the preposterous demand of the English admiral, whereupon an
army of thirty-three thousand men was landed and the city attacked by
land and sea.

For three days a fierce bombardment continued, and not until a large
portion of the almost unprotected city was laid in ashes and the
remainder threatened with like destruction did the general consent to
admit the English troops into the citadel of Frederikshavn.

The outcome of this brigand-like attack, which had nothing more definite
than a suspicion to warrant it, and is ranked in history as of the same
type with the burning of Washington some years later, was the seizure of
the entire Danish fleet by the assailants. The ships carried off included
eighteen ships-of-the-line, twenty-one frigates, six brigs and
twenty-five gunboats, with a large amount of naval stores of all kinds.

The act was no more warrantable than were the viking descents upon
England centuries before. The latter were the acts of barbarian
freebooters, and England, in an age of boasted civilization, put herself
in the same position. The Danes were nearly crushed by the blow and many
years passed away before their bitter resentment at the outrage
decreased.

[Illustration: KRONBERG CASTLE ON THE SOUND, DENMARK.]

The political result of it was that Denmark allied herself with Napoleon,
a measure which gave that unhappy land no small amount of trouble and
distress and led in 1814 to the loss of Norway, which for four hundred
years had been united with the Danish realm. Norway was handed over to
Swedish rule, while England took for her share of the spoils the island
of Heligoland, which she wanted to secure for the command of the Elbe.
Thus the birds of prey gathered round and despoiled the weak realm of
Denmark, which was to be further robbed in later years.

_A FRENCH SOLDIER BECOMES KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY._

The career of Napoleon, which passed over Europe like a tornado, made
itself felt in the Scandinavian peninsula, where it gave rise to radical
changes. In the preceding tale its effect upon Denmark was shown. While
the wars which desolated Europe did not reach the soil of Sweden and
Norway, yet these countries were deeply affected and their relations
decidedly changed.

The work began in 1808 in the obstinate folly of Gustavus IV., who
defiantly kept up an active trade with England when Russia and Prussia
had closed their ports against British ships. As a result Russia declared
wa