers’ Association, Journal of Education (May 1877), 193-212, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.387-412

 * ‘Hedonism and the Ultimate Good’, pp.266-9, reprinted in Works, vol. 4, at end

 * Review of Edward Caird, A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant, Academy, vol. 12 (1877), 297-300, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.126-37

 * ‘Mr. Herbert Spencer and G.H. Lewes: their Application of the Doctrine of Evolution to Thought’, Contemporary Review, vol. 31 (December 1877), 25-53, reprinted (with the title ‘Mr. Spencer on the Relation of Subject and Object’) in Works, vol. 1, pp.373-409

 * ‘Mr. Herbert Spencer and G.H. Lewes (Part II)’, Contemporary Review, vol. 31 (March 1878), 745-68, reprinted (with the title ‘Mr. Spencer on the Independence of Matter’) in Works, vol. 1, pp.410-41

 * Faith (privately printed [1878], reprinted in Arnold Toynbee, ed., The Witness of God and Faith: Two lay sermons by the Later T.H. Green (London, 1883), pp.51-105, and in Works, vol. 3, pp.253-76

 * ‘Mr. Herbert Spencer and G.H. Lewes (Part 3)’, Contemporary Review, vol. 32 (July 1878), 751-72, reprinted (with the title ‘Mr. Lewes’ Account of Experience’) in Works, vol. 1, pp.442-70

 * Review of John Caird, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, Academy, vol. 18 (1880), 28-30, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.138-46

 * Mr. Hodgson’s Article, “Professor Green as a Critic”’, Contemporary Review, vol. 39 (January 1881), 109-24, reprinted (with the title ‘An Answer to Mr. Hodgson’) in Works, vol. 3, pp.365-86

 * Evidence to the University of Oxford Commission of 1877, in House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1881, vol. 56, questions 3306-54, pp.200-5, reprinted in Works, vol. 5

 * Review of John Watson, Kant and his English Critics, Academy, vol. 20 (1881), 220-2, 241-3, reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp.147-58

 * The Work to be Done by the New Oxford High School: A lecture to the Wesleyan Literary Society (Oxford: Slatter & Rose, 1882; & London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1882), reprinted in Works, vol. 3, pp. 456-76

 * ‘Can There be a Natural Science of Man’, reprinted in A.C. Bradley, ed., Prolegomena to Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1883), §§3-100 paragraph 1, and in Works, vol. 4

 * Prolegomena to Ethics by the Late Thomas Hill Green, ed. A.C. Bradley (Oxford: Clarendon, 1883), reprinted in Works, vol. 4; rev. ed. 2003, edited by A.C. Bradley and D.O. Brink)

 * (Trans.) Book 1 and Book 3, chapter 3, in Metaphysic in Three Books: Ontology, Cosmology, and Psychology. By Herman Lotze, ed. B. Bosanquet, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1884), vol. 1, pp.1-229, 315-56

 * ‘Mr. Lewes’ Account of the “Social Medium”’, Works of Thomas Hill Green: Volume 1. Philosophical Works, ed. R.L. Nettleship (London: Longmans, Green, 1885)

 * ‘Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant’, ‘Lectures on Logic’, ‘On the Different Senses of “Freedom” as Applied to Will and to the moral Progress of Man’, and ‘Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation’, Works of Thomas Hill Green: Vol. II. Philosophical Works, ed., R.L. Nettleship (London: Longmans, Green, 1886)

 * ‘The Influence of Civilisation on Genius’, ‘Fragment on Immortality’, ‘Essay on Christian Dogma’, ‘Lectures on the New Testament’, ‘Fragment of an Address on the Text “The Word is Nigh Thee”’, ‘Four Lectures on the English Commonwealth’, and ‘Two Lectures on the Elementary School System of England”’, in Works of Thomas Hill Green: Vol. 3. Miscellanies and Memoir, ed. R.L. Nettleship (London: Longmans, Green, 1888)

 * Printed in Jean Pucelle, La Nature et L’Esprit Dans La Philosophie De T.H. Green: La Renaissance De L’Idealisme En Angleterre an XIX Sielce. Volume II: La Politique - La Religion'.  Green et la Tradition, (Louvain & Paris, 1960), pp.268-81:
 * ‘Essay for the Ellerton [Theological] Prize: Life and Immortality Brought to Light by the Gospel’, [1860]

 * Printed in T.H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation and Other Writings, ed. by P. Harris and J. Morrow (Cambridge: CUP, 1986) :
 * (a) ‘The Effect of Commerce on the Mind of a Nation’,
 * (b) Loyalty’,
 * (c) ‘Legislative Interference in Moral Matters’,
 * (d) ‘Notes on Moral Philosophy’, and
 * (e) ‘Notes on Ancient and Modern Political Economy’

 * Printed in Peter P. Nicholson, ed., Collected Works of T.H. Green. Vol. 5 Additional Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1997) (headings for parts):
 * (a) ‘Undergraduate Essays’
 * (b) ‘Ellerton Theological Essays’
 * (c) ‘Unpublished Papers’
 * (d) ‘Public Documents’
 * (e)‘Letters to the Press’
 * (f) ‘Principal Speeches’
 * (g) ‘Selected Letters.’

 * Printed in Alberto de Sanctis, La democrazia ‘puritana’ di Thomas Hill Green: Con alcuni scritti inedite (Florence, 2002), pp.203-20 (selected undergraduate essays):
 * ‘The Spirit of Poetry’
 * ‘The Advantages and Disadvantages of Diffusive Reading’
 * ‘The Comparative Value of Fact and Fiction in Education’
 * ‘The Character and Opinions of Samuel Johnson’
 * ‘On Thackeray’s Novels’
 * ‘Quondam etiam victis redit in praecordia virtus’ What is the Truth of This, as Viewed in the Light of History?’
 * ‘The English National Character as Compared with that of the Germans’
 * ‘The Character of Mahomet’ and
 * ‘Enthusiasm.’

 * Printed in Colin Tyler, ed., Unpublished Manuscripts in British Idealism: Political philosophy, theology and social thought, 2 vols. (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005), pp.1-188:
 * ‘Rudiments of “The Philosophy of Aristotle”’
 * ‘Metaphysic of Ethics, Moral Psychology, Sociology or the Science of Sittlichkeit’
 * ‘Political Philosophy’, ‘The Nature of Historical Narrative in Thucydides and Herodotus’
 * ‘Pleasure as the Chief Good’
 * ‘Notes on the Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans (remaining text)’
 * ‘Notes on the Epistle to the Galatians’
 * ‘Lectures on the Fourth Gospel (remaining text)’.

The bulk of Green’s manuscripts are held in the library of Balliol College, Oxford and Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Centre for Democratic Governance: Working Paper Series, Number 7

Bibliography of Thomas Hill Green (2007 version), Compiled by Dr Colin Tyler, Centre for Democratic Governance, University of Hull, February 2007.

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 factors such as the way the case is investigated by the police, the way the case is presented by the prosecutor, how effectively the accused is defended, the personality and particular attitude to capital punishment of the trial judge and, if the matter goes on appeal, the particular judges who are selected to hear the case. Race and poverty are also alleged to be factors.

Most accused facing a possible death sentence are unable to afford legal assistance, and are defended under the pro deo system. The defending counsel is more often than not young and inexperienced, frequently of a different race to his or her client, and if this is the case, usually has to consult through an interpreter. Pro deo counsel are paid only a nominal fee for the defence, and generally lack the financial resources and the infrastructural support to undertake the necessary investigations and research, to employ expert witnesses to give advice, including advice on matters relevant to sentence, to assemble witnesses, to bargain with the prosecution, and generally to conduct an effective defence. Accused persons who have the money to do so, are able to retain experienced attorneys and counsel, who are paid to undertake the necessary investigations and research, and as a result they are less likely to be sentenced to death than persons similarly placed who are unable to pay for such services.

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 had also risen to influence; but celibacy and independence of the civil courts tended to make them more and more of a separate caste. Education was spreading. Numerous Danes, lay as well as clerical, regularly frequented the university of Paris. There were signs too of the rise of a vigorous middle class, due to the extraordinary development of the national resources (chiefly the herring fisheries, horse-breeding and cattle-rearing) and the foundation of gilds, the oldest of which, the Edslag of Schleswig, dates from the early 12th century. The bonder, or yeomen, were prosperous and independent, with well-defined rights. Danish territory extended over 60,000 sq. kilometres, or nearly double its present area; the population was about 700,000; and 160,000 men and 1400 ships were available for national defence.

