1340
At this point in time, Denmark has been without a king for eight years -
- and society is marked by lawlessness and unrest.
But now a young Danish prince is preparing to take the throne.
His name is Valdemar Atterdag.
We're in the Late Middle Ages, an eventful period of 200 years -
- when Denmark is transformed from a divided nation to a Nordic superpower.
It begins with an ambitious king, Valdemar Atterdag, who unites the country.
And it continues with his daughter, Margrete, who leads the kingdom -
- into a new, spectacular era.
But for ordinary Danes, far from the power games of kings and queens -
- it's also a grim time with mysterious deadly diseases -
- that hit the population hard.
This is The Story of Denmark.
The story of how a country became a country -
- and a people a people.
It's a story of a nation that experienced both staggering greatness -
- and total decline.
And about how we became who we are today -
- about kings and queens -
- peasants and nobles -
- from the distant ice ages -
- to millennia forward.
This is our story.
Right here in the middle of Øresund is the border between Denmark and Sweden.
But 600 years ago, there was no border -
- and no passport control because Skåne was part of our country.
Sweden, Denmark, and Norway were together a large Nordic kingdom -
- with a Danish regent.
But here, where our story begins -
- Denmark was far from a great kingdom.
In fact, it's going really badly for our little country.
Extremely badly, even.
In the end of the 1200s, Denmark is marked by political conflict.
The country's noblemen rebel against King Erik Klipping.
And one winter night in a village close to Viborg, they find a place to kill him.
The king has been on a hunting trip, and sleeps overnight in a little barn -
- without his entourage.
During the night, the perpetrators sneak in to the sleeping Erik Klipping -
- and according to the day's sources, stab him 56 times in the chest.
Maybe it was the rebel noblemen who killed the king -
- but the murder has never been solved.
It's the last murder of a king in Denmark's history.
A deliberate political murder in a conspiracy -
- where everyone stabs so everyone is equally guilty.
The murder in Finderup Barn is the beginning of a 50-year downturn.
In the years after Erik Klipping's death, the monarchy is strongly weakened.
It doesn't get better when his son Christoffer comes to power -
- and leads the country into an expensive war in northern Germany.
It was usually good business to conquer something -
- but he was unlucky and lost -
- and ended up owing a lot of money to his mercenaries.
He needed to take out a loan from the Holstein part of the family -
- and so he put up parts of Denmark as a guarantee for the loan.
Christoffer is loaned money by one of the rich Holstein counts in northern Germany.
As a guarantee, the Holstein counts get the royal castles and estates -
- in Jutland and on the islands, as well as Skåne, Halland and Blekinge.
Christoffer got some money by handing over a piece of land.
When he got money again -
- he would regain control of the land.
But when he died, he was pretty much king of nothing.
The Danes are so tired of the monarchy -
- that Christoffer's queen and his son Valdemar -
- must flee to Germany.
For the next eight years, the people are without a Danish king -
- and must live with the Holstein counts -
- who are entitled to collect taxes from the Danes.
In these years, Valdemar Atterdag grows up with his family in southern Germany.
Back then, kings and princes were at the head of the battle.
Part of a prince's upbringing was to be able to handle a weapon -
- and know strategy and combat technique.
When Valdemar is 20, he receives an invitation from the Holstein counts -
- who have power in Denmark. They're having problems with the Danes.
There's a lot of unrest and rebellion in the country against the German counts.
The rebels have to be thrown out, so it's a serious issue.
The north German counts have admitted the situation in Denmark is untenable -
- and now they want out of the country, after they've gotten their money back.
And that's why they've called Valdemar Atterdag to a meeting.
At the meeting, the counts present Valdemar with a tempting proposal -
- that could make him king of Denmark.
The counts negotiate a deal with Valdemar where they promise -
- to bring him to power if he gets them their money -
- by simply collecting extra taxes from the people.
Valdemar now has a chance to fix his father's failed politics -
- and unify Denmark again.
But when he seals the agreement, there aren't many who predict -
- how much power the prince and his family will come to have in the North.
A few months after, Valdemar arrives in Denmark.
