Count's Feud - The Battles of Svenstrup and Aalborg

The Battles of Svenstrup and Aalborg

An army of nobles under the leadership of Niels Brock and Holger Rosenkrantz was defeated at the Battle of Svenstrup on 16 October 1534. Christian III, in the meantime, forced a peace with Lübeck, from which great reinforcements could be freed up to fight against the rebels. Under the leadership of Johan Rantzau, the royal troops pursued the peasants all the way to Aalborg, where the latter, under the leadership of Skipper Clement, had taken refuge behind the city's fortifications.

On 18 December, Rantzau's troops stormed the city, and it fell. At least 2,000 people are thought to have lost their lives in the storming of the city and in the plundering of the following days. For his part, Skipper Clement, badly wounded, managed to escape, but a few days later was recognized by a peasant in Storvorde east of Aalborg and handed over to Rantzau. Skipper Clement was later sentenced to death by the judicial council in Viborg and executed in 1536.