On the death of Valdemar II. a period of disintegration ensued. Valdemar’s son, Eric Plovpenning, succeeded him as king; but his near kinsfolk also received huge appanages, and family discords led to civil wars. Throughout the 13th and part of the 14th century, the struggle raged between the Danish kings and the Schleswig dukes; and of six monarchs no fewer than three died violent deaths. Superadded to these troubles was a prolonged struggle for supremacy between the popes and the crown, and, still more serious, the beginning of a breach between the kings and nobles, which had important constitutional consequences. The prevalent disorder had led to general lawlessness, in consequence of which the royal authority had been widely extended; and a strong opposition gradually arose which protested against the abuses of this authority. In 1282 the nobles extorted from King Eric Glipping the first Haandfaestning, or charter, which recognized the Danehof, or national assembly, as a regular branch of the administration and gave guarantees against further usurpations. Christopher II. (1319–1331) was constrained to grant another charter considerably reducing the prerogative, increasing the privileges of the upper classes, and at the same time reducing the burden of taxation. But aristocratic licence proved as mischievous as royal incompetence; and on the death of Christopher II. the whole kingdom was on the verge of dissolution. Eastern Denmark was in the hands of one magnate; another magnate held Jutland and Fünen in pawn; the dukes of Schleswig were practically independent of the Danish crown; the Scandian provinces had (1332) surrendered themselves to Sweden.

It was reserved for another Valdemar (, q.v.) to reunite and weld together the scattered members of his heritage. His long reign (1340–1375) resulted in the re-establishment of Denmark as the great Baltic power. It is also a very interesting period of her social and constitutional development. This great ruler, who had to fight, year after year, against foreign and domestic foes, could, nevertheless, always find time to promote the internal prosperity of his much afflicted country. For the dissolution of Denmark, during the long anarchy, had been internal as well as external. The whole social fabric had been convulsed and transformed. The monarchy had been undermined. The privileged orders had aggrandized themselves at the expense of the community. The yeoman class had sunk into semi-serfdom. In a word, the natural cohesion of the Danish nation had been loosened and there was no security for law and justice. To make an end of this universal lawlessness Valdemar IV. was obliged, in the first place, to re-establish the royal authority by providing the crown with a regular and certain income. This he did by recovering the alienated royal demesnes in every direction, and from henceforth the annual landgilde, or rent, paid by the royal tenants, became the monarch’s principal source of revenue. Throughout his reign Valdemar laboured incessantly to acquire as much land as possible. Moreover, the old distinction between the king’s private estate and crown property henceforth ceases; all such property was henceforth regarded as the hereditary possession of the Danish crown.

The national army was also re-established on its ancient footing. Not only were the magnates sharply reminded that they held their lands on military tenure, but the towns were also made to contribute both men and ships, and peasant levies, especially archers, were recruited from every parish. Everywhere indeed Valdemar intervened personally. The smallest detail was not beneath his notice. Thus he invented nets for catching wolves and built innumerable water-mills, “for he would not let the waters run into the sea before they had been of use to the community.” Under such a ruler law and order were speedily re-established. The popular tribunals regained their authority, and a supreme court of justice, Det Kongelige Retterting, presided over by Valdemar himself, not only punished the unruly and guarded the prerogatives of the crown, but also protected the weak and defenceless from the tyranny of the strong. Nor did Valdemar hesitate to meet his people in public and periodically render an account of his stewardship. He voluntarily resorted to the old practice of summoning national assemblies, the so-called Danehof. At the first of these assemblies held at Nyborg, Midsummer Day 1314, the bishops and councillors solemnly promised that the commonalty should enjoy all the ancient rights and privileges conceded to them by Valdemar II., and the wise provision that the Danehof should meet annually considerably strengthened its authority. The keystone to the whole constitutional system was “King Valdemar’s Charter” issued in May 1360 at the Rigsmöde, or parliament, held at Kalundborg in May 1360. This charter was practically an act of national pacification, the provisions of which king and people together undertook to enforce for the benefit of the commonweal.

The work of Valdemar was completed and consolidated by his illustrious daughter Margaret (1375–1412), whose crowning achievement was the Union of Kalmar (1397), whereby she sought to combine the three northern kingdoms into a single state dominated by Denmark. In any case Denmark was bound to be the only gainer by the Union. Her population was double that of the two other kingdoms combined, and neither Margaret nor her successors observed the stipulations that each country should retain its own laws and customs and be ruled by natives only. In both Norway and Sweden, therefore, the Union was highly unpopular. The Norwegian aristocracy was too weak, however, seriously to endanger the Union at any time, but Sweden was, from the first, decidedly hostile to Margaret’s whole policy. Nevertheless during her lifetime the system worked fairly well; but her pupil and successor, Eric of Pomerania, was unequal to the burden of empire and embroiled himself both with his neighbours and his subjects. The Hanseatic League, whose political ascendancy had been shaken by the Union, enraged by Eric’s efforts to bring in the Dutch as commercial rivals, as well as by the establishment of the Sound tolls, materially assisted the Holsteiners in their twenty-five years’ war with Denmark (1410–35), and Eric VII. himself was finally deposed (1439) in favour of his nephew, Christopher of Bavaria.

The deposition of Eric marks another turning-point in Danish history. It was the act not of the people but of the Rigsraad (Senate), which had inherited the authority of the ancient Danehof and, after the death of Margaret, grew steadily in power at the expense of the crown. As the government grew more and more aristocratic, the position of the peasantry steadily deteriorated. It is under Christopher that we first hear, for instance, of the Vornedskab, or patriarchal control of the landlords over their tenants, a system which degenerated into rank slavery. In Jutland, too, after the repression, in 1441, of a peasant rising, something very like serfdom was introduced.

On the death of Christopher III. without heirs, in 1448, the Rigsraad elected his distant cousin, Count Christian of Oldenburg, king; but Sweden preferred Karl Knutsson (Charles “VIII.”), while Norway finally combined with Denmark, at the conference of Halmstad, in a double election which practically terminated the Union, though an agreement was come to that the survivor of the two kings should reign over all three kingdoms. Norway, subsequently, threw in her lot definitively with Denmark. Dissensions resulting in interminable civil wars had, even before the Union, exhausted the resources of the poorest of the three northern realms; and her ruin was completed by the ravages of the Black

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 Death, which wiped out two-thirds of her population. Unfortunately, too, for Norway’s independence, the native gentry had gradually died out, and were succeeded by immigrant Danish fortune-hunters; native burgesses there were none, and the peasantry were mostly thralls; so that, excepting the clergy, there was no patriotic class to stand up for the national liberties.

Far otherwise was it in the wealthier kingdom of Sweden. Here the clergy and part of the nobility were favourable to the Union; but the vast majority of the people hated it as a foreign usurpation. Matters were still further complicated by the continual interference of the Hanseatic League; and Christian I. (1448–1481) and Hans (1481–1513), whose chief merit it is to have founded the Danish fleet, were, during the greater part of their reigns, only nominally kings of Sweden. Hans also received in fief the territory of Dietmarsch from the emperor, but, in attempting to subdue the hardy Dietmarschers, suffered a crushing defeat in which the national banner called “Danebrog” fell into the enemy’s hands (1500). Moreover, this defeat led to a successful rebellion in Sweden, and a long and ruinous war with Lübeck, terminated by the peace of Malmö, 1512. It was during this war that a strong Danish fleet dominated the Baltic for the first time since the age of the Valdemars.

