Gesta Danorum - Deeds of the Danes

[Salik]

So, I just finished my last exam and am now going to celebrate. But an update will probably come tomorrow.

Excellent! We can only expect more war!

Well, it will take at least another war to get those pesky Swedes back where they belong- and then there's the German Oppressor OPM's who, no doubt, got all their money from robbing Danish traders anyways...

awesome more wars!

lets just hope they all go your way.. hah

For now, they do...

I doubt Chaucer would have left England after the death of Richard II as he was patronised by the lancasters (Henry IV's brood). Anyway, what is his skill level?

He is a level four (or five) artist. I basically justed picked up some stuff from Wiki, but as I understood what I read, Richard II was also a patron of Chaucer's. Now I see, that Richard in fact extended grants made by Henry III-anyways, Chaucer died just after Richard II, but I had to have him survive to show up 16 years later...

Poland-Lithuania is looking like quite the dangerous threat to your Baltic possessions. You'll have to smash them at some point if you truly want to restore the Danish hegemony over the North like Valdemar the Victorious did in the days of old.

But you've already gone some way on the road to restoring his old empire:

Oh, but they are eager to fight themselves... And the reign of Valdemar will be dwarfed by the Union of Kalmar, I'm sure

Hamborg is also a rightful danish possesion. Take it all!

BTW - do you use RM's and trying to get into personal unions ?

I do use royal marriages, but mostly to avoid wars and to keep my allies close. I don't hope to get into PU, but I wouldn't mind it either.

 

[Sweboy]

Well, it will take at least another war to get those pesky Swedes back where they belong- and then there's the German Oppressor OPM's who, no doubt, got all their money from robbing Danish traders anyways...

Pesky Swedes. I have only this to say to you!

Dansk Jävlar!

(although this fantastic line was penned by Lars von Trier...)

 

[Salik]

Chapter VI: The conqueror

The coat of arms of the house of Pomerania​

In 1417, the merchant republic of Gotland declared its independence from the Teutonic Order, which was soon split up by Denmark and Poland. Although the republic fared well, it was never rich enough to attract the attention of any of its larger neighbours. King Vilhelm had accepted that Gotland remain independent, though he had not renounced the official claim of the Danish crown on the island.

However, in 1428 the pretender Karl VIII of Sweden passed away, most probably due to his infamously sinful life. He was succeeded on the throne by his daughter Ulrika Eleonora, who was only 14 years old, and heavilly influenced by her much older husband Einar Prinz. He became the marshal of Swedens armies and was king in everything but name. Seeing how Sweden had been humiliated in the first war of the Union, Einar was eager to regain prestige for the crown that he expected to pass on his descendants. Knowing that the Union of Denmark and Norway would be too strong for him, he decided to attack Gotland. In a short and brutal campaign, he quickly took control of the island. In Visby, the citizens hid in the church, but the Swedish armies broke down the door and slaughtered several hundred people. It is rumored, that the massacre only stopped because the German mercenaires refused to participate any further.

The brutality of Einar Prinz caused widespread outrage in Denmark and Norway, and Vilhelm was not slow to seize the opportunity to declare war on Sweden. In the spring of 1429, the Danish fleet landed an army on Gotland. The inhabitants of the island greetet the Danes as liberators, and the garrison fell quickly. Meanwhile on the mainland, an army led by Vilhelm moved from Norway into northern Sweden, while another army moved from the South taking Småland before laying siege to Stockholm. By the end of 1430 all of Sweden was on Danish hands, and Einar Prinz fled to Finland leaving his wife to be captured by the Danish forces. Though Vilhelm naturally despised her father, Ulrika Eleonora was only a child, and was treated with dignity. It was probably durring this time, that Vilhelms younger brother, Hans, first met Ulrika Eleonora, a meeting that would complicate the Danish policy on Sweden for decades.

Einar Prinz realized that his position depended on being married to the queen, and ceeded Gotland and all of Sweden except Stockholm to Vilhelm, in return for having his wife freed from the Danish captivity. Peace was signed on the 18th of December 1430, and Vilhelms name of conqueror was firmly established.

