itled to the crown, being the
natural son of King Knud, who was murdered at Roskilde, as told in
the story of Absalon. While they were yet young men, when he saw
that the people followed his rival, he set the German princes
against Denmark, a task he never found hard. But young Valdemar made
short work of them. He took the strong cities on the Elbe and laid
the lands of his adversaries under the Danish crown. The bishop he
seized, and threw him into the dungeon of Soeborg Castle, where he
had sat thirteen years when Dagmar's prayers set him free. He could
hardly walk when he came out, but he could hate, and all the world
knew it. The Pope bound him with heavy oaths never to return to
Denmark, and made him come to Italy so that he could keep an eye on
him himself. But two years had not passed before he broke his oath,
and fled to Bremen, where the people elected him to the vacant
archbishopric and its great political power. Forthwith he began
plotting against his native land.

In the bitter feud between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines he found
his opportunity. One of the rival emperors marched an army north to
help the perjured priest. King Valdemar hastened to meet them, but
on the eve of battle the Emperor was slain by one of his own men. On
Sunday, when the archbishop was saying mass in the Bremen cathedral,
an unknown knight, the visor of whose helmet was closed so that no
one saw his face, strode up to the altar, and laying a papal bull
before him, cried out that he was accursed, and under the ban of the
church. The people fled, and forsaken by all, the wretched man
turned once more to Rome in submission. But though the Pope forgave
him on condition that he meddle no more with politics, war, or
episcopal office, another summer found him wielding sword and lance
against the man he hated, this time under the banner of the Guelphs.
The Germans had made another onset on Denmark, but again King
Valdemar defeated them. The bishop intrenched himself in Hamburg,
and made a desperate resistance, but the King carried the city by
storm. The beaten and hopeless man fled, and shut himself up in a
cloister in Hanover, where daily and nightly he scourged himself for
his sins. If it is true that "hell was fashioned by the souls that
hated," not all the penance of all the years must have availed to
save him from the torments of the lost.

Denmark now had peace on its southern border. Dagmar was dead, and
Valdemar, whose restless