On the succession of Hans’s son, Christian II. (1513–1523), Margaret’s splendid dream of a Scandinavian empire seemed, finally, about to be realized. The young king, a man of character and genius, had wide views and original ideas. Elected king of Denmark and Norway, he succeeded in subduing Sweden by force of arms; but he spoiled everything at the culmination of his triumph by the hideous crime and blunder known as the Stockholm massacre, which converted the politically divergent Swedish nation into the irreconcilable foe of the unional government (see ). Christian’s contempt of nationality in Sweden is the more remarkable as in Denmark proper he sided with the people against the aristocracy, to his own undoing in that age of privilege and prejudice. His intentions, as exhibited to his famous Landelove (National Code), were progressive and enlightened to an eminent degree; so much so, indeed, that they mystified the people as much as they alienated the patricians; but his actions were often of revolting brutality, and his whole career was vitiated by an incurable double-mindedness which provoked general distrust. Yet there is no doubt that Christian II. was a true patriot, whose ideal it was to weld the three northern kingdoms into a powerful state, independent of all foreign influences, especially of German influence as manifested in the commercial tyranny of the Hansa League. His utter failure was due, partly to the vices of an undisciplined temperament, and partly to the extraordinary difficulties of the most inscrutable period of European history, when the shrewdest heads were at fault and irreparable blunders belonged to the order of the day. That period was the period of the Reformation, which profoundly affected the politics of Scandinavia. Christian II. had always subordinated religion to politics, and was Papist or Lutheran according to circumstances. But, though he treated the Church more like a foe than a friend and was constantly at war with the Curia, he retained the Catholic form of church worship and never seems to have questioned the papal supremacy. On the flight of Christian II. and the election of his uncle, Frederick I. (1523–1533), the Church resumed her jurisdiction and everything was placed on the old footing. The newly elected and still insecure German king at first remained neutral; but in the autumn of 1525 the current of Lutheranism began to run so strongly in Denmark as to threaten to whirl away every opposing obstacle. This novel and disturbing phenomenon was mainly due to the zeal and eloquence of the ex-monk Hans Tausen and his associates, or disciples, Peder Plad and Sadolin; and, in the autumn of 1526, Tausen was appointed one of the royal chaplains. The three ensuing years were especially favourable for the Reformation, as during that time the king had unlooked-for opportunities for filling the vacant episcopal sees with men after his own heart, and at heart he was a Lutheran. The reformation movement in Denmark was further promoted by Schleswig-Holstein influence. Frederick’s eldest son Duke Christian had, since 1527, resided at Haderslev, where he collected round him Lutheran teachers from Germany, and made his court the centre of the propaganda of the new doctrine. On the other hand, the Odense Recess of the 20th of August 1527, which put both confessions on a footing of equality, remained unrepealed; and so long as it remained in force, the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops, and, consequently, their authority over the “free preachers” (whose ambition convulsed all the important towns of Denmark and aimed at forcibly expelling the Catholic priests from their churches) remained valid, to the great vexation of the reformers. The inevitable ecclesiastical crisis was still further postponed by the superior stress of two urgent political events—Christian II.’s invasion of Norway (1531) and the outbreak, in 1533, of “Grevens fejde,” or “The Count’s War” (1534–36), the count in question being Christopher of Oldenburg, great-nephew of King Christian I., whom Lübeck and her allies, on the death of Frederick I., raised up against Frederick’s son Christian III. The Catholic party and the lower orders generally took the part of Count Christopher, who acted throughout as the nominee of the captive Christian II., while the Protestant party, aided by the Holstein dukes and Gustavus Vasa of Sweden, sided with Christian III. The war ended with the capture of Copenhagen by the forces of Christian III., on the 29th of July 1536, and the triumph of so devoted a Lutheran sealed the fate of the Roman Catholic Church in Denmark, though even now it was necessary for the victorious king to proceed against the bishops and their friends by a coup d’état, engineered by his German generals the Rantzaus. The Recess of 1536 enacted that the bishops should forfeit their temporal and spiritual authority, and that all their property should be transferred to the crown for the good of the commonwealth. In the following year a Church ordinance, based upon the canons of Luther, Melanchthon and Bugenhagen, was drawn up, submitted to Luther for his approval, and promulgated on the 2nd of September 1537. On the same day seven “superintendents,” including Tausen and Sadolin, all of whom had worked zealously for the cause of the Reformation, were consecrated in place of the dethroned bishops. The position of the superintendents and of the reformed church generally was consolidated by the Articles of Ribe in 1542, and the constitution of the Danish church has practically continued the same to the present day. But Catholicism could not wholly or immediately be dislodged by the teaching of Luther. It had struck deep roots into the habits and feelings of the people, and traces of its survival were distinguishable a whole century after the triumph of the Reformation. Catholicism lingered longest in the cathedral chapters. Here were to be found men of ability proof against the eloquence of Hans Tausen or Peder Plad and quite capable of controverting their theories—men like Povl Helgesen, for instance, indisputably the greatest Danish theologian of his day, a scholar whose voice was drowned amidst the clash of conflicting creeds.

Though the Reformation at first did comparatively little for education, and the whole spiritual life of Denmark was poor and feeble in consequence for at least a generation afterwards, the change of religion was of undeniable, if temporary, benefit to the state from the political point of view. The enormous increase of the royal revenue consequent upon the confiscation of the property of the Church could not fail to increase the financial stability of the monarchy. In particular the suppression of the monasteries benefited the crown in two ways. The old church had, indeed, frequently rendered the state considerable financial aid, but such voluntary assistance was, from the nature of the case, casual and arbitrary. Now, however, the state derived a fixed and certain revenue from the confiscated lands; and the possession

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 of immense landed property at the same time enabled the crown advantageously to conduct the administration. The gross revenue of the state is estimated to have risen threefold. Before the Reformation the annual revenue from land averaged 400,000 bushels of corn; after the confiscations of Church property it averaged 1,200,000 bushels. The possession of a full purse materially assisted the Danish government in its domestic administration, which was indeed epoch-making. It enabled Christian III. to pay off his German mercenaries immediately after the religious coup d’état of 1536. It enabled him to prosecute shipbuilding with such energy that, by 1550, the royal fleet numbered at least thirty vessels, which were largely employed as a maritime police in the pirate-haunted Baltic and North Seas. It enabled him to create and remunerate adequately a capable official class, which proved its efficiency under the strictest supervision, and ultimately produced a whole series of great statesmen and admirals like Johan Friis, Peder Oxe, Herluf Trolle and Peder Skram. It is not too much to say that the increased revenue derived from the appropriation of Church property, intelligently applied, gave Denmark the hegemony of the North during the latter part of Christian III.’s reign, the whole reign of Frederick II. and the first twenty-five years of the reign of Christian IV., a period embracing, roughly speaking, eighty years (1544–1626). Within this period Denmark was indisputably the leading Scandinavian power. While Sweden, even after the advent of Gustavus Vasa, was still of but small account in Europe, Denmark easily held her own in Germany and elsewhere, even against Charles V., and was important enough, in 1553, to mediate a peace between the emperor and Saxony. Twice during this period Denmark and Sweden measured their strength in the open field, on the first occasion in the “Scandinavian Seven Years’ War” (1562–70), on the second in the “Kalmar War” (1611–13), and on both occasions Denmark prevailed, though the temporary advantage she gained was more than neutralized by the intense feeling of hostility which the unnatural wars, between the two kindred peoples of Scandinavia, left behind them. Still, the fact remains that, for a time, Denmark was one of the great powers of Europe. Frederick II., in his later years (1571–1588), aspired to the dominion of all the seas which washed the Scandinavian coasts, and before he died he was able to enforce the rule that all foreign ships should strike their topsails to Danish men-of-war as a token of his right to rule the northern seas. Favourable political circumstances also contributed to this general acknowledgment of Denmark’s maritime greatness. The power of the Hansa had gone; the Dutch were enfeebled by their contest with Spain; England’s sea-power was yet in the making; Spain, still the greatest of the maritime nations, was exhausting her resources in the vain effort to conquer the Dutch. Yet more even than to felicitous circumstances, Denmark owed her short-lived greatness to the great statesmen and administrators whom Frederick II. succeeded in gathering about him. Never before, since the age of Margaret, had Denmark been so well governed, never before had she possessed so many political celebrities nobly emulous for the common good.

Frederick II. was succeeded by his son Christian IV. (April 4, 1588), who attained his majority on the 17th of August 1596, at the age of nineteen. The realm which Christian IV. was to govern had undergone great changes within the last two generations. Towards the south the boundaries of the Danish state remained unchanged. Levensaa and the Eider still separated Denmark from the Empire. Schleswig was recognized as a Danish fief, in contradistinction to Holstein, which owed vassalage to the Empire. The “kingdom” stretched as far as Kolding and Skedborg, where the “duchy” began; and this duchy since its amalgamation with Holstein by means of a common Landtag, and especially since the union of the dual duchy with the kingdom on almost equal terms in 1533, was, in most respects, a semi-independent state, Denmark, moreover, like Europe in general, was, politically, on the threshold of a transitional period. During the whole course of the 16th century the monarchical form of government was in every large country, with the single exception of Poland, rising on the ruins of feudalism. The great powers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were to be the strong, highly centralized, hereditary monarchies, like France, Spain and Sweden. There seemed to be no reason why Denmark also should not become a powerful state under the guidance of a powerful monarchy, especially as the sister state of Sweden was developing into a great power under apparently identical conditions. Yet, while Sweden was surely ripening into the dominating power of northern Europe, Denmark had as surely entered upon a period of uninterrupted and apparently incurable decline. What was the cause of this anomaly? Something of course must be allowed for the superior and altogether extraordinary genius of the great princes of the house of Vasa; yet the causes of the decline of Denmark lay far deeper than this. They may roughly be summed up under two heads: the inherent weakness of an elective monarchy, and the absence of that public spirit which is based on the intimate alliance of ruler and ruled. Whilst Gustavus Vasa had leaned upon the Swedish peasantry, in other words upon the bulk of the Swedish nation, which was and continued to be an integral part of the Swedish body-politic, Christian III. on his accession had crushed the middle and lower classes in Denmark and reduced them to political insignificance. Yet it was not the king who benefited by this blunder. The Danish monarchy since the days of Margaret had continued to be purely elective; and a purely elective monarchy at that stage of the political development of Europe was a mischievous anomaly. It signified in the first place that the crown was not the highest power in the state, but was subject to the aristocratic Rigsraad, or council of state. The Rigsraad was the permanent owner of the realm and the crown-lands; the king was only their temporary administrator. If the king died before the election of his successor, the Rigsraad stepped into the king’s place. Moreover, an elective monarchy implied that, at every fresh succession, the king was liable to be bound by a new Haandfaestning, or charter. The election itself might, and did, become a mere formality; but the condition precedent of election, the acceptance of the charter, invariably limiting the royal authority, remained a reality. This period of aristocratic rule, which dates practically from the accession of Frederick I. (1523), and lasted for nearly a century and a half, is known in Danish history as Adelsvaelde, or rule of the nobles.