It's the first time in eight years that the country has a regent.
And Atterdag is hailed king in Viborg -
- before he begins to buy Denmark free.
Valdemar takes over a society that resembles the rest of Europe -
- with a people sharply divided into high and low -
- who can be put into two classes. There are those who own land.
That's the king and the noblemen and the Church.
And then there's those who work the land.
The farmers.
Life for the ordinary people in the country -
- and that was more than 90% of the population in Denmark -
- was marked by hard work.
It was absolutely essential that they got a sufficiently large harvest.
Not obtaining that meant a crisis when spring came around.
Then they didn't have any more to eat.
It's estimated that the population has grown to 1.5 million inhabitants.
All land is in use to fill the many mouths.
But the fields in many places are spent, and the yield is low.
And on top of that, the people are going to be charged taxes by Valdemar's men.
Valdemar had an immediate need for money when he began to unite Denmark again.
And he got it every way he could. We have a source from the time who says -
- that he taxed the windmills -
- because the water shouldn't flow without money going to him.
He taxed the farmers. He demanded money from the lords.
Valdemar will use these taxes to pay the debt to the Holstein counts -
- and slowly take back the castles around the country.
He begins in Jutland, where he's taken back several large areas.
But on Zealand, he faces an impossible task.
Here the counts had guaranteed many of the castles to other men -
- and they refuse to give them back willingly to Valdemar.
The situation is complicated, so it's tempting to take up arms -
- instead of paying money.
Valdemar Atterdag used the methods best suited to the purpose.
Valdemar was a relentless dog.
Valdemar chooses to gain access to the royal castles by force.
Valdemar Atterdag must have had a small professional army -
- that had a real mastery of the warfare of the time.
He's known for being extremely brutal -
- but if you aren't a hard nail, you might as well give up -
- playing politics here.
Over the next couple of years, there are waves of fighting in Zealand.
There are stories of burned villages and maimed farmers.
But gradually, the King can withdraw victoriously from several places.
We know next to nothing about Valdemar Atterdag as a person.
He must have been charismatic and persuasive -
- since he succeeds in retaking Denmark with an iron fist -
- in a process that takes many, many years.
He had a brutal side with a very fine education.
After eight years as king, Atterdag has recaptured almost all of Zealand.
He chooses to put his headquarters here in Vordingborg -
- where he builds the foundation for Denmark's biggest fortress.
All nine giant towers were a part of the ring wall here.
Today, there's only one tower left.
Vordingborg Castle dates back to the 1100s -
- and lies out on the coast of southernmost Zealand -
- where fleets could dock and depart for raids.
The castle had strategic importance.
With the solid royal castle as a base, Valdemar travels the country -
- and is well on the way to uniting and rebuilding the kingdom of Denmark.
But now something happens, that turns everything upside-down.
A dark shadow with lightning speed is on its way through Europe.
The Black Plague.
This village is just one of many hit hard by the plague.
The new unknown disease strikes the small villages -
- and affects anyone.
But it particularly affects children.
It comes all the way from China, via traders and pilgrims -
- and sweeps across Denmark.
And in the year 1350, the plague, or The Black Plague -
- also comes to this little room in Zealand.
The plague spreads quickly. The infection is transmitted -
- from infected rats to people via flea bites.
And the enormous mortality rate and total lack of treatment -
- creates fear and powerlessness in the people.
The plague was a catastrophe -
- and everyone could see that something was very wrong.
It was a new disease on a colossal scale.
We're talking a mortality rate of around half the population -
- so it really put terror into the survivors.
At this time, like today, there are two forms of plague.
The bubonic plague, which produced boils and black spots on the body.
It was a very painful and gruesome disease.
And then there's the pneumonic plague, that's also transmitted person to person.
The pneumonic plague is 100% deadly. The plague bacteria spread directly -
- through saliva and blood.
In some cases, it takes less than 24 hours from the first symptoms -
- until the patient dies.
There was no prevention or cure for the plague in the Middle Ages -
- no medicine and no doctors. But people had one thing: faith in God.
Religion created an understanding -
- that there was a meaning behind the horrible catastrophe -
- because God was angry with man's sinfulness -
- and so he punished him.
