Union of The Three Crowns: The History of The Nordic Empire

Reader mode
Chapter 0: Prologue
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Union of The Three Crowns: The History of The Nordic Empire

    Chapter 0: Prologue    ​

    For better or for worse, the world from 1492 to 1945 was dominated by Europe. During this time, the great empires of Europe, whether the British, French, Spanish or Russians were the main players on the global stage, each experiencing their own ups and downs. The Germans and Italians, previously split into numerous smaller states, unified in the 19th Century and each left their own mark on the world (in both good and bad ways). Even smaller countries like Portugal and The Netherlands became globe-spanning empires, conquering areas much larger than their small slices of Europe.
    However, one area of the world that didn’t make as big of a worldwide impact was Scandinavia. While often holding the status of regional powers and possessing small overseas empires, The Scandinavian nations never became global powers like their European peers. However, they could have. Between 1397 and 1523 (with a few small periods of separation), the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden were united under the Kalmar Union, a dynastic union meant to counter the Hanseatic trade league. However, the union fell apart after the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, where after a rebellion, King Christian II slaughtered much of the Swedish nobility, provoking another rebellion soon after, after which Denmark and Sweden separated for good. However, what if, rather than massacring the Swedish nobles, Christian instead sought to reconcile and reach a deal. If that were the case, the union might have survived, and if things went right, Scandinavia might not only remain united, but become a world power. That is what this timeline will be about, not only a surviving Kalmar Union, but one that becomes a globe-spanning Nordic Empire. I look forward to beginning this timeline fairly soon, and I hope to see you all there. Take care and have a great day.
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Kalmar Union - Wikipedia
     
    Author's Note
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Author’s Note​

    So, here it is, the beginning of my new timeline. My current timeline, English Canada/French Carolina, has been running since August of 2018, three and a half years ago, and it is approaching the present day (the timeline’s current point being in the Mid 20th Century). It will in all likelihood be done by the end of this year, after which I will start a Maps & Graphics spinoff/sequel. However, I also wanted to start a new timeline to work on after EC/FC. As the majority of my heritage is from the Nordic countries (my mom is entirely Norwegian and Swedish, while my dad is 1/4 Danish), a Scandinavian timeline was a natural choice. Unlike EC/FC, where I got an idea and ran with it without any prior planning, I’ve already thought of a basic outline for the course the Kalmar Union will take. With that said, I am not the most knowledgeable on Scandinavian history to say the least (I’ve only read Wikipedia and watched a few animated history videos), so any suggestions and information from Scandinavian users would be greatly welcome. This will not be the most in-depth Kalmar Union timeline on the site (see To be a Fox and a Lion for that, a timeline that shares a very similar premise), but rather more of a general overview, which is generally the case for EC/FC as well. I mentioned OTL in the prologue, but the butterflies of a surviving Kalmar Union will flap their wings, first in the rest of Europe and then globally (I’ve already got some ideas for some of TTL’s changes outside of Scandinavia), although I will put up some form of a butterfly net, if only so the world doesn’t become totally unrecognizable. I also want things to remain realistic and keep the POD within Christian II’s character (which, from what I’ve heard, was generally scheming, cynical and machiavellian). I’m looking forward to going on this journey with all of you, and I will see you again soon.
     
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    KingAelor said:
    Wow I love the idea. Looking forward to what you are coming up with!
    Click to expand...

    PGSBHurricane said:
    This will look interesting for sure. Not a very common scenario.
    Click to expand...
    Thank you for the positive feedback, even if I am in large part retreading To be a Fox and a Lion. I don't want this to be a ripoff of that TL, but I'll admit that I'm taking a lot of cues from that TL, if only because there's a lot more I need to learn about early modern Scandinavian history and politics (and because that TL is very good). It's best that I acknowledge my influences right off the bat.
     