Again, the king was the ruler of the realm, but over a very large portion of it he had but a slight control. The crown-lands and most of the towns were under his immediate jurisdiction, but by the side of the crown-lands lay the estates of the nobility, which already comprised about one-half of the superficial area of Denmark, and were in many respects independent of the central government both as regards taxation and administration. In a word, the monarchy had to share its dominion with the nobility; and the Danish nobility in the 16th century was one of the most exclusive and selfish aristocracies in Europe, and already far advanced in decadence. Hermetically sealing itself from any intrusion from below, it deteriorated by close and constant intermarriage; and it was already, both morally and intellectually, below the level of the rest of the nation. Yet this very aristocracy, whose claim to consideration was based not upon its own achievements but upon the length of its pedigrees, insisted upon an amplification of its privileges which endangered the economical and political interests of the state and the nation. The time was close at hand when a Danish magnate was to demonstrate that he preferred the utter ruin of his country to any abatement of his own personal dignity.

All below the king and the nobility were generally classified together as “subjects.” Of these lower orders the clergy stood first in the social scale. As a spiritual estate, indeed, it had ceased to exist at the Reformation, though still represented in the Rigsdag or diet. Since then too it had become quite detached from the nobility, which ostentatiously despised the teaching profession. The clergy recruited themselves therefore from the class next below them, and looked more and more to the

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 crown for help and protection as they drew apart from the gentry, who, moreover, as dispensers of patronage, lost no opportunity of appropriating church lands and cutting down tithes.

The burgesses had not yet recovered from the disaster of “Grevens fejde”; but while the towns had become more dependent on the central power, they had at the same time been released from their former vexatious subjection to the local magnates, and could make their voices heard in the Rigsdag, where they were still, though inadequately, represented. Within the Estate of Burgesses itself, too, a levelling process had begun. The old municipal patriciate, which used to form the connecting link between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, had disappeared, and a feeling of common civic fellowship had taken its place. All this tended to enlarge the political views of the burgesses, and was not without its influence on the future. Yet, after all, the prospects of the burgesses depended mainly on economic conditions; and in this respect there was a decided improvement, due to the increasing importance of money and commerce all over Europe, especially as the steady decline of the Hanse towns immediately benefited the trade of Denmark-Norway; Norway by this time being completely merged in the Danish state, and ruled from Copenhagen. There can, indeed, be no doubt that the Danish and Norwegian merchants at the end of the 16th century flourished exceedingly, despite the intrusion and competition of the Dutch and the dangers to neutral shipping arising from the frequent wars between England, Spain and the Netherlands.

At the bottom of the social ladder lay the peasants, whose condition had decidedly deteriorated. Only in one respect had they benefited by the peculiar conditions of the 16th century: the rise in the price of corn without any corresponding rise in the land-tax must have largely increased their material prosperity. Yet the number of peasant-proprietors had diminished, while the obligations of the peasantry generally had increased; and, still worse, their obligations were vexatiously indefinite, varying from year to year and even from month to month. They weighed especially heavily on the so-called Ugedasmaend, who were forced to work two or three days a week in the demesne lands. This increase of villenage morally depressed the peasantry, and widened still further the breach between the yeomanry and the gentry. Politically its consequences were disastrous. While in Sweden the free and energetic peasant was a salutary power in the state, which he served with both mind and plough, the Danish peasant was sinking to the level of a bondman. While the Swedish peasants were well represented in the Swedish Riksdag, whose proceedings they sometimes dominated, the Danish peasantry had no political rights or privileges whatever.

Such then, briefly, was the condition of things in Denmark when, in 1588, Christian IV. ascended the throne. Where so much was necessarily uncertain and fluctuating, there was room for an almost infinite variety of development. Much depended on the character and personality of the young prince who had now taken into his hands the reins of government, and for half a century was to guide the destinies of the nation. In the beginning of his reign the hand of the young monarch, who was nothing if not energetic, made itself felt in every direction. The harbours of Copenhagen, Elsinore and other towns were enlarged; many decaying towns were abolished and many new ones built under more promising conditions, including Christiania, which was founded in August 1624, on the ruins of the ancient city of Oslo. Various attempts were also made to improve trade and industry by abolishing the still remaining privileges of the Hanseatic towns, by promoting a wholesale immigration of skilful and well-to-do Dutch traders and handicraftsmen into Denmark under most favourable conditions, by opening up the rich fisheries of the Arctic seas, and by establishing joint-stock chartered companies both in the East and the West Indies. Copenhagen especially benefited by Christian IV.’s commercial policy. He enlarged and embellished it, and provided it with new harbours and fortifications; in short, did his best to make it the worthy capital of a great empire. But it was in the foreign policy of the government that the royal influence was most perceptible. Unlike Sweden, Denmark had remained outside the great religious-political movements which were the outcome of the Catholic reaction; and the peculiarity of her position made her rather hostile than friendly to the other Protestant states. The possession of the Sound enabled her to close the Baltic against the Western powers; the possession of Norway carried along with it the control of the rich fisheries which were Danish monopolies, and therefore a source of irritation to England and Holland. Denmark, moreover, was above all things a Scandinavian power. While the territorial expansion of Sweden in the near future was a matter of necessity, Denmark had not only attained, but even exceeded, her natural limits. Aggrandizement southwards, at the expense of the German empire, was becoming every year more difficult; and in every other direction she had nothing more to gain. Nay, more, Denmark’s possession of the Scanian provinces deprived Sweden of her proper geographical frontiers. Clearly it was Denmark’s wisest policy to seek a close alliance with Sweden in their common interests, and after the conclusion of the “Kalmar War” the two countries did remain at peace for the next thirty-one years. But the antagonistic interests of the two countries in Germany during the Thirty Years’ War precipitated a fourth contest between them (1643-45), in which Denmark would have been utterly ruined but for the heroism of King Christian IV. and his command of the sea during the crisis of the struggle. Even so, by the peace of Brömsebro (February 8, 1645) Denmark surrendered the islands of Oesel and Gotland and the provinces of Jemteland and Herjedal (in Norway) definitively, and Halland for thirty years. The freedom from the Sound tolls was by the same treaty also extended to Sweden’s Baltic provinces.

The peace of Brömsebro was the first of the long series of treaties, extending down to our own days, which mark the progressive shrinkage of Danish territory into an irreducible minimum. Sweden’s appropriation of Danish soil had begun, and at the same time Denmark’s power of resisting the encroachments of Sweden was correspondingly reduced. The Danish national debt, too, had risen enormously, while the sources of future income and consequent recuperation had diminished or disappeared. The Sound tolls, for instance, in consequence of the treaties of Brömsebro and Kristianopel (by the latter treaty very considerable concessions were made to the Dutch) had sunk from 400,000 to 140,000 rix-dollars. The political influence of the crown, moreover, had inevitably been weakened, and the conduct of foreign affairs passed from the hands of the king into the hands of the Rigsraad. On the accession of Frederick III. (1648–1670) moreover, the already diminished royal prerogative was still further curtailed by the Haandfaestning, or charter, which he was compelled to sign. Fear and hatred of Sweden, and the never abandoned hope of recovering the lost provinces, animated king and people alike; but it was Denmark’s crowning misfortune that she possessed at this difficult crisis no statesman of the first rank, no one even approximately comparable with such competitors as Charles X. of Sweden or the “Great Elector” Frederick William of Brandenburg. From the very beginning of his reign Frederick III. was resolved upon a rupture at the first convenient opportunity, while the nation was, if possible, even more bellicose than the king. The apparently insuperable difficulties of Sweden in Poland was the feather that turned the scale; on the 1st of June 1657, Frederick III. signed the manifesto justifying a war which was never formally declared and brought Denmark to the very verge of ruin. The extraordinary details of this dramatic struggle will be found elsewhere (see, king of Denmark, and , king of Sweden); suffice it to say that by the peace of Roskilde (February 26, 1658), Denmark consented to cede the three Scanian provinces, the island of Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of Baahus and Trondhjem; to renounce all anti-Swedish alliances and to exempt all Swedish

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 vessels, even when carrying foreign goods, from all tolls. These terrible losses were somewhat retrieved by the subsequent treaty of Copenhagen (May 27, 1660) concluded by the Swedish regency with Frederick III. after the failure of Charles X.’s second war against Denmark, a failure chiefly owing to the heroic defence of the Danish capital (1658-60). By this treaty Sweden gave back the province of Trondhjem and the isle of Bornholm and released Denmark from the most onerous of the obligations of the treaty of Roskilde. In fact the peace of Copenhagen came as a welcome break in an interminable series of disasters and humiliations. Anyhow, it confirmed the independence of the Danish state. On the other hand, if Denmark had emerged from the war with her honour and dignity unimpaired, she had at the same time tacitly surrendered the dominion of the North to her Scandinavian rival.