In the following years, the plague hits at unpredictable intervals.
Meanwhile, Valdemar is constantly running around Denmark.
He's reclaimed large parts of Jutland and Zealand from the Holstein counts -
- and fights to keep control of his newly conquered regions.
Along the way, his family grows. Queen Helvig has gone into labor.
The king will be a father for the sixth time.
The royal family has already lost three children -
- so there's a great need for more, both girls and boys.
The boys will inherit the kingdom and lead the armies.
And the girls can be used in marriage alliances -
- to secure the royal power.
Valdemar already has a son, Christoffer, who will take over the throne.
This time it will be a daughter. A princess, who is named Margrete.
Princess Margrete becomes engaged when she's only six years old -
- and she's engaged to King Håkon of Norway.
It's to make ties and alliances.
Later there will be a marriage, and when she's older, she can bear children.
But there's no regard for the child's wishes like today.
They're pieces in a political game.
In the years after Margrete's birth, Valdemar steadily works -
- towards his goal: unifying Denmark.
He wins power over region after region, castle after castle.
Valdemar performs the feat of unifying the portions of Denmark -
- that were scattered under his father.
Gradually, he stabilizes the Danish monarchy again.
But even if Valdemar has unified almost all of his kingdom in just 20 years -
- he's not yet satisfied.
Valdemar isn't the sort to stop after reaching his goal. He keeps going.
And he what he was missing was control of the Skåne region.
The richest areas in Denmark were Skåne, Halland and Blekinge.
It was enormously important for Valdemar to get it back -
- to gain control over the Skåne region.
Skåne is in the hands of the Swedish king Magnus.
Now Valdemar wants his fingers in the lucrative fish markets -
- that are found there.
Somewhere between 50,000 to 70,000 people -
- move to the coast late every summer. They are first and foremost fishermen.
But they bring with them a stream of merchants and tax collectors -
- and jesters and ... Innkeepers, let's not forget.
And then there's the gill women and the packing women.
This woman is a gill woman. That means she cleans the fish.
And this packing woman packs the herring in a barrel.
A layer of salt, a layer of herring. A thousand herring fit in a barrel.
They could be exported to the whole Western Europe market.
In the Middle Ages, they couldn't eat meat on fasting days.
All the Fridays and the long period from Lent to Easter -
- they had to eat vegetables or fish.
The fish markets are the most profitable moneymaker in the North -
- in the Middle Ages. But the money doesn't go into the Danish coffers.
It's the Swedish king Magnus who collects taxes from the fish market.
But he won't for much longer.
Because Atterdag has decided to put the region in Danish hands again.
In 1360, Valdemar attacks. It's an easy victory.
The Swedish king is weakened by rebellion, and he quickly gives up -
- the castles and markets in Skåne to Valdemar's soldiers.
You'd think he'd be satisfied then, but he wasn't.
There was also Gotland out in the Baltic Sea -
- that was the center of trade.
Valdemar wouldn't have minded controlling that island, too.
It's a very, very rich island with the city of Visby that's associated -
- with the Hanseatic league, and it has a very large kingdom.
The Hanseatic League is a rich and strong union -
- of a number of important trading cities in Northern Europe.
And Visby is, at this time -
- one of the union's most important cities in the Baltic Sea.
It was very tempting. Valdemar decides it has to be taken.
In the summer of 1361, Valdemar's fleet sails towards Gotland -
- and in July, his soldiers land and march straight toward Visby -
- where they meet a defensive army composed primarily of local farmers.
The farmers in Gotland were called in to defend their island and Visby.
Valdemar had professional knights -
- with the newest military equipment.
So there was an imbalance between the two sides in battle.
The Gotland farmers are totally surprised by Valdemar's army.
They try to run behind Visby's walls, but the German merchants -
- shut the city gates.
A tragedy awaits the farmers.
The people were massacred.
The mass graves give an indication of how awful the battle was.
There had been no mercy. Some people had both legs chopped off.
You can see crossbow arrows in skulls -
- as testimony to how incredibly brutal it was.
That's war, both today and then.
