Eric Pomeranian

Accession to the throne

Eric came from the Slavic dynasty of the Dukes of Pomerania (Pomerania) Griffins (Griftsov) , so named according to the image on their coat of arms - the griffin. Born in 1382 in Rugenwald (now Darlowo in Poland ) in Pomerania (Pomerania). Originally named Bogusław ( Polish: Bogusław ). The son of the Duke of Pomerania Bartislav VII ( Polish Warcisław VII , 1362 - 1395 ) and Mary of Mecklenburg ( German: Maria von Mecklenburg ), who also came from the Slavic ruling dynasty of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Zverinsky) dukes, descended from King Ocodritus . Through dynastic marriages, his mother was the only surviving granddaughter of the Danish king Waldemar IV . She was also a descendant of the Swedish king Magnus I and the Norwegian king Hakon V Saint . On the maternal side, Eric's grandfather was the Duke Heinrich of Mecklenburg , who claimed the Danish throne in 1375 . Then the throne was taken by Olaf IV .

In 1387 , the king of Denmark and Norway, Olaf IV , died without leaving an heir. The next successor to the Norwegian throne was the Swedish king, Albrecht of Mecklenburg , but he was rejected by the Norwegian nobility. In Denmark, kings were elected, but there was no clear pretender to the throne. Olaf IV's mother, Queen Margaret of Denmark , independently became Queen of Denmark and Norway. In Norway, it was decided that it was she who should choose the heir to the throne. Young Boguslav was the grandson of her sister.

In 1389, he came to Denmark and was received by the queen. His name was changed to the more usual for the Scandinavians Eric. On September 8, 1389, he was proclaimed king of Norway at a ting in Trondheim . It is possible that he was crowned in Oslo in 1392 , but this fact is controversial. In 1396, he was proclaimed king of Denmark, and then king of Sweden. On June 17, 1397 he was crowned king of all three Scandinavian countries in the cathedral of Kalmar . At the same time, an agreement was drawn up on the union that established the Kalmar Union. Queen Margarita, however, remained the de facto ruler of these three kingdoms until her death in 1412 .

Marriages

In 1402, Margarita of Denmark entered into negotiations with the King of England, Henry IV, to create a double alliance between England and the Kalmar Union. It was proposed to conclude two marriages: King Eric with the daughter of Henry IV Philip , and between the son of Henry IV, the Crown Prince of Wales and the future English King Henry V , and sister Eric Catherine. The English side wanted these weddings to hold together an offensive alliance between the Scandinavian kingdoms and England, which could entail the intervention of the Scandinavian states in the Hundred Years War on the side of England against France .

Queen Margarita pursued a consistent foreign policy, she sought to prevent the Scandinavian countries from joining alliances, obliging them to take part in foreign wars. Therefore, she rejected the English offer. The double wedding did not take place, but the parties agreed on the wedding of Eric and Philippa. On October 26, 1406, Eric married the 13-year-old Philip, daughter of Henry IV and Maria de Bogun . A simple defensive alliance was concluded with England.

Eric's policy

For almost the entire period of Eric's sole rule, the long-standing conflict with the counts of Holstein continued, combining Holstein and Schleswig in 1386 into a single duchy of Schleswig-Holstein . Eric tried to return Schleswig, but chose the policy of military force instead of negotiations. Supported by the Danish Parliament ( 1413 ) and the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund ( 1424 ), he waged two wars ( 1416 - 1422 , 1426 - 1435 ) against the counts of Holstein. The imperial verdict of 1424 recognized him as the rightful ruler of the south of Jutland , but was ignored by the Holstein people. The Holstein people in 1426 teamed up with the cities of the Hanseatic League , whose trade interests were threatened by Eric's policy towards Danish merchants and artisans. A long war negatively affected the Danish economy, as well as the unity of the Kalmar Union. It did not lead to an increase in territory, and even the areas that had been restored by then were lost.

Although Denmark finally lost Schleswig, the Danish fleet wrecked the Hanseatic ships, which made it possible to impose a fee for passing through the Zund Strait in 1428, which was levied until 1857 . With this far-sighted step, Eric provided a large stable income to the kingdom, making it relatively rich, and the city of Elsinore - prosperous. Against the interests of Eric in Danish trade were other Baltic states, especially the cities of the Hansa, with which they had to wage a long struggle.

Another important event was the transfer of Copenhagen to the king's possession in 1416 - one of the steps to transfer the royal residence from Roskilde to Copenhagen in 1433 .

Deprivation

In the 1430s, the political situation in the country worsened. Eric's appointment of senior Danes to senior positions and the financing of wars through heavy taxes led to opposition to the king in Norway and Sweden and among Danish peasants. Due to the blockade of the export of Swedish iron and copper by Hanseatic cities, Swedish farmers and miners revolted in 1434 . It was used by the Swedish nobles to weaken the king’s power. They won support in the Danish parliament for their demands for a new alliance with constitutional forms of government, which Eric resisted. Finally, when the Danish nobility also opposed Eric, he left Denmark in 1439 and settled in his Wisborg castle on the island of Gotland (now owned by Sweden), which ultimately led to his removal from Danish and Swedish thrones in the same year.

In 1440, his nephew Christopher III of Bavaria was elected to the throne in Denmark and Sweden. Only in Norway he remained in power, but in 1442 he abdicated the Norwegian throne, saying that it is better to be the head of the pirates on Gotland than to be the king of Norway. Until 1449, Eric tried to regain the Danish throne.

Christopher of Bavaria died in 1448 , long before Eric's death. The next monarch, Christian I (reigned from 1448 to 1481 ), was a relative of Eric. In 1449, Eric transferred Gotland to him in exchange for permission to move to Pomerania, where he began to manage the duchy of Stolp (part of the duchy of Pomerania, now the city of Slupsk in Poland) under the name Eric I.

Eric died in the castle of Rügenwald in Pomerania and was buried in Rügenwald.

• This article is based on English Wikipedia.
• Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite

• Eric // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.