But the war just terminated had important political consequences, which were to culminate in one of the most curious and interesting revolutions of modern history. In the first place, it marks the termination of the Adelsvaelde, or rule of the nobility. By their cowardice, incapacity, egotism and treachery during the crisis of the struggle, the Danish aristocracy had justly forfeited the respect of every other class of the community, and emerged from the war hopelessly discredited. On the other hand, Copenhagen, proudly conscious of her intrinsic importance and of her inestimable services to the country, whom she had saved from annihilation by her constancy, now openly claimed to have a voice in public affairs. Still higher had risen the influence of the crown. The courage and resource displayed by Frederick III. in the extremity of the national danger had won for “the least expansive of monarchs” an extraordinary popularity.

On the 10th of September 1660, the Rigsdag, which was to repair the ravages of the war and provide for the future, was opened with great ceremony in the Riddersaal of the castle of Copenhagen. The first bill laid before the Estates by the government was to impose an excise tax on the principal articles of consumption, together with subsidiary taxes on cattle, poultry, &c., in return for which the abolition of all the old direct taxes was promised. The nobility at first claimed exemption from taxation altogether, while the clergy and burgesses insisted upon an absolute equality of taxation. There were sharp encounters between the presidents of the contending orders, but the position of the Lower Estates was considerably prejudiced by the dissensions of its various sections. Thus the privileges of the bishops and of Copenhagen profoundly irritated the lower clergy and the unprivileged towns, and made a cordial understanding impossible, till Hans Svane, bishop of Copenhagen, and Hans Nansen the burgomaster, who now openly came forward as the leader of the reform movement, proposed that the privileges which divided the non-noble Estates should be abolished. In accordance with this proposal, the two Lower Estates, on the 16th of September, subscribed a memorandum addressed to the Rigsraad, declaring their willingness to renounce their privileges, provided the nobility did the same; which was tantamount to a declaration that the whole of the clergy and burgesses had made common cause against the nobility. The opposition so formed took the name of the “Conjoined Estates.” The presentation of the memorial provoked an outburst of indignation. But the nobility soon perceived the necessity of complete surrender. On the 30th of September the First Estate abandoned its former standpoint and renounced its privileges, with one unimportant reservation.

The struggle now seemed to be ended, and the financial question having also been settled, the king, had he been so minded, might have dismissed the Estates. But the still more important question of reform was now raised. On the 17th of September the burgesses introduced a bill proposing a new constitution, which was to include local self-government in the towns, the abolition of serfdom, and the formation of a national army. It fell to the ground for want of adequate support; but another proposition, the fruit of secret discussion between the king and his confederates, which placed all fiefs under the control of the crown as regards taxation, and provided for selling and letting them to the highest bidder, was accepted by the Estate of burgesses. The significance of this ordinance lay in the fact that it shattered the privileged position of the nobility, by abolishing the exclusive right to the possession of fiefs. What happened next is not quite clear. Our sources fail us, and we are at the mercy of doubtful rumours and more or less unreliable anecdotes. We have a vision of intrigues, mysterious conferences, threats and bribery, dimly discernible through a shifting mirage of tradition.

The first glint of light is a letter, dated the 23rd of September, from Frederick III. to Svane and Nansen, authorizing them to communicate the arrangements already made to reliable men, and act quickly, as “if the others gain time they may possibly gain more.” The first step was to make sure of the city train-bands: of the garrison of Copenhagen the king had no doubt. The headquarters of the conspirators was the bishop’s palace near Vor Frue church, between which and the court messages were passing continually, and where the document to be adopted by the Conjoined Estates took its final shape. On the 8th of October the two burgomasters, Hans Nansen and Kristoffer Hansen, proposed that the realm of Denmark should be made over to the king as a hereditary kingdom, without prejudice to the privileges of the Estates; whereupon they proceeded to Brewer’s Hall, and informed the Estate of burgesses there assembled of what had been done. A fiery oration from Nansen dissolved some feeble opposition; and simultaneously Bishop Svane carried the clergy along with him. The so-called “Instrument,” now signed by the Lower Estates, offered the realm to the king and his house as a hereditary monarchy, by way of thank-offering mainly for his courageous deliverance of the kingdom during the war; and the Rigsraad and the nobility were urged to notify the resolution to the king, and desire him to maintain each Estate in its due privileges, and to give a written counter-assurance that the revolution now to be effected was for the sole benefit of the state. Events now moved forward rapidly. On the 10th of October a deputation from the clergy and burgesses proceeded to the Council House where the Rigsraad were deliberating, to demand an answer to their propositions. After a tumultuous scene, the aristocratic Raad rejected the “Instrument” altogether, whereupon the deputies of the commons proceeded to the palace and were graciously received by the king, who promised them an answer next day. The same afternoon the guards in the streets and on the ramparts were doubled; on the following morning the gates of the city were closed, powder and bullets were distributed among the city train-bands, who were bidden to be in readiness when the alarm bell called them, and cavalry was massed on the environs of the city. The same afternoon the king sent a message to the Rigsraad urging them to declare their views quickly, as he could no longer hold himself responsible for what might happen. After a feeble attempt at a compromise the Raad gave way. On the 13th of October it signed a declaration to the effect that it associated itself still with the Lower Estates in the making over of the kingdom, as a hereditary monarchy, to his majesty and his heirs male and female. The same day the king received the official communication of this declaration and the congratulation of the burgomasters. Thus the ancient constitution was transformed; and Denmark became a monarchy hereditary in Frederick III. and his posterity.

But although hereditary sovereignty had been introduced, the laws of the land had not been abolished. The monarch was specifically now a sovereign overlord, but he had not been absolved from his obligations towards his subjects. Hereditary sovereignty per se was not held to signify unlimited dominion, still less absolutism. On the contrary, the magnificent gift of the Danish nation to Frederick III. was made under express conditions. The “Instrument” drawn up by the Lower Estates implied the retention of all their rights; and the king, in accepting the gift of a hereditary crown, did not repudiate the implied inviolability of the privileges of the donors.

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 Unfortunately everything had been left so vague, that it was an easy matter for ultra-royalists like Svane and Nansen to ignore the privileges of the Estates, and even the Estates themselves.

On the 14th of October a committee was summoned to the palace to organize the new government. The discussion turned mainly upon two points, (1) whether a new oath of homage should be taken to the king, and (2) what was to be done with the Haandfaestning or royal charter. The first point was speedily decided in the affirmative, and, as to the second, it was ultimately decided that the king should be released from his oath and the charter returned to him; but a rider was added suggesting that he should, at the same time, promulgate a Recess providing for his own and his people’s welfare. Thus Frederick III. was not left absolutely his own master; for the provision regarding a Recess, or new constitution, showed plainly enough that such a constitution was expected, and, once granted, would of course have limited the royal power.

It now only remained to execute the resolutions of the committee. On the 17th of October the charter, which the king had sworn to observe twelve years before, was solemnly handed back to him at the palace, Frederick III. thereupon promising to rule as a Christian king to the satisfaction of all the Estates of the realm. On the following day the king, seated on the topmost step of a lofty tribune surmounted by a baldaquin, erected in the midst of the principal square of Copenhagen, received the public homage of his subjects of all ranks, in the presence of an immense concourse, on which occasion he again promised to rule “as a Christian hereditary king and gracious master,” and, “as soon as possible, to prepare and set up” such a constitution as should secure to his subjects a Christian and indulgent sway. The ceremony concluded with a grand banquet at the palace. After dinner the queen and the clergy withdrew; but the king remained. An incident now occurred which made a strong impression on all present. With a brimming beaker in his hand, Frederick III. went up to Hans Nansen, drank with him and drew him aside. They communed together in a low voice for some time, till the burgomaster, succumbing to the influence of his potations, fumbled his way to his carriage with the assistance of some of his civic colleagues. Whether Nansen, intoxicated by wine and the royal favour, consented on this occasion to sacrifice the privileges of his order and his city, it is impossible to say; but it is significant that, from henceforth, we hear no more of the Recess which the more liberal of the leaders of the lower orders had hoped for when they released Frederick III. from the obligations of the charter.