And Valdemar Atterdag wasn't one to hold back.
Almost all the Gotland farmers were killed.
1800 men are later found in the enormous mass graves.
Atterdag occupies Visby and imposes large taxes on the Hanseatic city.
A story says that he asked for three beer carts in the square -
- demanding that the inhabitants fill them with valuables.
It's a total victory. But maybe Valdemar has become too confident -
- by attacking one of the most powerful Hanseatic cities -
- because soon, his enemies strike back.
While Atterdag is out on conquest, a little Danish girl sits at Akershus -
- at the base of Oslofjord.
It's Valdemar's youngest daughter, Margrete.
At ten years old, she's sent to Norway as a bride.
Now she's the official queen of Norway.
Her husband is the 13-year-old King Håkon.
He's the son of King Magnus of Sweden, and the plan is -
- that Håkon will succeed his father as the Swedish king -
- which in Valdemar's eyes makes him a strong card to marry Margrete to.
Even if she was married to Håkon, there was no married life together.
It didn't need to be a close, emotional relationship.
That wasn't in the cards with a royal marriage.
She was a little girl. She had to go to school and learn -
- and Håkon looked after business as king.
But Margrete has become queen in a poor monarchy.
The Norwegian monarchy was having economic difficulties.
King Håkon needed to pawn the royal Norwegian crown -
- to some capitalized German merchants.
That indicates what a desperate situation it was.
Margrete's future lies in Norway, far away from her country of birth -
- as queen by her husband's side.
Home in Denmark, Valdemar can look over his vast country -
- with the markets in Skåne and Visby as the big sources of income.
But now disaster begins to rain down on him.
In 1363, Valdemar's heir, his only son Christoffer, dies -
- at the age of 21.
With that, he was in the difficult situation -
- where there was no son and no male heir.
That must have been a headache for Valdemar. What should he do?
And a few years after, Valdemar's enemies join against him.
The Hanse cities want revenge after the battle near Visby -
- and the new king in Sweden, Albrecht -
- wants Skåne back.
In 1367, Atterdag receives declarations of war -
- from no less than 77 Hanse cities.
But according to a story, he boldly says -
- that he's no more afraid of his enemies than of 77 cackling geese -
- and mocks them by placing a golden goose at the top of a tower.
But the Hanse cities respond, attacking the Danish castles -
- with a fleet of over 200 ships.
The battles with the Hanse cities end with Valdemar's defeat.
And it's a disaster with a forced peace agreement in 1370.
He had to reluctantly give up Skåne -
- to the Hanse cities for a 15-year period.
The next 15 years, Valdemar must forgo the large income from the fish markets.
In Norway, Margrete is now ready to take on a bigger role in our history.
She's 17 years old and she's pregnant.
But she's about to step into character as a dynamic queen -
- in the poor kingdom.
That's shown in a letter she writes to King Håkon -
- who is constantly traveling around the kingdom.
It's a very sharp letter. And she writes:
"You should know, my dear lord, that we have great need of food and drink."
She writes that the servants are threatening to leave -
- the royal family because there's no food.
"For hunger's sake," she writes.
Margrete writes that she's borrowed money to manage the household -
- and she expects that her husband will pay the money back.
You wouldn't usually expect a queen -
- to act independently. You get the feeling -
- that she was eager to step into action -
- and to step onto the political stage.
But before Margrete can step into action, she must do her job as queen.
She had to deliver an heir, and that's what Margrete did -
- because she had a son who got the good name Oluf.
Come on! Are you coming?
Margrete's son will be the next king in Norway -
- but he could be a contender for a successor to his grandfather -
- Valdemar Atterdag, in Denmark.
In 1375, Valdemar Atterdag is 55 years old -
- and is still constantly on the move to strengthen his power.
In 35 years, he's unified and ruled Denmark -
- but one big problem has yet to be solved.
It was an open question who would succeed Valdemar Atterdag -
- when he died.
In autumn, Valdemar arrives at one of his castles in Zealand.
And here the question of succession becomes a hot topic.
In his time, there was a strong, fortified castle with high walls -
- and a solid tower in the middle. Gurre Castle. Valdemar's favorite castle.