This map shows the areas controlled by Einar Prinz after the Christmaspeace of 1430 in blue

With peace in the North, and Sweden only a teoretical threat, Vilhelm turned his attention south. The Archbishops of Hamburg had always been a threat to Danish sovereignty, as they claimed to be the true leaders of the Nordic church, even though Lund had been an archbishopry for 300 years. Meanwhile, they actively supported the Hanseatic League, who monopolized trade in the Nordic countries. This would not stand, and Vilhelm would sooner or later be forced to take up arms against the archbishop, even if he was a man of the church. However, the king of France was elected Holy Roman Emperor, and would support his archbishop against any attack. So instead of openly declaring war, Vilhelm sought to weaken the archbishop by all means possible. Sooner or later, the king of France would die, and a new, weaker emperor could be elected.

In 1433, the electors of the Empire chose Johan of Cleves as new emperor. In the confusion following the election, Danish armies invaded the lands of the archbishop. Neither Hungary nor Bohemia, the only continental allies of Vilhelm, darred attack a man of the church, even if he was as vile and ungodly as the Hamburgian archbishop. The Union was alone in open war against the Holy Roman Empire.

 

[unmerged(126169)]

Yea the sweedes get crushed!
Poor Gotland =[

Good luck with the HRE

 

[unmerged(111870)]

Pesky Swedes. I have only this to say to you!

Dansk Jävlar!

(although this fantastic line was penned by Lars von Trier...)

In this reality it would probably be more like "danske djævle" :rofl:

 

[unmerged(81979)]

This might be the truer test of your arms than Sweden. Once you're done with the HRE, ONTO FINLAND!

 

[Salik]

If the year of 1432 was the year of three Emperors, then today will be the day of two updates. I have a lot of gameplay to catch up with after finishing the exams, so they will be flowing as freely as the ducats flow into Vilhelms coffers at the end of this chapter.

Chapter VII: The Holy Roman Emperor

The coat of arms of the house of Pomerania​

The year of 1432 is known as the year of three Emperors. In August, the Emperor Johann of The Palatinate died after ten years on the throne. The electors of the Empire passed the Imperial crown to Charles of France, making him one of the strongest emperors for a long time. As Vilhelm was being drawn into open conflict with Hamburg, this came at the worst time imaginable. Vilhelm had no means of fighting of the armies of Charles, who had emerged strong from the 100 years war. However, in December Charles died, and king Johann of Cleves bribed the electors to pass the crown unto him. In the confusion that followed the second election of an Emperor in one year, Vilhelm moved quickly to attack Hamburg. Cleves had no large army of its own, and Johann was not very respected among the princes of the Empire. In fact, only the kings of Brunswick and Münster followed the Emperor into war, mostly due to their guaranteeing the sovereignty of the archbishop.

A small Danish army laid siege to the city of Hamburg in the beginning of January 1433. The Emperor assembled an army and came to rescue the city, but was met by a Norwegian army led by Vilhelm, which had arrived a few days before the Imperial army led by the emperor reached the city.
In the long history of tense relations between Denmark and the German states, a Danish king had only once attempted to directly attack the armies of the Emperor, in 810 when king Godfred sailed on Aachen, the capital of Charlemagne, but was killed by his own army before reaching the city. But Vilhelm was no ordinary Danish king. He was the king of Denmark and Norway, and ruler of Sweden by conquest. And he was not affraid of the title of Emperor, when it was attached to a man like Johann of Cleves. In the large battle of Hamburg, Vilhelm defeated the Emperor, and send the routed Imperial army fleeing southward. On that same day, the 15th of March 1433, Vilhelm declared himself to be liberator of all people under German oppression, and promtply anounced, that no province under Danish or Norwegian rule would be considered part of the Empire. Thus, Estland, Livland, Kurland, Ösel and Danzig all ceased to be Imperial Lands. Vilhelm then pursued the armies of Johann, while leaving a regiment of Danish troops to finish the siege of Hamburg, which would eventually fall on the 31th of July. Vilhelms brother Hans delivered the demands of Vilhelm to the archbishop. A Norwegian earl named Odd was to become duke of Hamburg, dealing with all worldly matters, while the archbishop would only deal with the matters of the church. The duchy of Hamburg would acknowledge Vilhelm as rightful overlord of Hamburg and pay yearly taxes to the crown. Furthermore, the archbishop would pay a large sum of ducats to the Danish crown to cover the accumulated losses that Danish traders had endured from the bishops support of the Hanseatic aggressions against other merchants. With the money payed by the archbishop, a Center of Trade was established on Sjælland, fulfilling the ambition of Margrete.