We can follow pretty plainly the stages of the progress from a limited to an absolute monarchy. By an act dated the 10th of January 1661, entitled “Instrument, or pragmatic sanction,” of the king’s hereditary right to the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, it was declared that all the prerogatives of majesty, and “all regalia as an absolute sovereign lord,” had been made over to the king. Yet, even after the issue of the “Instrument,” there was nothing, strictly speaking, to prevent Frederick III. from voluntarily conceding to his subjects some share in the administration. Unfortunately the king was bent upon still further emphasizing the plenitude of his power. At Copenhagen his advisers were busy framing drafts of a Lex Regia Perpetua; and the one which finally won the royal favour was the famous Kongelov, or “King’s Law.”

This document was in every way unique. In the first place it is remarkable for its literary excellence. Compared with the barbarous macaronic jargon of the contemporary official language it shines forth as a masterpiece of pure, pithy and original Danish. Still more remarkable are the tone and tenor of this royal law. The Kongelov has the highly dubious honour of being the one written law in the civilized world which fearlessly carries out absolutism to the last consequences. The monarchy is declared to owe its origin to the surrender of the supreme authority by the Estates to the king. The maintenance of the indivisibility of the realm and of the Christian faith according to the Augsburg Confession, and the observance of the Kongelov itself, are now the sole obligations binding upon the king. The supreme spiritual authority also is now claimed; and it is expressly stated that it becomes none to crown him; the moment he ascends the throne, crown and sceptre belong to him of right. Moreover, par. 26 declares guilty of lèse-majesté whomsoever shall in any way usurp or infringe the king’s absolute authority. In the following reign the ultra-royalists went further still. In their eyes the king was not merely autocratic, but sacrosanct. Thus before the anointing of Christian V. on the 7th of June 1671, a ceremony by way of symbolizing the new autocrat’s humble submission to the Almighty, the officiating bishop of Zealand delivered an oration in which he declared that the king was God’s immediate creation, His vicegerent on earth, and that it was the bounden duty of all good subjects to serve and honour the celestial majesty as represented by the king’s terrestrial majesty. The Kongelov is dated and subscribed the 14th of November 1665, but was kept a profound secret, only two initiated persons knowing of its existence until after the death of Frederick III., one of them being Kristoffer Gabel, the king’s chief intermediary during the revolution, and the other the author and custodian of the Kongelov, Secretary Peder Schumacher, better known as Griffenfeldt. It is significant that both these confidential agents were plebeians.

The revolution of 1660 was certainly beneficial to Norway. With the disappearance of the Rigsraad, which, as representing the Danish crown, had hitherto exercised sovereignty over both kingdoms, Norway ceased to be a subject principality. The sovereign hereditary king stood in exactly the same relations to both kingdoms; and thus, constitutionally, Norway was placed on an equality with Denmark, united with but not subordinate to it. It is clear that the majority of the Norwegian people hoped that the revolution would give them an administration independent of the Danish government; but these expectations were not realised. Till the cessation of the Union in 1814, Copenhagen continued to be the headquarters of the Norwegian administration; both kingdoms had common departments of state; and the common chancery continued to be called the Danish chancery. On the other hand the condition of Norway was now greatly improved. In January 1661 a land commission was appointed to investigate the financial and economical conditions of the kingdoms; the fiefs were transformed into counties; the nobles were deprived of their immunity from taxation; and in July 1662 the Norwegian towns received special privileges, including the monopoly of the lucrative timber trade.

The Enevaelde, or absolute monarchy, also distinctly benefited the whole Danish state by materially increasing its reserve of native talent. Its immediate consequence was to throw open every state appointment to the middle classes; and the middle classes of that period, with very few exceptions, monopolized the intellect and the energy of the nation. New blood of the best quality nourished and stimulated the whole body politic. Expansion and progress were the watchwords at home, and abroad it seemed as if Denmark were about to regain her former position as a great power. This was especially the case during the brief but brilliant administration of Chancellor Griffenfeldt. Then, if ever, Denmark had the chance of playing once more a leading part in international politics. But Griffenfeldt’s difficulties, always serious, were increased by the instability of the European situation, depending as it did on the ambition of Louis XIV. Resolved to conquer the Netherlands, the French king proceeded, first of all, to isolate her by dissolving the Triple Alliance. (See and .) In April 1672 a treaty was concluded between France and Sweden, on condition that France should not include Denmark in her system of alliances without the consent of Sweden. This treaty showed that Sweden weighed more in the French balances than Denmark. In June 1672 a French army invaded the Netherlands; whereupon the elector of Brandenburg contracted an alliance with the emperor Leopold, to which Denmark was invited to accede; almost simultaneously

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 the States-General began to negotiate for a renewal of the recently expired Dano-Dutch alliance.

In these circumstances it was as difficult for Denmark to remain neutral as it was dangerous for her to make a choice. An alliance with France would subordinate her to Sweden; an alliance with the Netherlands would expose her to an attack from Sweden. The Franco-Swedish alliance left Griffenfeldt no choice but to accede to the opposite league, for he saw at once that the ruin of the Netherlands would disturb the balance of power in the north by giving an undue preponderance to England and Sweden. But Denmark’s experience of Dutch promises in the past was not reassuring; so, while negotiating at the Hague for a renewal of the Dutch alliance, he at the same time felt his way at Stockholm towards a commercial treaty with Sweden. His Swedish mission proved abortive, but, as he had anticipated, it effectually accelerated the negotiations at the Hague, and frightened the Dutch into unwonted liberality. In May 1673 a treaty of alliance was signed by the ambassador of the States-General at Copenhagen, whereby the Netherlands pledged themselves to pay Denmark large subsidies in return for the services of 10,000 men and twenty warships, which were to be held in readiness in case the United Provinces were attacked by another enemy besides France. Thus, very dexterously, Griffenfeldt had succeeded in gaining his subsidies without sacrificing his neutrality.

His next move was to attempt to detach Sweden from France; but, Sweden showing not the slightest inclination for a rapprochement, Denmark was compelled to accede to the anti-French league, which she did by the treaty of Copenhagen, of January 1674, thereby engaging to place an army of 20,000 in the field when required; but here again Griffenfeldt safeguarded himself to some extent by stipulating that this provision was not to be operative till the allies were attacked by a fresh enemy. When, in December 1674, a Swedish army invaded Prussian Pomerania, Denmark was bound to intervene as a belligerent, but Griffenfeldt endeavoured to postpone this intervention as long as possible; and Sweden’s anxiety to avoid hostilities with her southern neighbour materially assisted him to postpone the evil day. He only wanted to gain time, and he gained it. To the last he endeavoured to avoid a rupture with France even if he broke with Sweden; but he could not restrain for ever the foolish impetuosity of his own sovereign, Christian V., and his fall in the beginning of 1676 not only, as he had foreseen, involved Denmark in an unprofitable war, but, as his friend and disciple, Jens Juel, well observed, relegated her henceforth to the humiliating position of an international catspaw. Thus at the peace of Fontainebleau (September 2, 1679) Denmark, which had borne the brunt of the struggle in the Baltic, was compelled by the inexorable French king to make full restitution to Sweden, the treaty between the two northern powers being signed at Lund on the 26th of September. Freely had she spent her blood and her treasure, only to emerge from the five years’ contest exhausted and empty-handed.

By the peace of Fontainebleau Denmark had been sacrificed to the interests of France and Sweden; forty-one years later she was sacrificed to the interests of Hanover and Prussia by the peace of Copenhagen (1720), which ended the Northern War so far as the German powers were concerned. But it would not have terminated advantageously for them at all, had not the powerful and highly efficient Danish fleet effectually prevented the Swedish government from succouring its distressed German provinces, and finally swept the Swedish fleets out of the northern waters. Yet all the compensation Denmark received for her inestimable services during a whole decade was 600,000 rix-dollars! The bishoprics of Bremen and Verden, the province of Farther Pomerania and the isle of Rügen which her armies had actually conquered, and which had been guaranteed to her by a whole catena of treaties, went partly to the upstart electorate of Hanover and partly to the upstart kingdom of Prussia, both of which states had been of no political importance whatever at the beginning of the war of spoliation by which they were, ultimately, to profit so largely and so cheaply.

The last ten years of the reign of Christian V.’s successor, Frederick IV. (1699–1730), were devoted to the nursing and development of the resources of the country, which had suffered only less severely than Sweden from the effects of the Great Northern War. The court, seriously pious, did much for education. A wise economy also contributed to reduce the national debt within manageable limits, and in the welfare of the peasantry Frederick IV. took a deep interest. In 1722 serfdom was abolished in the case of all peasants in the royal estates born after his accession.

The first act of Frederick’s successor, Christian VI. (1730–1746), was to abolish the national militia, which had been an intolerable burden upon the peasantry; yet the more pressing agrarian difficulties were not thereby surmounted, as had been hoped. The price of corn continued to fall; the migration of the peasantry assumed alarming proportions; and at last, “to preserve the land” as well as to increase the defensive capacity of the country, the national militia was re-established by the decree of the 4th of February 1733, which at the same time bound to the soil all peasants between the age of nine and forty. Reactionary as the measure was it enabled the agricultural interest, on which the prosperity of Denmark mainly depended, to tide over one of the most dangerous crises in its history; but certainly the position of the Danish peasantry was never worse than during the reign of the religious and benevolent Christian VI.

