Christian II: Reformer and Failure
Christian II, like Gustavus who dislodged him from the rule of Sweden, was a man of striking character. In return for his installation as ruler of Denmark he granted full freedom to the peasants of his country (the word in the source is garbled; I have rendered it from context), chose his advisers from the middle class, ignored the Parliament held by nobles and gentry, and made the mother of his lovely Dutch mistress his private counselor. Evidently his advisers were shrewd and sensible people, since his domestic policy, unlike his foreign adventures, was successful. With tireless energy he put the country's administration in order, reformed city governments, revised the nation's laws, drove thieves and bandits from the coasts, repaired roads, founded a public post in Denmark, removed some of the injustices that weighed on serfs, exempted witches from the death penalty, set up charitable bodies to help the needy, founded schools for poor children, made education compulsory, and by expanding the University of Copenhagen made it a center of learning. By reviving the power of the Hanseatic League, Christian made an enemy of Lübeck, but he brought Danish trade to prosperity and abolished the savage custom that allowed coastal villagers to plunder ships wrecked on their shores.
Helgesen, Indulgences and the First Reform Laws
In 1517 Leo X sent Giovanni Arcimboldi to Denmark to sell indulgences. Poul Helgesen, a Carmelite friar, opposed the sale, and in doing so anticipated Luther. A quarrel broke out between the king and Arcimboldi over dividing the proceeds. The pope's envoy fled to Lübeck with part of the funds he had collected, and the king seized the rest. The king, whom the corruption of the Church and its property had turned toward reform, found Helgesen a post at the University of Copenhagen, and Helgesen, a skilled speaker, led the Danish reform movement from there for some years. After Helgesen prudently fell silent, Christian asked Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, to send Luther himself or one of his school to Denmark. Karlstadt came to Denmark but soon left.
Christian enacted reform laws. By them nobody who lacked the learning to expound the Gospel in Danish could be appointed priest; clergy who had not married could not lawfully take over estates or inherit endowments; bishops had to give up luxury; Church courts could not meddle in property suits; and the supreme court, whose judges were chosen by the king himself, was the final authority for reviewing the rulings of Church and civil courts. After the Diet of Worms condemned Luther, Christian put the reform on hold, and Helgesen urged the king to come to terms with the Roman Catholic Church.
The King's Fall
While Christian's domestic policy was stirring the Danes, failure in foreign policy toppled him. His cruelty in Sweden had angered many Danes. Lübeck, worn down by Danish attacks on Hanseatic ships, declared war on Denmark. The clergy and nobles, turned against the king by heavy taxes and hostile laws, ignored his summons to the national assembly and chose his uncle Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, as king. Christian fled to Flanders with his Protestant wife, the sister of Charles V, and in hope of regaining power came to terms with the Roman Catholic Church. When he tried to return to rule Denmark he was captured, and he spent twenty-four years (the book's figure) alone in a dungeon at Sønderborg. Ambition finally sent him down into the grave in shame and humiliation (1559).
Frederick I and the Spread of Lutheranism
Frederick I found no ease on the throne. The nobles and clergy had put him on the Danish throne on conditions, and one was that the king would let no heretic preach in Denmark. Helgesen, who had never stopped scolding the Church for its failings, now turned his attacks on Protestants, since he believed gradual reform was better than noisy revolution. But he could not push back the surging wave of history. Frederick's son, Duke Christian, was a follower of Luther, and the king's daughter, with his consent, had married Albrecht of Brandenburg, former Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. In 1526 Frederick moved with the course of history and made Hans Tausen, who had been trained under Luther, his chaplain. Tausen left his monastery, married and openly preached Luther's ideas. Frederick ordered the bishops to pay the fees for their appointment to him from then on instead of to the pope. These steps encouraged Lutheran preachers and multiplied their number. The bishops demanded their expulsion. Frederick answered that he would not let himself interfere in people's beliefs and was resolved to give his subjects religious freedom.
In 1524 a translation of the New Testament into Danish appeared, and in 1529 a better, fuller text, translated into Danish by Christian Pedersen, reached the public and hastened the spread of Protestantism. The Danes, tired of paying tithes to the clergy, turned to the Protestant faith. By 1530 most of the people of Copenhagen and Viborg were followers of Luther. In that year, at the Council of Copenhagen, a debate broke out between Catholic and Protestant leaders; the king and the people gave the verdict to the Protestants, and the "Confession of Faith," which Hans Tausen submitted to the council, became for about ten years the official creed of the Lutheran Church in Denmark.
The Count's Feud and the Settlement of 1536
Frederick's death (1533) hastened the decisive victory of Protestantism in Denmark. Danish merchants, to bring Christian II back to the throne, joined hands with Lübeck, Denmark's old enemy. Christopher, Count of Oldenburg, took command of Lübeck's forces and called the war on Denmark "the Count's Feud," after himself. Copenhagen fell to his soldiers, and the fall of the capital led Lübeck to hope to rule all Denmark. But the townsmen and peasants of Denmark, led by Christian III, Frederick's son, raised a force, defeated the Count of Oldenburg and, after a year's siege, took Copenhagen (July 1536).
After their victory the Danes threw all the bishops into prison, then freed them all on condition that they accept the Protestant order. In October 1536 the national assembly declared the Lutheran Church the official church of Denmark and made Christian III its supreme head. All the property of the bishoprics and monasteries was seized for the king, and the bishops lost their powers in the government. Norway and Iceland accepted Christian III, with all the laws and regulations he had enacted, as their ruler, and so Luther's Protestantism spread across all of Scandinavia.