Eric III. was one of the best princes that ever swayed the Danish sceptre. “With his people,” says an ancient writer, “he lived like a father with his children; and no one left his presence dissatisfied.” Hence his surname of _the Good_. He never undertook any important matter without consulting his states. His chief fault was incontinence. If, as we are assured, he refrained from the bed of his queen, it was only to indulge himself the more freely with his concubines, of whom he had a considerable number. Saxo assures us that, so far from being offended with her royal lord for this frailty, she admitted the favoured ladies into her own suite, and assisted to adorn them for his gratification. Yet Eric was not far from canonization; and but for this frailty he would probably have obtained the honour. His liberality to the church, his pilgrimage, his settlement of the Cistercians in his dominions, and his foundation at Lucca of a cloister for the accommodation of Danish palmers, procured him the epithet of saint from more than one writer of the times.
After Eric’s death there was an interregnum of two years. He had left his son Harald governor of the realm during his absence; but the conduct of that prince was so unpopular, that when the states assembled they excluded both him and his brothers, and resolved to choose some one of his uncles. The eldest, named Sweyn, died before he could be elected. Ubbo, the next prince, refused the dignity; which then descended to Nicholas, the next in age.
The long reign of this monarch was one of calamities, occasioned chiefly by his jealousy of his nephew Canute, second son of the late king. Henry king of the Obotrites, a Slavonic people who dwelt on the Baltic coast from Mecklenburg to Pomerania, was nearly connected with the royal house of Denmark, his mother being Sigritha, daughter of Sweyn II. As the Obotrites had been subdued by at least two Danish kings, and forced to embrace Christianity, they were regarded in the light of vassals. But Henry, more powerful than any of his predecessors, since he had reduced other Slavonic tribes to his yoke, would be no vassal to Denmark, though he was certainly one to Germany. He first demanded his mother’s dowry, which he asserted had never been paid; and when it was refused, invaded the southern part of Jutland. Nicholas marched against him, and was defeated. To arrest the career of the invader was reserved for Canute, who had been invested by his father with the ducal fief of Sleswic. This prince not only cleared the duchy of its invaders, but carried the war into the country of the Obotrites. Henry now sued for peace, and was thenceforth the friend of his nephew. Canute had saved Denmark from many evils; and his conduct now showed that he was no less excellent a governor than he had been a general. He exterminated the banditti, restored the empire of the laws, and caused the arts of life to flourish. His reputation gave much umbrage to the king; nor was that feeling diminished when, after the death of Henry, he was presented by the emperor Lothair with the vacant regal fief. With this augmented power he maintained tranquillity the more easily, not in his ducal fief only, but in the whole of Denmark. His eldest brother Harald, whose vices had excluded him from the throne, made many hostile irruptions into Jutland; but Eric, his next brother, was no less ready than he to protect that kingdom.