The war was to last for three triumphant years, before Vilhelm went back home to enjoy the spoils of victory. The king of Münster was a vassal, and both Johann of Cleves and the king of Brünswick payed large sums to compensate Vilhelm for the losses they had inflicted on him by intervening in the war. Vilhelm did not demand the submission of the Emperor, which would probably have meant that the Imperial Crown had passed to another sovereign who would be unlikely to be as weak as Johann.

At the age of 30 Vilhelm was at his peak, and decided to devote his attention to the internal matters of the realm. With the establishment of a Centre of Trade, income would be flowing more freely into the royal coffers, and there was much to be done if the Union was to evolve into a more viable state.

 

[Bimse]

Subscribed, it's great to see a Danish AAR.

 

[Salik]

Chapter VIII: Lament for a King

The coat of arms of the house of Pomerania​

Durring their ten years of marriage, Hedevig gave birth to seven children. The oldest was Vilhelm, followed by five daughters and Hans, who we know was born in 1412. The daughters were married off to the neighbouring kings in Mecklenburg, Poland, Pommerania and Lithuania and to the king of Hungary, who was a long time ally. Vilhelm was married to a daughter of the king of Muscovy, who died while giving birth to their only child, a girl who died only a week later. Vilhelm refused to find himself another bride.

In 1438, though Vilhelm was only 32, king Vladislovas of Lithuania proclaimed, that his infant son Stanislovas, who was grandson of Frederik I, should be the heir to Vilhelms throne. In a response to this, Vilhelm made the Danish and Norwegian nobles sign a treaty that named Hans heir to the thrones, should Vilhelm die without a son. In December of that same year, Vladislovas led an army into Memmel while his generals led another one into Estland. The armies of Lithuania easily outnumbered the Danish and Norwegian armies, but still Vilhelm fought back, keeping the Lithuanians from gaining control of the Baltic coast.

Meanwhile in Stockholm, Einar Prinz saw that Vilhelm was occupied with the war in Lithuania, and decided to reclaim the lost kingdom of his wife. So in the spring of 1440, he set out from Stockholm, trying to conquer the province of Östergötland. What he did not know was, that only a few days before, Vilhelm had managed to duplicate the tactic masterpiece of his fathers generals durring the first Baltic war, and trapped Vladislovas with 12000 men on Ösel.

With the main Lithuanian army trapped, Vilhelm turned his focus to Sweden. Leaving half his army behind to fight the remaining Lithuanian troops, he himself boarded a fleet and sailed on Stockholm with 6000 knights and 3000 infantry. In Stockholm he joined up with a Norwegian army that had intercepted Einar Prinz and sent him fleeing North into the large forrests on the border to Norway.
With a small army sieging Stockholm, Vilhelm started chasing Einar Prinz into Finland. In September the two armies met in the battle of Lappland, where the troops of Einar Prinz surrendered to Vilhelm. Einar himself fled the field to seek refuge with the local Sami. Unfortunately for him, he had gained extreme unpopularity amongst the Sami by heavy taxation when Lappland was still under the crown of Sweden, and his body was left outside the Danish camp the next day.

