Reign
In 1363, members of the Swedish Council of Aristocracy, led by Bo Jonsson Grip, arrived in the court of Mecklenburg. They had been banished from the country after a revolt against king Magnus Eriksson, who was unpopular among the nobility. At the nobles' request, Albert launched an invasion of Sweden supported by several German dukes and counts. Several Hanseatic cities and dukes in Northern Germany expressed support of the new king. Stockholm and Kalmar, with large Hanseatic populations, and also welcomed the intervention.
Albert was proclaimed King of Sweden and officially crowned on 18 February 1364. The coronation took place at the Stones of Mora. A fragment still remains of the stone commemorating the occasion, the Three Crowns stone. This is the earliest known example of the use of the three crowns as a national symbol for Sweden.
The arrival of Albert led to eight years of civil war in Sweden between Albert's and Magnus' supporters. In a battle near Enköping in 1365 between Albert's German forces and king Magnus Eriksson's forces, supported by king Haakon VI of Norway (Magnus' son), Magnus was defeated and taken prisoner by Albert. After the initial defeat, Valdemar IV of Denmark intervened on Magnus' and Haakon's behalf, and Valdemar's forces were joined by Swedish peasants who supported Magnus. Apart from German strongholds like Stockholm, Albert was unpopular in large parts of Sweden, especially among Swedish commoners in the provinces, who were discontent with Albert's policy of appointing Germans as officials in all Swedish provinces and who suffered under his rule.
With the help of Danish and Swedish allies, Haakon managed to temporarily beat back Albert and lay siege to Stockholm in 1371. However, the siege was short-lived; with military help from the Swedish nobility in Stockholm, Albert was able beat back the Norwegians and the Danes. A peace agreement was signed, with the condition that Magnus be released and allowed to freely travel back to Norway (where he spent the rest of his life). Albert had secured the Swedish crown, but was also forced to make a belated coronation oath in which he agreed to extensive concessions to the Swedish nobility in the regency council. Bo Jonsson (Grip) used this power to personally usurp 1,500 farms and he soon became Sweden's largest landowner, controlling a third of the entirety of the Swedish territory and possessing the largest non-royal wealth in the country.
Read more about this topic: Albert, King Of Sweden
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