Under the peaceful reign of Christian’s son and successor, Frederick V. (1746–1766), still more was done for commerce, industry and agriculture. To promote Denmark’s carrying trade, treaties were made with the Barbary States, Genoa and Naples; and the East Indian Trading Company flourished exceedingly. On the other hand the condition of the peasantry was even worse under Frederick V. than it had been under Christian VI., the Stavnsbaand, or regulation which bound all males to the soil, being made operative from the age of four. Yet signs of a coming amelioration were not wanting. The theory of the physiocrats now found powerful advocates in Denmark; and after 1755, when the press censorship was abolished so far as regarded political economy and agriculture, a thorough discussion of the whole agrarian question became possible. A commission appointed in 1757 worked zealously for the repeal of many agricultural abuses; and several great landed proprietors introduced hereditary leaseholds, and abolished the servile tenure.

Foreign affairs during the reigns of Frederick V. and Christian VI. were left in the capable hands of J. H. E. Bernstorff, who aimed at steering clear of all foreign complications and preserving inviolable the neutrality of Denmark. This he succeeded in doing, in spite of the Seven Years’ War and of the difficulties attending the thorny Gottorp question in which Sweden and Russia were equally interested. The same policy was victoriously pursued by his nephew and pupil Andreas Bernstorff, an even greater man than the elder Bernstorff, who controlled the foreign policy of Denmark from 1773 to 1778, and again from 1784 till his death in 1797. The period of the younger Bernstorff synchronizes with the greater part of the long reign of Christian VII. (1766–1808), one of the most eventful periods of modern Danish history. The king himself was indeed a semi-idiot, scarce responsible for his actions, yet his was the era of such striking personalities as the brilliant charlatan Struensee, the great philanthropist and reformer C. D. F. Reventlow, the ultra-conservative Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, whose mission it was to repair the damage done by Struensee, and that generation of alert and progressive spirits which surrounded the young crown prince Frederick, whose first act, on taking his seat in the council of state, at the age of sixteen, on the 4th of April 1784, was to dismiss Guldberg.

A fresh and fruitful period of reform now began, lasting till nearly the end of the century, and interrupted only by the brief but costly war with Sweden in 1788. The emancipation of the peasantry was now the burning question of the day, and the whole matter was thoroughly ventilated. Bernstorff and the

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 It needs to be mentioned that there are occasions when senior members of the bar act pro deo in particularly difficult cases—indeed the present case affords an example of that, for Mr Trengove and his juniors have acted pro deo in the proceedings before us, and the Legal Resources Centre who have acted as their instructing attorneys, have done so without charge. An enormous amount of research has gone into the preparation of the argument and it is highly doubtful that even the wealthiest members of our society could have secured a better service than they have provided. But this is the exception and not the rule. This may possibly change as a result of the provisions of section 25(3)(e) of the Constitution, but there are limits to the available financial and human resources, limits which are likely to exist for the foreseeable future, and which will continue to place poor accused at a significant disadvantage in defending themselves in capital cases.

It cannot be gainsaid that poverty, race and chance play roles in the outcome of capital cases and in the final decision as to who should live and who should die. It is sometimes said that this is understood by the judges, and as far as possible, taken into account by them. But in itself this is no answer to the complaint of arbitrariness; on the contrary, it may introduce an additional factor of arbitrariness that would also have to be taken into account. Some, but not all accused persons may be acquitted because such allowances are made, and others who are convicted, but not all, may for the same reason escape the death sentence.

In holding that the imposition and the carrying out of the death penalty in the cases then under consideration constituted cruel and unusual punishment in the United States, Justice Douglas, concurring in Furman v. Georgia, said that "[a]ny law which is nondiscriminatory on its face may be applied in such a way as to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Discretionary statutes are:

"…pregnant with discrimination and discrimination is an ingredient not compatible with the idea of equal protection of the laws that is implicit in the ban on "cruel and unusual" punishments."

It was contended that we should follow this approach and hold that the factors to which I have referred, make the application of section 277, in practice, arbitrary and capricious and, for that reason, any resulting death sentence is cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

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 crown prince were the most zealous advocates of the peasantry in the council of state; but the honour of bringing the whole peasant question within the range of practical politics undoubtedly belongs to (q.v.). Nor was the reforming principle limited to the abolition of serfdom. In 1788 the corn trade was declared free; the Jews received civil rights; and the negro slave trade was forbidden. In 1796 a special ordinance reformed the whole system of judicial procedure, making it cheaper and more expeditious; while the toll ordinance of the 1st of February 1797 still further extended the principle of free trade. Moreover, until two years after Bernstorff’s death in 1797, the Danish press enjoyed a larger freedom of speech than the press of any other absolute monarchy in Europe, so much so that at last Denmark became suspected of favouring Jacobin views. But in September 1799 under strong pressure from the Russian emperor Paul, the Danish government forbade anonymity, and introduced a limited censorship.

It was Denmark’s obsequiousness to Russia which led to the first of her unfortunate collisions with Great Britain. In 1800 the Danish government was persuaded by the tsar to accede to the second Armed Neutrality League, which Russia had just concluded with Prussia and Sweden. Great Britain retaliated by laying an embargo on the vessels of the three neutral powers, and by sending a considerable fleet to the Baltic under the command of Parker and Nelson. Surprised and unprepared though they were, the Danes, nevertheless, on the 2nd of April 1801, offered a gallant resistance; but their fleet was destroyed, their capital bombarded, and, abandoned by Russia, they were compelled to submit to a disadvantageous peace.

The same vain endeavour of Denmark to preserve her neutrality led to the second breach with England. After the peace of Tilsit there could be no further question of neutrality. Napoleon had determined that if Great Britain refused to accept Russia’s mediation, Denmark, Sweden and Portugal were to be forced to close their harbours to her ships and declare war against her. It was the intention of the Danish government to preserve its neutrality to the last, although, on the whole, it preferred an alliance with Great Britain to a league with Napoleon, and was even prepared for a breach with the French emperor if he pressed her too hardly. The army had therefore been assembled in Holstein, and the crown prince regent was with it. But the British government did not consider Denmark strong enough to resist France, and Canning had private trustworthy information of the designs of Napoleon, upon which he was bound to act. He sent accordingly a fleet, with 30,000 men on board, to the Sound to compel Denmark, by way of security for her future conduct, to unite her fleet with the British fleet. Denmark was offered an alliance, the complete restitution of her fleet after the war, a guarantee of all her possessions, compensation for all expenses, and even territorial aggrandizement.

Dictatorially presented as they were, these terms were liberal and even generous; and if a great statesman like Bernstorff had been at the head of affairs in Copenhagen, he would, no doubt, have accepted them, even if with a wry face. But the prince regent, if a good patriot, was a poor politician, and invincibly obstinate. When, therefore, in August 1807, Gambier arrived in the Sound, and the English plenipotentiary Francis James Jackson, not perhaps the most tactful person that could have been chosen, hastened to Kiel to place the British demands before the crown prince, Frederick not only refused to negotiate, but ordered the Copenhagen authorities to put the city in the best state of defence possible. Taking this to be tantamount to a declaration of war, on the 16th of August the British army landed at Vedbäck; and shortly afterwards the Danish capital was invested. Anything like an adequate defence was hopeless; a bombardment began which lasted from the 2nd of September till the 5th of September, and ended with the capitulation of the city and the surrender of the fleet intact, the prince regent having neglected to give orders for its destruction. After this Denmark, unwisely, but not unnaturally, threw herself into the arms of Napoleon and continued to be his faithful ally till the end of the war. She was punished for her obstinacy by being deprived of Norway, which she was compelled to surrender to Sweden by the terms of the treaty of Kiel (1814), on the 14th of January, receiving by way of compensation a sum of money and Swedish Pomerania, with Rügen, which were subsequently transferred to Prussia in exchange for the duchy of Lauenburg and 2,000,000 rix-dollars.

On the establishment of the German Confederation in 1815, Frederick VI. acceded thereto as duke of Holstein, but refused to allow Schleswig to enter it, on the ground that Schleswig was an integral part of the Danish realm.