    Chapter 1: The State of The Union
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Union of The Three Crowns: The History of The Nordic Empire​

    Chapter 1: The State of The Union​

    And so, it begins. Before I get into the events that will reshape the course of Scandinavia, I must give a brief overview of the state of the Kalmar Union in the early 16th Century. I’m by no means an expert on early modern Scandinavian history, so, as I said in the Author’s Note, information and tips from more knowledgeable people (particularly Scandinavian users) would be greatly appreciated. Without further ado, time to get into the first of (hopefully) many updates to come.
    As of 1500, the Kalmar Union had a total population of 1.69 Million, of which 600,000 lived in Denmark, 550,000 in Sweden, 300,000 in Finland (which was part of Sweden) and 240,000 in Norway (which included Iceland). The monarch of the Kalmar Union as of the beginning of this TL was Christian II, who had ascended to the thrones of Denmark and Norway in 1513, as well as holding the title of the duke of Schleswig and Holstein. However, the Swedish delegates hadn’t crowned Christian, fearing civil unrest back home. As a result, Christian’s status as King of Sweden was in limbo. There was a large anti-union faction among the Swedish nobility, led by Sten Sture the Younger, Sweden’s regent, who wished to split Sweden from the union, which he initially succeeded at in 1517. In 1520, Christian II invaded Sweden in order to depose Sture, which he succeeded at, with Sture being fatally injured at the Battle of Bogesund on January 19th and dying on February 3rd at Lake Malaren. While Swedish resistance continued after Sture’s death, they capitulated by the autumn of 1520. Now that Christian’s rival had been vanquished and his rule over Sweden solidified, the question of what to do next became of the highest importance. Christian II was allied with Gustav Trolle, the former Archbishop of Uppsala and a rival of Sten Sture the Younger. After Sture’s death, Trolle’s position as Archbishop was restored. On November 4th, 1520, Christian II was officially crowned the King of Sweden by Trolle, and held a royal banquet in Stockholm in the following days. Trolle wanted the rebels executed for heresy, but Christian had pledged to grant amnesty to those involved with the rebellion. In the end, this conflict was resolved by granting financial compensation for the damages caused by the rebellion but refraining from executing them (POD). While the pro-independence Swedish nobles were still salty, they were willing to accept the new agreement. Thus, the Kalmar Union would be preserved, with Denmark, Norway and Sweden each acting as separate kingdoms under a common crown. As it turns out, things would improve for the union over the remainder of the century, but that is a story for another time.
     
  • Index
    • Milites

    Milites

    What an interesting premise! I wonder what could have convinced Christian II to not shorten the necks of the Sture partisans ;)
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Milites said:
    What an interesting premise! I wonder what could have convinced Christian II to not shorten the necks of the Sture partisans ;)
    Click to expand...

    Some Bloke said:
    The minds of kings are inscrutable things.
    Click to expand...
    Yeah, the POD is pretty much handwavium at this point (which is something I want to avoid if at all possible). I'm sure Christian II would've had some realistic motive, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say what it'd be.
     
    Chapter 2: The Years After The Rebellion
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Union of The Three Crowns: The History of The Nordic Empire

    Chapter 2: The Years After The Rebellion    ​

    Now that the rebellion was subdued and Christian II’s rule over Sweden was secured, he could now go on pursuing his agenda. Christian’s ambitions were to turn the Kalmar Union into a mercantile powerhouse that could challenge the Hanseatic League, strengthen the commoners and weaken the nobility and hand some control of the church over to the government, which Christian would find the perfect reason for quite soon (spoiler alert). When it came to trade, Christian raised the toll for ships passing through the Oresund, which increased revenue for the Danish crown but disrupted trade between Sweden and the Hanseatic trading cities like Lubeck and Danzig (Swedish ships were exempt from the toll, but Hanseatic ships had to pay it). While this did upset much of the Swedish nobility and merchant class, with the absence of the bloodbath, it wasn’t enough to send Sweden into another revolt.
    WIth that said, the conflict in Sweden had depleted the union’s coffers, so the period from 1521 to 1523 was mainly spent recovering from the conflict. By 1524, however, the union was ready to make some moves. Christian expanded the union’s merchant fleet and navy, in order to further secure Baltic trade. Militarily, the Danes wanted to gain more control over Northern Germany and the Swedes wanted to expand into Livonia, but Christian decided to bide his time and wait for a better opportunity and casus belli, which too would come very soon.
    There was another direction to expand, however, and that was to the west. The news of the Spanish discovery of a whole new world had made its way to the north, as had the news of the massive amounts of gold and silver said Spaniards had found in the recently-conquered Aztec Empire. The Kalmar Union already stretched further west than any other European country due to their control of Iceland, and it was still thought there may be Nordic settlers in Greenland, even though they hadn’t been heard from in a century by this point. Christian wanted to send one of his top admirals on a voyage to Greenland, both to see if the Norse settlements were still there and potentially to serve as a launching point for further exploration of the new world, but I’ll get back to that later. All I’ll say is that the Kalmar Union has the potential to be one of the top dogs in the colonial game.
    Moving back to domestic matters, I mentioned that Christian wanted to strengthen the average Nord and weaken the power of the nobility. However, I didn’t get into how he pursued that goal. Nobles could no longer trade peasants, and said peasants were now able to negotiate with the nobility over the terms of their land tenure. This made Christian popular with the peasantry, but further soured him with many noblemen. Christian would prove to be a preview to the trend of absolutism that would begin en masse in the following century, as well as one of Scandinavia’s most impactful monarchs, for reasons I will get to in coming updates. Things in Scandinavia will only get more interesting from here, but that’ll have to wait for the upcoming updates. I’ll see you all again soon, but farewell for now.
     
