Margaret of Denmark: Queen Regent and Queen Regnant

Margart of Denmark, queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (3 August 1387)

The youngest child of the Danish king Valdemar IV, and his wife, Hedvig of Schleswig, Margaret was born in 1353. Little is known about her childhood other than, at the age of six, she was betrothed to Haakon VI, king of Norway. In Copenhagen, on 9 April 1363, the ten-year-old Margaret was married to the twenty-three-year-old king. 

Margaret of Denmark,
from her effigy at
Roskilde Cathedral

As her biographer Mary Hill notes, "no more is heard of Margaret" for the next three years, but she seems to have spent the years immediately following her marriage at her father's court in Denmark. But by 1366 she was at Haakon's Akershus castle and under the guardianship of the noblewoman Marta Ulfsdottir, who was the eldest child of a woman I posted about just a few days ago, Birgitta of Sweden. 

(Exiled from Sweden in 1357, along with her second husband, Marta Ulfsdottir had taken up residence in the Norwegian court. According to contemporary sources, Marta had been married first to Sigvid Ribbing, between 1334 and 1341, a political alliance to which her mother, Birgitta had objected--although he was a nobleman, and the marriage may thus have been "advantageous," Birgitta referred to him as "a robber." But all that, I guess, is another story . . . )

Back to Margaret of Denmark. In 1370, when she was about eighteen years old, Margaret gave birth to her only child, Olaf; in 1375, after her father's death, Margaret made sure her son was elected to succeed Valdemar as king of Denmark and that she would serve as regent for the country. About her abilities, one chronicler noted that it was "quite astonishing" to see a woman who "became so powerful in a quarter of a year that she lacked nothing in the whole kingdom."

In 1380, after King Haakon's death, Margaret made sure that her son would follow his father as king of Norway and that, until he reached his age of majority, she would be his regent.

Akershus Castle, Oslo,
construction begun by Haakon VI's great grandfather,
Haakon V

In 1387, however, Olaf died, and Margaret of Denmark herself succeeded to the throne of Norway on 3 August 1387 (the date I've used for this post) and to the throne of Denmark on 10 August. She also pursued the longstanding conflict with Sweden, gathering an army and invading.

In March 1388, the Swedes conceded defeat and elected Margaret "Sovereign Lady and Ruler." That wasn't the end of her struggle, however--although Albert of Sweden had been deposed, he returned for one more battle with the woman he had insulted by sending a gift of a dress and an apron (along with a stone on which to sharpen a needle) and by calling her a king without pants. He was defeated on 24 February 1389. (Serves him right.)

To unite the three countries, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Margaret established the Kalmar Union in 1397. Although she had adopted her great-nephew, Eric of Pomerania, as her heir in 1389, proclaiming him king of Norway, and although he was elected king of Denmark and Sweden in 1397, Margaret remained the acknowledged ruler of the united kingdoms until her death on 12 October 1412.

She arranged for Eric's marriage to Philippa of England who, as we have seen, would herself rule the three kingdoms as regent. 

Surviving fragments of a

magnificent cloth-of-gold gown

belonging to Margaret of Denmark,

Roskilde Cathedral Museum

The Encyclopedia Britannica offers a biographical essay on Margaret of Denmark, which you can read here.

There is no recent biography in English, but you can access Mary Hill's 1898 Margaret of Denmark, in its entirety, via Google Books, by clicking here. (Unlike many nineteenth-century histories, this one is not romanticized or fictionalized, though a great deal of it is, necessarily, about men's better-documented lives.)

A modern reconstruction of
Margaret's gown

Philippa of England, Beloved in Scandinavia

Philippa of England (born 4 June 1394)

Philippa of England was the youngest child born to Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV of England, and his first wife, the great English heiress Mary de Bohun--the two were married on 27 July 1380, and since Mary's birth year is uncertain, some historians indicate she may have been as young as twelve years old (Henry was about fourteen). Their first child, a boy, survived only a few days after his birth in April 1382. By the time of her death twelve years later, Mary de Bohun had given birth to five more children--she died in in 1394, giving birth to her seventh, Philippa. Mary de Bohun died five years before her husband would become king.

A detail from the nineteenth-century
stained glass representation
of Philippa of England,
Vladstena Abbey

Once Henry Bolingbroke became King Henry IV, he arranged advantageous marriages for his two daughters. The elder, Blanche, was married to Louis III, count palatine of the Rhine. To further an alliance with the Kalmar Union (the united sovereign states of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway), Philippa was married to Eric of Pomerania, the heir to Queen Margaret I of Denmark.

The two were married on 26 October 1406 in Lund Cathedral, Sweden, and spent most of their time after their marriage at their residences in Sweden.

According to his titles, Eric began his reign as king of king of Denmark in 1386, Norway in 1389, and Sweden in 1396, but the reality is that Queen Margaret of Denmark, the daughter of the Danish king Valdemar IV and the widow of the Norwegian king Haakon VI, had formed the Kalmar Union and had been ruling the joined kingdoms as queen regnant from 1388, when she was elected "Sovereign Lady and Ruler"; she continued to govern until her death in 1412.

Queen Margaret's effective rule may well have led to Philippa's successes in Scandinavia. When Eric assumed his full role as ruler, he trusted and relied on her; while her husband was away at war during an extended period from 1423 to 1425, Philippa ruled as regent of the Kalmar Union. She continued her active role in government after the end of her regency, including organizing the defense of Copenhagen against forces of the Hanseatic League in 1428 and embarking on a diplomatic mission to Sweden, where she died on 5 January 1430.

Nineteenth-century stained glass,
Vladstena Abbey

As king, Eric had many good qualities, but he was also hot-tempered, obstinate, and lacking in diplomatic skills. For her diplomacy, her many works of charity for the poor, and her obvious political skills, Philippa earned the respect and love of the people of the Kalmar Union.

Philippa of England was buried in the Abbey of Our Lady and of St. Bridget, more commonly referred to as Vladstena Abbey, founded in 1346 by St. Birgitta of Sweden. 

The Abbey Church