The position of Denmark from 1815 to 1830 was one of great difficulty and distress. The loss of Norway necessitated considerable reductions of expenditure, but the economies actually practised fell far short of the requirements of the diminished kingdom and its depleted exchequer; while the agricultural depression induced by the enormous fall in the price of corn all over Europe caused fresh demands upon the state, and added 10,000,000 rix-dollars to the national debt before 1835. The last two years of the reign of Frederick VI. (1838–1839) were also remarkable for the revival of political life, provincial consultative assemblies being established for Jutland, the Islands, Schleswig and Holstein, by the ordinance of the 28th of May 1831. But these consultative assemblies were regarded as insufficient by the Danish Liberals, and during the last years of Frederick VI. and the whole reign of his successor, Christian VIII. (1839–1848), the agitation for a free constitution, both in Denmark and the duchies, continued to grow in strength, in spite of press prosecutions and other repressive measures. The rising national feeling in Germany also stimulated the separatist tendencies of the duchies; and “Schleswig-Holsteinism,” as it now began to be called, evoked in Denmark the counter-movement known as Eiderdansk-politik, i.e. the policy of extending Denmark to the Eider and obliterating German Schleswig, in order to save Schleswig from being absorbed by Germany. This division of national sentiment within the monarchy, complicated by the approaching extinction of the Oldenburg line of the house of Denmark, by which, in the normal course under the Salic law, the succession to Holstein would have passed away from the Danish crown, opened up the whole complicated Schleswig-Holstein Question with all its momentous consequences. (See .) Within the monarchy itself, during the following years, “Schleswig-Holsteinism” and “Eiderdanism” faced each other as rival, mutually exacerbating forces; and the efforts of succeeding governments to solve the insoluble problem broke down ever on the rock of nationalist passion and the interests of the German powers. The unionist constitution, devised by Christian VIII., and promulgated by his successor, Frederick VII. (1848–1863), on the 28th of January 1848, led to the armed intervention of Prussia, at the instance of the new German parliament at Frankfort; and, though with the help of Russian and British diplomacy, the Danes were ultimately successful, they had to submit, in 1851, to the government of Holstein by an international commission consisting of three members, Prussian, Austrian and Danish respectively.

Denmark, meanwhile, had been engaged in providing herself with a parliament on modern lines. The constitutional rescript of the 28th of January 1848 had been withdrawn in favour of an electoral law for a national assembly, of whose 152 members 38 were to be nominated by the king and to form an Upper House (Landsting), while the remainder were to be elected by the people and to form a popular chamber (Folketing). The Bondevenlige, or philo-peasant party, which objected to the king’s right of nomination and preferred a one-chamber system, now separated from the National Liberals on this point. But the National Liberals triumphed at the general election; fear of reactionary tendencies finally induced the Radicals to accede to the wishes of the majority; and on the 5th of June 1849 the new constitution received the royal sanction.

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 At this stage Denmark’s foreign relations prejudicially affected her domestic politics. The Liberal Eiderdansk party was for dividing Schleswig into three distinct administrative belts, according as the various nationalities predominated (language rescripts of 1851), but German sentiment was opposed to any such settlement and, still worse, the great continental powers looked askance on the new Danish constitution as far too democratic. The substance of the notes embodying the exchange of views, in 1851 and 1852, between the German great powers and Denmark, was promulgated, on the 28th of January 1852, in the new constitutional decree which, together with the documents on which it was founded, was known as the Conventions of 1851 and 1852. Under this arrangement each part of the monarchy was to have local autonomy, with a common constitution for common affairs. Holstein was now restored to Denmark, and Prussia and Austria consented to take part in the conference of London, by which the integrity of Denmark was upheld, and the succession to the whole monarchy settled on Prince Christian, youngest son of Duke William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and husband of Louise of Hesse, the niece of King Christian VIII. The “legitimate” heir to the duchies, under the Salic law, Duke Christian of Sonderburg-Augustenburg, accepted the decision of the London conference in consideration of the purchase by the Danish government of his estates in Schleswig.

On the 2nd of October 1855 was promulgated the new common constitution, which for two years had been the occasion of a fierce contention between the Conservatives and the Radicals. It proved no more final than its predecessors. The representatives of the duchies in the new common Rigsraad protested against it, as subversive of the Conventions of 1851 and 1852; and their attitude had the support of the German powers. In 1857, (q.v.) became prime minister. After putting off the German powers by seven years of astute diplomacy, he realized the impossibility of carrying out the idea of a common constitution and, on the 30th of March 1862, a royal proclamation was issued detaching Holstein as far as possible from the common monarchy. Later in the year he introduced into the Rigsraad a common constitution for Denmark and Schleswig, which was carried through and confirmed by the council of state on the 13th of November 1863. It had not, however, received the royal assent when the death of Frederick VII. brought the “Protocol King” Christian IX. to the throne. Placed between the necessity of offending his new subjects or embroiling himself with the German powers, Christian chose the remoter evil and, on the 18th of November, the new constitution became law. This once more opened up the whole question in an acute form. Frederick, son of Christian of Augustenburg, refusing to be bound by his father’s engagements, entered Holstein and, supported by the Estates and the German diet, proclaimed himself duke. The events that followed: the occupation of the duchies by Austria and Prussia, the war of 1864, gallantly fought by the Danes against overwhelming odds, and the astute diplomacy by which Bismarck succeeded in ultimately gaining for Prussia the seaboard so essential for her maritime power, are dealt with elsewhere (see ). For Denmark the question was settled when, by the peace of Vienna (October 30, 1864), the duchies were irretrievably lost to her. At the peace of Prague, which terminated the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Napoleon III. procured the insertion in the treaty of paragraph v., by which the northern districts of Schleswig were to be reunited to Denmark when the majority of the population by a free vote should so desire; but when Prussia at last thought fit to negotiate with Denmark on the subject, she laid down conditions which the Danish government could not accept. Finally, in 1878, by a separate agreement between Austria and Prussia, paragraph v. was rescinded.

The salient feature of Danish politics during subsequent years was the struggle between the two Tings, the Folketing or Lower House, and the Landsting, or Upper House of the Rigsdag. This contest began in 1872, when a combination of all the Radical parties, known as the “United Left,” passed a vote of want of confidence against the government and rejected the budget. Nevertheless, the ministry, supported by the Landsting, refused to resign; and the crisis became acute when, in 1875, J. B. Estrup became prime minister. Perceiving that the coming struggle would be essentially a financial one, he retained the ministry of finance in his own hands; and, strong in the support of the king, the Landsting, and a considerable minority in the country itself, he devoted himself to the double task of establishing the political parity of the Landsting with the Folketing and strengthening the national armaments, so that, in the event of a war between the European great powers, Denmark might be able to defend her neutrality.

The Left was willing to vote 30,000,000 crowns for extraordinary military expenses, exclusive of the fortifications of Copenhagen, on condition that the amount should be raised by a property and income tax; and, as the elections of 1875 had given them a majority of three-fourths in the popular chamber, they spoke with no uncertain voice. But the Upper House steadily supported Estrup, who was disinclined to accept any such compromise. As an agreement between the two houses on the budget proved impossible, a provisional financial decree was issued on the 12th of April 1877, which the Left stigmatized as a breach of the constitution. But the difficulties of the ministry were somewhat relieved by a split in the Radical party, still further accentuated by the elections of 1879, which enabled Estrup to carry through the army and navy defence bill and the new military penal code by leaning alternately upon one or the other of the divided Radical groups.

After the elections of 1881, which brought about the reamalgamation of the various Radical sections, the opposition presented a united front to the government, so that, from 1882 onwards, legislation was almost at a standstill. The elections of 1884 showed clearly that the nation was also now on the side of the Radicals, 83 out of the 102 members of the Folketing belonging to the opposition. Still Estrup remained at his post. He had underestimated the force of public opinion, but he was conscientiously convinced that a Conservative ministry was necessary to Denmark at this crisis. When therefore the Rigsdag rejected the budget, he advised the king to issue another provisional financial decree. Henceforth, so long as the Folketing refused to vote supplies, the ministry regularly adopted these makeshifts. In 1886 the Left, having no constitutional means of dismissing the Estrup ministry, resorted for the first time to negotiations; but it was not till the 1st of April 1894 that the majority of the Folketing could arrive at an agreement with the government and the Landsting as to a budget which should be retrospective and sanction the employment of the funds so irregularly obtained for military expenditure. The whole question of the provisional financial decrees was ultimately regularized by a special resolution of the Rigsdag; and the retirement of the Estrup ministry in August 1894 was the immediate result of the compromise.

In spite of the composition of 1894, the animosity between Folketing and Landsting continues to characterize Danish politics, and the situation has been complicated by the division of both Right and Left into widely divergent groups. The elections of 1895 resulted in an undeniable victory of the extreme Radicals; and the budget of 1895–1896 was passed only at the last moment by a compromise. The session of 1896–1897 was remarkable for a rapprochement between the ministry and the “Left Reform Party,” caused by the secessions of the “Young Right,” which led to an unprecedented event in Danish politics—the voting of the budget by the Radical Folketing and its rejection by the Conservative Landsting in May 1897; whereupon the ministry resigned in favour of the moderate Conservative Hörring cabinet, which induced the Upper House to pass the budget. The elections of 1898 were a fresh defeat for the Conservatives, and in the autumn session of the same year, the Folketing, by a crushing majority of

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