Vilhelm decided to stay in Västerbotten before crossing the border to Finland in the Spring. Legend says, that when he was celebrating Christmas, a Sami came to the hall where he was staying, and asked if he would mind to follow him and drink a drink of Christmas with him. Vilhelm agreed, and followed the Sami to his camp with a few trusted men. Here, the Samis daughter Snæfrid served Vilhelm a cup of sweetened beer, and Vilhelm fell in love with her. He wanted to take her to the hall, but the Sami insisted, that Vilhelm would have to marry her before he could sleep with her. The king agreed, and the ceremony was arranged for the next day. But when the local nobles heard of the plans, they were affraid that the Sami had put a spell on the king and decided to burn down the camp before the king could disgrace his royal blood by marrying an infidel.
After returning the next day to find Snæfrid dead, Vilhelm is said to have gone mad, refusing to eat or drink. For two weeks he laid in bed, starring into the wall, before getting up one day only to impale himself on his sword.

Whether this story is true or not, the king did die around Christmas of 1440. According to the treaty signed by the nobles, Hans was elected king of the 18th of January. He made a peace with Vladislovas, who acknowledged Hans as rightful king of Denmark in exchange for 100 ducats and the province of Memmel. Hans then finished the conquest of Finland, which was conquered in two years. Stockholm fell in February of 1443, and Hans made a pompous entry to the city. The details of what happened next are blurry, but it seems that Hans wanted to marry Ulrika Eleonora. In 1430, when she was a prisoner of his brother, Hans was only 18, but with his great administrative skills, he was appointed to run the occupying administration in Stockholm, where Ulrika Eleonora was also kept. The two were of the same age, and Hans often visited her in the castle were she lived heavily guarded. Back then, she was married to Einar Prinz, but now that he had perrished in Lappland, Hans was eager to marry Eleonora. It seems that the first round of negotiations involved a marriage between the two, uniting their realms under one crown. Ulrika Eleonora, however, refused this outright, and instead Hans was granted all of Finland.



For the next year, Hans would work hard to reform the kingdom, centralizing the government and keeping the Danish tradinghouses running. He left Ulrika Eleonora with Stockholm, hoping that some day she would become his bride.

 

[unmerged(81979)]

Rejected! :rofl:

 

[unmerged(126169)]

Rejected! :rofl:

My thoughts exactly! :rofl:

 

[stnylan]

A very entertaining AAR. You have a nice sense of faux-history. Denmark sounds to be emerging as a northern powerhouse. Any colonial ambitions?

 

[Sweboy]

In this reality it would probably be more like "danske djævle" :rofl:

Actually not. The line was delivered by the fantastic Swedish Actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård IN SWEDISH I loved Riget!

Hijack over.

 

[Pietbont]

I say, the HRE should be conquered by the His Most Serene Glorious Empire of Denmark

 

[Salik]

Back from Stockholm with a lot of inspiration for the next chapter- the contents of which should be obvious from that remark...

Rejected! :rofl:

Yeah, poor bloke... It's never nice to be rejected by somebody who would seem to have no choice other than accepting you...

A very entertaining AAR. You have a nice sense of faux-history. Denmark sounds to be emerging as a northern powerhouse. Any colonial ambitions?

Thanks... None that I have lived out yet, but I was thinking that maybe the Arctic-subarctic region would be best of under Danish rule

Actually not. The line was delivered by the fantastic Swedish Actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård IN SWEDISH I loved Riget!

Hijack over.

Well, in this reallity, Swedish might not be a separate language from Danish...

I say, the HRE should be conquered by the His Most Serene Glorious Empire of Denmark

It should, it's just that... well... you know... France has been HRE for like thirty years

 

[unmerged(126169)]

its ok that France is HRE just make friends with England and Castille(Spain possibly)
Then divide France up and between the three hahaha

 

[unmerged(111870)]

Well, in this reallity, Swedish might not be a separate language from Danish...