  • Index

    • Some Bloke

    How long before the Vikings become a propaganda motif in both the Union and its enemies?

    Maybe Shakespeare writes the Stage Sagas of Ragnar Lothbrok and Rollo the Walker.
     
    Last edited:
    A Random Man

    A Random Man

    Nice new series you have. Would love to see how history changes (or doesn't change) throughout Europe and the Americas. Would love to see how Scandinavia handles the Hanseatic League, what effects would it have throughout the HRE? What would happen to Russia? Keep up the good work.
     
    Chapter 3: The Beginning of an Empire
  • Index
    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Union of The Three Crowns: The History of The Nordic Empire

    Chapter 3: The Beginning of an Empire​

    Author’s Note: I was going to wait longer to do the first colonial-focused update. However, it turns out that Christian II was planning on sending an expedition to the New World in the near future before his fall from power, so it’d likely occur very early on in the timeline. Note, there are going to be some similarities to Chapter 31 of Milites’ timeline To be a Fox and a Lion, such as the admiral conducting the expedition, but there are also some differences. Without further ado, here is the update:
    It was late April of 1524. The atmosphere around the port of Copenhagen was buzzing. The city’s residents had become aware that, for the first time, there was going to be a Danish naval expedition to the New World. Led by Søren Norby, Denmark’s top admiral (who also led the first Danish new world expedition in the aforementioned TbaFaaL), the crew was making their final preparations before taking off and hitting the high seas. A couple of days later, the fleet departed to a cheering crowd, ready to sail off into uncharted waters.
    From their departure from Copenhaged, the fleet sailed through the Skagerrak, across the North Sea, past the Shetlands and Faroes and finally on to Iceland, where they docked for a week to resupply and prepare for the voyage into the unknown. After getting all the needed supplies and picking up some Icelandic sailors, the fleet then departed for Greenland and the New World. Going west from Iceland, Norby’s fleet traversed the rough sea between Iceland and Greenland, reaching Greenland around its southeastern end. Having reached Greenland, Norby was set to search for any Norse settlements. However, after sailing through the major fjords of Southern Greenland, no surviving settlements were found, although some ruins were spotted, basically confirming that the Norse Greelanders had gone extinct. Reestablishing the Greenland colonies was an eventual option, considering that they could get ivory from walruses, but that was beyond the scope of this expedition. Now that they’d visited Greenland, it was time to finally make it to the New World…
    Riding the West Greenland Current northward for a few hundred miles, the fleet took a left turn and voyaged across the frigid northern strait between Greenland and the New World. After a day or two, land was spotted by one of the crew, and, in July of 1524, 500 years after Leif Erikson’s fabled voyage to Vinland, the Norse were back in the New World. With that said, this land was barren and frigid, even in the middle of summer, so it was decided to sail further south. While several bodies of water opened up, it was decided to keep going south, hoping that they’d come across a more habitable land. Eventually, that’s what started to happen. Trees started appearing, more wildlife and occasionally native people began to be seen, and the temperatures began to rise a bit. Still, despite being at the same latitude as Denmark, this region was still unmistakably subarctic, resembling the taiga of Lapland. After sailing along the coast for some time, they came to another strait, between the coastline turning west and another land to the south. While the strait did eventually get named after Norby, he decided not to enter it on this voyage and instead decided to keep sailing south to see what this other land had to offer.
    As it turns out, this island actually showed promise. While still looking boreal, it wasn’t as desolate as the area to the north, and besides, boreal climates are no problem for Scandinavians. The island had numerous sheltered natural harbors and coves that would serve as good locations for future settlements, abundant forest mixed in with potential pasture land for livestock, and most importantly, the waters around the island were teeming with fish. Lots and lots of fish. Off of the east coast of the island lie the Grand Banks, some of the richest fishing grounds in the world. This had been noticed by other Europeans, as both the Portuguese and English had sent expeditions to the region in the past, and Basque fishermen were also aware of the region, but unlike those others, who didn’t view the island as a place worth settling, Norby viewed it as a place for a possible colony. Having Icelandic crewmembers who were familiar with the old Norse sagas, the name Vinland was brought back and applied to the island, with the names Markland and Helluland also being revived for the areas to the north. After scouting out the east coast of Vinland, they promptly turned east, caught the Gulf Stream and returned to Scandinavia, landing in Bergen in October.
