KINGDOM, through the process of uniting several tribes or fylkens together, 875-900, was created in Norway by Harald Fairhair; in Denmark, by Gorm the Old; and in Sweden by the Yuglians. The Norman chiefs bowed with reluctance beneath the authority of a supreme king, and their contests with their kings lasted for many centuries, impeding the rapid and effectual introduction of Christianity into the Scandinavian kingdoms. The gospel had been preached in the three kingdoms in the ninth century by Ausgar, the "Apostle of the North," yet the pagan worship of Odin still continued to struggle with Christianity. In Denmark, Harald's grandson, Canute the Great, determined in favor of Christianity. In Sweden, Christianity became established in the middle of the twelfth century, and later on with the Fins. Scandinavia reaped wondrous benefit from Christianity, and the Benedictine monks "not only laid the germ of spiritual development, but they also improved the manner of living, and made people acquainted with the advantages of civilization. They introduced the art of writing, and banished the rude and defective Runic characters of the Latin alphabet; they encouraged agriculture; built mills; opened mines, and accustomed the warlike people to the arts of peace, to trade, and to agriculture."

Norway and Demark being united, the latter, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, increased in extent

under its warrior kings. Waldemar II., 1202-1241, the Conqueror, fought for, and succeeded in uniting all the Slavic lands on the south and east coasts of the Baltic, from Holstein to Esthonia,-Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, a part of Prussia, the coast land of Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, with his other possessions, and could call himself king of the Danes and Slavi, and lord of NordalbingeaSleswig Holstein. During his imprisonment by Henry of Schewin, who captured him while out hunting, the princes, who were his vassals, revolted, and his kingdom fell to pieces. Hamburg and Lübeck became free imperial towns, and the German provinces returned to the government of the emperor. Waldermar III. was a firm and wise king, and his daughter Margareta, 1397, united the three Scandinavian kingdoms, by the union of Calmar, under one sceptre. The protracted contest with the crown in Sweden lessened the power of its kings, while it increased that of its nobles. The Folkungs, a powerful family who had grasped the throne in the middle of the thirteenth century, failed to hold it, and of the seven kings of the royal house, five were dethroned, and died either in prison or exile. The last Folkung was Magnus II., who was deposed, 1363, when the Swedish throne descended upon his sister's son Albert of Mecklenburg, who later on was despoiled of his kingdom by Margareta, the Dane; whereupon Sweden concluded the union of Calmar with Denmark. This union did not prove beneficial to the three kingdoms. In Norway

and Denmark, the power of the state fell into the hands of the nobles, the kings being weak and unfit to cope with their vassals, while Sweden was treated and governed by Denmark as though it was absolutely a conquered country. The house of Oldenburg assumed the government of Denmark in the person of Christian I., 1448-1481. Steno Sture in 1471 ascended the throne of Sweden and proved sagacious as valiant. This monarch put the curb on the nobles, elevated the peasant and burgher classes, founded the university of Upsala, and in

vited men of learning and printers from foreign lands to visit Sweden. Denmark again assumed supremacy over Sweden upon a quarrel by Steno Sture, the younger, with the archbishop of Upsala. Steno took the field against Christian II., 1520, was conquered, and mortally wounded. Christian followed up his victory by beheading ninty-four of the most influential persons in Stockholm, an act of cruelty that a few years later burst the bonds that held Sweden under the yoke of Denmark.

EISA became a convert to Christianity a short time after Otto's victory on the Lechfield, a victory that put an end to the incursions of the Hungarians, and the German missionaries were permitted to carry out the great and good work. Stephen the Pious, Geisa's son, received his crown, 1000, from the pope. He founded monasteries, and, with the aid of the Benedictines, divided the kingdom into comitates or shires.

Under Geisa II., Transylvania was invaded, if not overrun, by troops of Flemish and Low-German settlers. A charter-the "Golden Privilege "-was wrested from the king, Andreas II., by the Hungarian nobles in 1234, which, like the Magna Charter of England, formed the foundation of the free constitution of Hungary. The nobles were justified in taking up arms should the king infringe the "Golden Privilege."

The royal house of Arfead having become extinguished by the death of Andreas III., Hungary became an elective kingdom, and Louis the Great, of the royal Neapolitan house of Anjou, was, in 1342, elevated to the throne. This distinguished king raised Hungary to its highest point of external power and internal prosperity. He obtained the crown of Poland, extended the frontiers of Hungary (284)

to the Lower Danube, and made the proud Venetians his tributaries. Upon his death-he conducted numerous wars in Italy-a series of prolonged contests took place for his throne, which terminated by the German emperor, Sigismund, uniting the crown of Hungary with his other diadems, and arranging the representation of the kingdom by means of Estates. The Ottoman Turks would have made Hungary their own, so weak was its government, had not Hunnyades come to the rescue. By his valor and skill he saved the country. As a token of gratitude, the Hungarians placed his energetic son Matthias Corvinus upon the throne of Stephen the Pious, and he ruled for thirty-two years, 1458-1490, with wisdom and vigor. He kept back the Ottomans, and enlarged his territories. He founded a university in Buda, and invited literary men and artisans into the country by "goodly promise, and rich reward." Later on, the Turks were victorious over Belgrade, and western acquisitions were surrendered piece-meal. The fall of Louis II. at Mohaco, 1526, was the occasion of a contest for the crown, the outcome being the division of the country into two halves: Transylvania and East Hungary, as far as the Theiss, which was under the dominion of the Turks; and West Hungary, which Ferdinand of Austria incorporated with his other dominions.