And it's here that he dies on an autumn day in 1375.
Valdemar started from nothing. Even if he suffered a setback -
- in relation to the Hanse cities, when he died, Denmark was -
- again a powerful element in the North.
And that warrants the nickname he later got, "A New Dawn".
Now a new dawn has come to Denmark.
There must have been intense talks on the day of Valdemar's death.
Because now they have to find a candidate who can take over as king.
Margrete is the only child still alive, but she's a woman -
- so she can't take over the throne.
She throws herself into the fight anyway, with her little son as a justification.
And it's in that situation that Margrete and King Håkon say:
"Now we'll put Oluf forward.
He'll succeed his grandfather on the throne in Denmark."
Margrete rushes to Denmark -
- to convince the Danish noblemen and bishops -
- that her five-year-old son Oluf should be king.
To accomplish this requires political skill -
- and conviction -
- that these noblemen will believe that she can solve the problem.
Margrete quickly got in touch with some of Valdemar's top advisers -
- who were present at his deathbed.
We know that Margrete had already become a skilled strategist.
Margrete was good at cultivating personal bonds.
She must have had a compelling charisma -
- and she must have had a brain that could analyze a situation -
- and make some real decisions.
Margrete helps the noblemen's decision -
- by promising them land and goods.
As regent, you could achieve your goals by ensuring -
- that one's support meant some good land.
In that way, you could ensure they got something for their support -
- and you got political backing.
It's just as important that Margrete gets the Church's people on her side -
- so she gives them rich gifts too, and ends friendships with some of them.
Among those is Peder Lodehat, who later becomes Bishop of Roskilde.
The Danish council and bishops back King Oluf -
- and he's chosen as the successor to Valdemar Atterdag.
And that happens in 1376.
Margrete and King Håkon are appointed as guardians for their son.
But when Håkon dies a few years after, Margrete is the real ruler.
That means Margrete alone is the guardian of her son -
- both in Norway and Denmark.
And that means that she now gets a really strong position of power.
But it's a badly damaged country Margrete has to rule.
The plague has hit at least five times in the last 30 years -
- and the population is probably more than halved.
It really hit every family and village hard.
There were villages that were totally deserted.
But you have to imagine a society that was tough in a different way -
- than we're tough today. Death was always around the corner.
If you look at the plague from an economic perspective -
- the survivors get better conditions than ever before -
- because the lords had a great need for people who could work the land.
And to keep people on -
- they needed to give them better conditions than before.
The plague returns several times during Margrete's rule.
In her first days as regent, she's busy proving -
- she's strong enough to get through it.
One of her biggest tasks is the question of whether -
- they should pressure the Hanse cities -
- to leave Skåne.
Valdemar Atterdag had lost Skåne to the Hanse cities 15 years earlier.
But according to the peace agreement, the area should return to Denmark now.
So Margrete starts negotiating immediately.
She has to ensure that the Skåne areas come back to Denmark -
- in 1385. It's her first big political task.
But the Hanse merchants refuse to deliver Skåne back -
- and they're somewhat reluctant to negotiate with a woman.
It's clear that she had a gender handicap.
They wrote to the Danish council and said:
"Is it even lawful to leave such big things to a woman?"
But they soon learn that she's a razor-sharp negotiator.
Margrete pressures the Hanse merchants to let go of Skåne.
According to some sources, she now goes in secret to privateers -
- pirates, that is, who will plunder the merchants' rich ships.
The Hanse cities complain that the ships are being plundered.
And the Danish council says they have nothing to do with it.
But some of these pirate captains are actually the king's men -
- who manage the royal castles. And that seems a bit strange.
The Hanse merchants now accuse Margrete because they think they know -
- that the thefts of the ships are being conducted from her castles.
And they claim that the queen is personally present -
- when the stolen goods are gone through and distributed.
They accuse Margrete of keeping most of the stolen goods herself.
Margrete denies being in league with the pirates.
But she promises to do everything to stop the pirating -
- if the Hanse cities give her Skåne back.
Much suggests that the privateer war was something that suited Margrete.