    When news of the expeditions’ findings made it to Christian II, he was very impressed, and ordered a second expedition to be undertaken in the near future. 1525 was spent on other matters, but at the end of that year, Christian officially commissioned Soren Norby’s second voyage to the New World. Preparations were made throughout the first few months of the year, and in early May of 1526, Soren Norby was on a voyage to North America yet again. For the first few weeks, the route taken largely mirrored that of his first voyage two years earlier, with him stopping in Iceland in late May. However, where the route on the second voyage diverged from the first was when Norby’s fleet reached the southern tip of Greenland. Rather than following the coast and the currents northward as he had in his first voyage, Norby instead elected to cut across the open sea between Greenland and North America, sailing in a southwesterly direction.
    After nearly a week on the high seas, land was once again sighted, with them landing in southern Markland just north of the Norby Strait. However, this time Norby sailed through the strait that bore his name, which opened up into a large sea, sailing along the northern shore of said sea. Thinking this might be the fabled Northwest Passage, Norby sailed west along this northern shore, mapping out the different coves and inlets that dot the coast. The coast began to curve southward, which Norby followed until he reached a large fjord. Thinking this fjord could lead to somewhere, he sailed his fleet up it, but it eventually turned into a normal river, at which point he turned around and sailed back out. Sailing southwest along the north shore, the large sea the fleet sailed along began to narrow, with the south shore becoming visible. The sea became narrower and narrower until it was split in two by a large island. After the island had passed, they reached the mouth of a large river, with bluffs on one side and a large headland on the other. After a brief time spent taking the area in, meeting the natives and claiming it for the Kalmar Union, it was time to turn around and go home.
    But not quite yet, as there was still a lot of exploring left to do. As they’d traversed the northern coast of the still yet to be named sea (please suggest some names), on the return they’d travel along the southern shore. The north coast initially remained visible and quite close but gradually faded from view as the distance between the two shores became greater, with the coastline slowly curving towards the south before turning sharply towards the south, then looping back around towards the west, forming a large peninsula, with a very good natural harbor at the east end of the peninsula. The coastline then bent and turned several more times, forming large bays and peninsulas that could prove useful spots for future settlements. Further to the south lay a large island, with the name of New Gotland being given to it, due to its resemblance to the Baltic island of that name. East of that was another island, this one much more rugged, separated from the mainland by a small strait, with Norby sailing through the strait and going up the eastern side of the island, followed by him sailing north until he hit the southern coast of Vinland. On the south coast, Norby found more islands and harbors that could serve as prime locations for future settlements and fishing bases, before reaching the southeastern tip of the island and saying farewell to the New World for the final time.
    Soren Norby would never make it back to the New World, dying in 1530. However, his two expeditions would prove to be the birth of the Kalmar Union’s colonial empire, which would go on to span the globe and have an immense impact on various different regions of the world. While it would be a bit before the first permanent Nordic settlements in the New World would emerge, Nordic fishermen (mainly Icelandic, due to the geographic proximity) would soon begin fishing the rich grounds of Vinland, joining others like the Basques and Normans. It’ll be a few updates before I return to the New World, as I’ve first got to go over the Protestant Reformation and the events related to that in the Kalmar Union, but rest assured that I will be back in the Americas very soon. Take care, everyone, and have a great day.
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Reader mode
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Top
    Top