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    88 MAHGABEt OF NORWAY.

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    -A*«-> • It Was Now The Year 1396, And T...

    Queen , with , her usual sagacity , removed the tax , laid all the blame on her provincial governors , and after awhile , when the popular

    agitation had subsided , quietly renewed the impost under another name . .. _^

    The great aim and end of all _her __ policy was , however , to stand well with the people and the clergyand so to counterbalance the

    , temporal power of the nobles . Thus she continued to make frequent progresses through all parts of her dominions , sometimes

    alone , and sometimes accompanied by young Brie of Pomerania . On these occasions she endeavored to win the confidence of the

    people , and to make herself acquainted with the natural resources of each country . She heard complaints , reformed abuses , received

    petitions , and administered justice . In Norway , she instituted coastlaws for the protection of shipwrecked vessels , and decreed a scale

    of rewards for deeds of humanity and daring . In Sweden , she gave the first impetus to the working of the great copper-mines , and

    otherwise encouraged industry and commerce . By these means , despite her pecuniary exactions , she came to be esteemed in all three

    kingdoms , and achieved such a reputation for affability and fair dealing as no previous sovereign had ever been known to enjoy .

    But , after all , her great stronghold was the church . - Having _, courted and flattered the clergy all her life , it was by the clergy

    that she was most honored and admired . * To please them she interested herself in the conversion of Lapland , and sent out the first

    Christian mission to those polar shores . To please them she extended the spiritual jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Drontheim ,

    and caused herself to be received as a kind of honorary nun , or laysisterat the Convent of Wadstena , where her old friend and

    school-, companion , the Lady Ingegord , was now abbess . Having gone through the ceremony of installation and inscribed her name upon

    the convent-books , the Queen took her leave with much apparent humilityandat partingkissed the cheek of every monk , and the

    hand of , every , nun belong , ing to the establishment . Thus it happened that she kissed , amongst others , the hand of poor Elizabeth

    of Holstein , who was now grown old and grey , and whom the world had quite forgotten . How Margaret desired to behold her most of

    all , and whose heart "beat the strongest at the kiss , " is charmingly told by Andersen in his description of Wadstena ; but _not even

    he has attempted to analyse the emotion with which these two women must have met , the one affcer thirty-seven years of power

    and fame , the other affcer thirty-seven years of abstinence and prayer .

    * The following legend is quoted by Fryxell in illustration of the favour with which , despite the transgressions of her private life monk , _Qaieen of Wadstena Margaret

    being was regarded at prayer by in the his Danish monastery church , expressed : — " One in Ul his pho petitions , a deep regret that , tuous he could woman not pray , when for a the voice soul from of Queen the cross Margaret , responded because —* Condemn she was not her a not vir-r ,

    for I have not condemned her . She was mine ! '" .

    88 Mahgabet Of Norway.

    88 MAHGABEt OF NORWAY .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1859, page 88, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041859/page/16/