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Ambassadors from the Duke of Savoy and the King of Denmark appeared in support of the propositions and demands of Charles V. The diet did not separate until it had voted twenty-four thousand foot and four thousand horse to be employed against France, and had forbidden Germans, under severe penalties, to take service with Francis I. In 1544 the war thus became almost European, and in the early days of April two armies were concentrated in Piedmont, near the little town of Ceresole, the Spanish twenty thousand strong and the French nineteen thousand; the former under the orders of the Marquis del Guasto, the latter under those of the Count d'Enghien; both ready to deliver a battle which was, according to one side, to preserve Europe from the despotic sway of a single master, and, according to the other, to protect Europe against a fresh invasion of Mussulmans.
The bad state of the roads in the north prolonged Bernadotte's journey one day. He set out on the 8th of March; he was expected to arrive at Copenhagen on the 14th, but did not reach there till the 15th. He arrived precisely two hours before the death of Christian, King of Denmark, an event with which he made me acquainted by letter written two days after his arrival.
"But all men said that this great hurt befell the King because that he brake the oath he swore upon the sacred body of the Lord." The wars of Valdemar were over, but his sorrows were not. Four years later the crushing blow fell when Dagmar's son, who was crowned king to succeed him, lost his life while hunting. With him, says the folk-song, died the hope of Denmark.
There was mighty eating and swigging at the banquets, and carousing was carried to an extravagant height, if we may judge by the account of an orgy at the king's palace in 1606, for the delectation of the King and Queen of Denmark, when the company and even their majesties abandoned discretion and sobriety, and "the ladies are seen to roll about in intoxication."
At last, after many years full of adventures and travel, Guy reached England once more. He was now an old man. His beard was long, his hair had grown white, and in the weather-beaten pilgrim none could recognize the gallant knight and earl, Guy of Warwick. When Guy landed in England he found the whole country in sore dread. For Anlaf, King of Denmark, had invaded England with a great army.
After his father's death Arthur becomes paramount leader of the British, and makes victorious expeditions to Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and also to France, where he defeats a great Roman army. Arthur returning, falls in a battle with his nephew, and is carried to the Isle of Avalon to be cured of his wounds.
"I can't stand it!" cried Raleigh, desperately, as with his accustomed grace he presided over a special meeting of the club, called on the bank of the inky Stygian stream, at the point where the missing boat had been moored. "Think of it, gentlemen, Elizabeth of England, Calpurnia of Rome, Ophelia of Denmark, and every precious jewel in our social diadem gone, vanished completely; and with whom?
Our king on the west coast of Denmark, where the story of Havelok the Dane must needs begin, was Gunnar Kirkeban so called because, being a heathen altogether, as were we all in Denmark at that time, he had been the bane of many churches in the western isles of Scotland, and in Wales and Ireland, and made a boast thereof. However, that cruelty of his was his own bane in the end, as will be seen.
Had there not been a short-lived rumor that that 7th corps of which his regiment formed a part was to be embarked at Brest and landed in Denmark, where it would create a diversion that would serve to neutralize one of the Prussian armies? They would be taken by surprise; the arrogant nation would be overrun in every direction and crushed utterly within a few brief weeks.
Besides, it was highly important, on the eve of negotiations for peace, to diminish the injurious influence which Denmark might exercise upon these deliberations, to delay the treaty itself, which threatened to be prejudicial to the Swedish interests, by sowing confusion among the parties interested, and with a view to the amount of indemnification, to increase the number of her conquests, in order to be the more sure of securing those which alone she was anxious to retain.
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