CLAVONIC tribes inhabited the vast plains of the Vistula, and the lands on the Oder and the Wartha. These were sometimes governed by a single chief, and sometimes divided into several principalities. From the conversion of Miesco-Mieceslav to Christianity-the work of German missionaries, Poland was regarded as a fief of the German empire, although very slightly connected with it: a connection that, in the time of Frederick II., was dissolved, Poland rendering itself absolutely independent. So torn was Poland in the twelfth century by internal dissension and division, that the Silesian principality on the Oder was entirely dissevered from it, and united with Germany. It was in the fourteenth century that Poland first rose to importance, when Vladislaus IV., 1320, permanently united the principalities on the Wartha-Posen, or Great Poland, with the lands on the Vistula, Little Poland, caused himself to be crowned at Cracow, and transmitted the title of king to his posterity. Casimir the Great, his son, succeeded him, 1333-1370, and extended the Polish dominions over Galicia and Red Russia. He was a legislator, and founded a university in Cracow. The male line of the Piasti became extinct with Casimir, whereupon the Poles bestowed the crown upon his sister's son, Louis the Great of Hungary. Poland now became an elective kingdom, although for two hundred years the nation adhered to the race of the Jagellons, 13701572, who, however, had to pay for their election by granting immunity from taxes, and other high and mighty privileges, to the nobles. Lithuania was added to the Polish empire under the first king of their race, Jagello (Vladislaus), after Christianity had been established. The second successor to Jagello, Casimir IV., 1447-1492, induced the German

orders to relinquish Culm, Elbing, and Marienwerder, and to recognize the suzerainship of Poland. After having reigned with glory for fortyeight years, and seen his eldest son, Vladislaus, ascend the throne of Bohemia and Hungary, Casimir died, 1492, leaving three other sons, John, Alexander, and Sigismund, who obtained in succession-Vladislaus was passed by-the Polish throne, 1492, 1501, 1506. Alexander had possessed previously Lithuania. The union of this country with Poland continued to subsist after him.

In the Sclavonic kingdoms the commoners continued to live in a state of servitude, and the encroachments of the nobility were more and more consolidated. The restriction of the royal power increased. In Bohemia, the extinction of the house of Luxembourg renewed the electoral freedom of the states. In Poland, the grandees sold their electoral votes for letters-patent, that would confirm their encroachments. Under Casimir, the deputies of the nobility of the provinces first appeared in the diets, and promptly obtained preponderance over the spiritual and secular officers of the kingdom, who previously predominated, but who now deliberated in a separate chamber. The cities still retained some prerogatives, but no influence whatever in the affairs of the kingdom. In the century of the Reformation, King Sigismund established the sovereignty of Poland over the dukedom of Prussia. The dukedom was founded by the grand master of the German Order, Albert of Brandenburg, and Gotthard Keltler, chief commander of the Order of the Sword, the first a convert to Lutheranism, the second to Protestantism. Internal dissensions, and the selfish designs of the nobles, soon left the kingdom of Poland almost at the mercy of both the Russians and the Ottoman Turks.

HILIP, archduke of Austria, son of Maximilian, married Jane, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; and of their marriage the eldest son was Charles V., who succeeded to the throne of Spain in 1516, and on the death of his grandfather Maximilian, preferred his claim to the vacant imperial throne. He had for his competitor Francis I. of France, who had distinguished himself by the conquest of the Milanese, and the adjustment of the contending interests of the Italian states. German electors, afraid of the exorbitant power both of Charles and of Francis, would have rejected both, and conferred the imperial crown on Frederick, duke of Saxony; but this extraordinary man declined the proffered dignity, and his counsel determined the election in favor of Charles of Austria, 1519.

The

Charles V. and Francis I. were now declared enemies, and the mutual claims on each other's dominions were the subject of perpetual hostility. The emperor claimed Artois as part of the Netherlands. Francis prepared to make good his right to the Two Sicilies. Charles had to defend Milan, and support his title to Navarre, which had been wrested from France by his grandfather Ferdinand. Henry VIII. of England was courted by the rival monarchs, as the weight of England was sufficient to turn the scale, where the power of each was nearly balanced. Leo X. would fain have interposed between the rivals, but they were both too great to be under his control. The first hostile attack was made by Francis on the kingdom of Navarre, which he won and lost in the course of a few months. The emperor attacked Picardy, and his troops at the same time drove the French out of

the Milanese. On the death of Leo X., Charles placed his preceptor, Cardinal Adrian, on the papal throne, 1521, though he was a native of Utrecht, and almost a stranger at Rome; and by the promise of elevating Wolsey, the minister of Henry VIII., to that dignity, on the death of Adrian, gained the alliance of the English monarch in his war against France. He also found means of detaching Venice and Genoa from the interests of his competitor.

At this critical time, when he had not only almost all Europe against him, but was in want of money, Francis imprudently quarrelled with his best general, the constable of Bourbon, who, in revenge, deserted to the emperor, and was by him invested with the chief command of his armies. The imperial and Italian generals under him (for most of the princes of Italy were adverse to the government of France) were far superior in abilities to their opponents. Their troops, also, were superior, more numerous, and better paid. The French were defeated at Biagrassa, and Charles was carrying every thing before him in Italy, when Francis entered the Milanese, and retook the capital; some changes having taken place in his favor, by the defection of the new pope, Clement VII., from the party of Charles, as well as of John de Medici, one of the best generals of those days. But, in the subsequent battle of Pavia, though he displayed the utmost valor, his troops were entirely defeated, and the French monarch became the constable of Bourbon's prisoner, 1525. It was upon this occasion that he wrote to his mother, "Madam, all is lost but my honor."

The emperor made no advantage of his good fortune, strangely neglecting all the opportunities which it offered. By the treaty of Madrid, Francis regained his liberty, in the following year, on yield