It was a way to pressure them to give up Skåne.
Margrete often called herself "Valdemar's Daughter".
That characterizes some of her qualities very well.
Valdemar Atterdag had been tactical and unscrupulous.
Margrete had the same qualities. A super skillful politician.
Those clever methods work. The Hanse cities give Skåne -
- along with the herring market, back to Denmark.
Margrete has now recovered what her father lost.
She was certainly a charming -
- but also firm person, who could lead negotiations -
- with all the men who didn't want -
- women to have anything to do with high politics.
I'd like to meet her in real life.
And Margrete isn't finished yet. She has a dream of -
- unifying the whole North into a large, strong empire.
Denmark and Norway are hers, but she's missing Sweden -
- which just now is dealing with internal unrest -
- because the Swedish noblemen are unhappy with King Albrecht -
- Valdemar's old enemy.
The unhappy Swedes contacted Margrete.
Secret meetings begin with people from the Swedish council -
- about choosing Oluf as king.
Margrete and Oluf stay in Ystad -
- to be close to Sweden because the negotiations will be there.
Oluf travels farther, while Margrete stays in Ystad.
And here she gets a message that turns all her plans upside-down -
- or rather, all of her life.
Margrete's worst fears have become a reality.
Oluf is dead.
Oluf won't get to be king of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway -
- like his mother planned.
Power is fragile in these years.
It must have a very hard blow for Margrete, her son dying.
He is her only son, only child.
She was very alone then. She had no husband.
She didn't have a son anymore.
All of Margrete's plans fall apart when Oluf dies.
Oluf was her excuse for ruling. It was he who was king.
With one blow, Margrete loses both her son and her power -
- and the natural thing now would be to retreat -
- but she doesn't do that.
She had an incredible strength.
Margrete calls in the noblemen to find a solution for -
- how she as a woman can stay in power without a male heir.
The tradition was that they chose one of the previous king's sons.
Girls didn't usually inherit the kingdom.
There wasn't a tradition for having a ruling queen in Denmark.
Margrete's fate depends on if the noblemen will dare go against tradition -
- and bet on a woman.
She was respected as someone who could get things done.
She was strong enough to win political victories.
She can't be chosen as king because a king is by definition a man.
And a queen is someone who is married to a king.
So she needs to be chosen as regent, and they choose a strange title.
Sovereign Lady and Ruler of the Whole Danish Empire.
And they swear loyalty to her.
For the first time in Denmark's history, a woman is appointed as regent.
Not as a guardian for a son, but on her own behalf.
And shortly after, Norway also proclaims her as regent on the same conditions.
But with the appointment, Margrete must provide a male heir -
- and she does that job cleverly, too.
She chooses her dead sister's grandson, whom she adopts.
He was a young son of a duke named Bugislav.
His father was Duke of Pomerania.
And your name couldn't be Bugislav as a Danish king -
- so he was renamed Erik.
It's he that we know as Erik of Pomerania.
Half a year after her son's death, Margrete has power -
- over Denmark and Norway.
Her personal disaster has turned into political triumph.
She wanted to take power.
There's no doubt about that because she never chooses to marry again.
She easily could have married again, but she was aware -
- that if she married, she'd have to give up power.
She didn't want that.
Margrete resumes her old dream of a united North -
- that was stopped when her son died.
She'll again try to gain power in Sweden, which is still plagued by unrest.
During a secret meeting, the Swedish council chooses -
- her as regent in Sweden.
But to take power in Sweden, she first needs to remove King Albrecht -
- who won't give up the Swedish throne willingly.
You get the feeling -
- that Margrete primarily chooses to win her victories at the negotiating table.
But the battle for Sweden needed to be fought on the battlefield.
So the only time Margrete needed to seriously go to war -
- was to defeat Albrecht of Mecklenburg, the Swedish king.
The two armies clash on February 24, 1389 -
- in a swampy area near the city of Falköping.
Meanwhile, Margrete waits at Varberg Castle, 140 km away -
- for word of the battle's outcome.
It ends with a huge victory for Margrete's army.
It's something that echoes throughout Europe.