My point exactly - To bad about Memel, but we will always have vengeance

 

[Salik]

Chapter IX: Hans

The coat of arms of the house of Pomerania​

When Hans replaced his brother Vilhelm on the throne in 1441, he was 29 years old. Due to the great achievements of Vilhelm, the transition was the first smooth one in the history of the Union. Hans took the throne without any debate. Now, as we saw in the previous chapter, Hans spent his first years finishing the wars of his brother, gaining control of Finland but loosing Memmel, before retreating to Copenhagen to lick the wounds of refusal and stabilize the country. But if anybody had expected that Hans would become the peaceful ruler that his brother never was, they were mistaken. Vilhelm was, appart from being a great warrior, also a diplomat. Hans was just a warrior. He showed great skill in running the country, but this was mostly due to his brutallity. Some historians have attributed this feat to Hans being bitter at the refusal of Ulrika Eleonora, but others have pointed out that according to the protocols of the negotiations in 1443, Ulrika Eleonora said, that she did not want to replace Einar Prinz with another man like him.

The first real sign of the now famous brutality came in 1444, when the merchant republic of Novgorod expelled the Danish merchants. Hans quickly seized the opportunity and marched on Novgorod with the royal army. When Vilhelm fought the war in 1419, he concentrated on Sweden, and accepted a return to status quo with Novgorod, only demanding that Danish merchants should be allowed to trade freely in the city again. Hans, however, showed no mercy to the Novgorodians. In a campaign of one year, his armies sacked all of the Western provinces, burning down villages, raping the women and slaughtering the cattle. When Novgorod was conquered in 1445, Hans demanded control of Neva and Ingermanland, creating a connection between Finland and Estland and cutting of Novgorod from the sea. These demands were made under the treath of destroying the city, not leaving one stone on top of another. When the council of the republic agreed to the terms, Hans still decided to burn down the city to teach the Russians respect.

The new provinces also brought a minority of Orthodox Christians into the realm. Showing no tolerance for their beliefs, Hans closed all churches and instead established Catholic ones in the regions. The bishop of Neva was thrown to his death from the belltower of the catedral. As the only churches in the region were catholic ones, noone could be baptized, married or burried without being catholic, and within a few years the majorities of both provinces had embraced the new faith, at least in name, which heightened the prestige of Hans in the eyes of the catholic world.

When it comes to the conquest of Stockholm, however, Hans seems to have acted in love rather than hatred.

After Hans left Stockholm in 1443, Ulrika Eleonora knew, that the fate of her kingdom and of herself was completely at his mercy, and when she saw the brutality of the Novgorodian war, she called on king Vladislovas of Lithuania to protect her. This, however led to Sweden being drawn into a war against the Ottoman Empire. The sultan sent a fleet to conquer Stockholm, vowing to make Storkyrkan into a mosque and include the queen in his harem. When Hans learned of the fleet reaching the North Sea, he appealed to his brother in law Vladislovas to save the city. Vladislovas, however, had no fleet and no troops to spare, so Hans sent his own army to Stockholm and declared war on Lithuania for abandoning a Christian sovereign to the Turks. The Ottoman fleet had come to invade a city with no standing army, not to fight the infamous king of Denmark, so they retreated without battle. Hans was celebrated as the saviour of the city and was crowned king of Sweden by the nobles after forcing Ulrika Eleonora to marry him. As he already ruled all of Sweden, the coronation was merely ceremonial and had no real implications. From this day, the 11th of April 1448, Denmark and Sweden were one country, the throne of which would be inherited by the descendants of Hans and Ulrika Eleonora.

Hans then joined up with his armies in Lithuania, which was torn apart by the long Ottoman war, and forced Vladislovas to cede Memmel and 300 ducats in indemnities.
Hans had won the name of conqueror for himself, but in the eastern part of the realm he was known as Hans the Cruel. A name that would show to fit him just as well as that of conqueror.


Link to a picture of the statue Skt. George and the Dragon that Hans had made for Storkyrkan in Stockholm to commemorate the defeat of the Turks and of Swedish seperatism.

 

[unmerged(81979)]

Quite an epic statue... And, good to have Memel under Danish foot. You always need memel...

 

[Salik]

Quite an epic statue... And, good to have Memel under Danish foot. You always need memel...

A modern misconception says, that this statue was made to commemorate the defeat of the Danish, so I thought it would be fun to have it the other way around... And yes, Memel is the cornerstone of any proper empire