"Glory to God in Heaven, who gave an unexpected victory in a woman's hand" -
- it says in the chronicles.
Albrecht and his son were imprisoned for many years -
- until they promised to renounce the right to the Swedish throne.
But the victory by Falköping in 1389 makes Margrete the regent -
- of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
But Margaret has even bigger plans.
As regent, she wants to unify the three Nordic countries in a union -
- under one king.
And that king will be her 15-year-old adopted son, Erik.
On 17 June 1397, Erik of Pomerania is crowned -
- in Kalmar Castle in Sweden.
According to tradition, he swears an oath ...
... and is anointed.
We have a beautifully preserved coronation document with 67 seals on it -
- that announce that Erik of Pomerania is now chosen as King -
- of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
The three countries are now unified in what will be the Kalmar Union -
- where, in reality, Margrete still retains power.
For Margrete, the Kalmar Union means a realization of her dreams.
A feeling that the vast region belongs together.
Margrete now rules over an area that stretches from North Cape -
- to Hamburg, and from easternmost America to westernmost Russia.
At the time, the Nordic area is the biggest kingdom in all of Europe.
And that gives it fantastic prestige farther south.
But it's not easy to merge three countries.
Over the summer, there was discussion -
- of how the union would function.
We know that because there's a preserved draft of the constitution.
In the draft, you can see that there were two factions -
- with one wanting a unified kingdom, while the other faction demanded -
- that the countries each keep their laws and regulations.
It's the same discussion taking place in the EU today.
Should it be a large union or individual states -
- with certain common political things?
They're the same discussions they were having in 1397.
The problem was that they never reached an agreement.
An EU constitution was never made.
That made it fragile.
And that was really a bomb for the union.
It must have required all of Margrete's skill as a strategist -
- to keep the union together.
Like her father, in the following years, she travels all around the North -
- to take care of her and the union's interests.
But she's missing control of one area.
Schleswig in Southern Jutland is in the hands of the Holsteins -
- from whom her father bought Denmark free when he became king.
Now it's Margrete that will face the counts.
Margrete was taken to Flensborg to resolve these things.
And if anyone could do it, it was probably her.
Margrete succeeds at negotiating the city's return to Denmark.
But suddenly she becomes ill.
We know from sources that Flensborg's people suffered from a disease -
- possibly the plague.
And maybe it's the plague that hits Margrete.
She dies suddenly on October 28, 1412.
A priest of the time says that her soul left her body -
- during a strange and powerful storm with thunder and lightning.
Margrete is buried by her father, Valdemar Atterdag -
- and her son, Oluf, in Sorø Abbey.
But her close friend, Bishop of Roskilde Peder Lodehat -
- moves her body to Roskilde Cathedral, where she lies today.
It's difficult to determine a single person's significance -
- on Denmark's history. But it must have been an achievement -
- that Margrete, as a woman, was able to control a power game -
- that was reserved for men alone.
And there's no doubt -
- that she was the most important political operator of her time.
After Margrete's death, it's difficult to keep the Kalmar Union together -
- without her diplomatic skills.
When Erik of Pomerania stands on his own legs -
- he quickly has problems with the Swedes -
- who would rather have their own king.
So it goes for the Pomeranian.
He got so tired of it all that he just left.
He traveled to Gotland and lived as a pirate for ten years.
The next many kings can't control the Swedes either -
- until Christian II makes a last desperate attempt.
He occupies Sweden and beheads over 80 political opponents -
- in a public execution known today as the Stockholm Bloodbath.
It turned out to be the end of the union.
It created a large resistance against Christian II, Christian the Tyrant -
- and he had to give up power in Sweden.
Margrete's dream of a unified North is washed away in the blood -
- of the severed heads in Stockholm.
And now the Swedes install their own king.
The Kalmar Union has received its final death blow.
We leave the Middle Ages behind us and step into a new, modern epoch -
- in our history. The Renaissance.
Religion and king Christian IV tighten the grip on ordinary people.
And it's a sure sign that you are possessed by a devil from Hell.
The Reformation has come to Denmark.
But it's also a time where we're constantly at war with our archenemy Sweden.