Magnus Heinason - The Monopoly

The Monopoly

Magnus went to the king to improve his position by trying to prove that he was worthy to take over the trade on the Faroe Islands. The king however was not pleased with the idea of giving up monopoly trade which he had just obtained for himself. In order to find some loophole Magnus used an excuse that some people owed him money on the Faroes, and he had to collect it! For this reason he bid the king to grant him a special travel pass. He requested one trip from Bergen to the Faroe Islands in order to get what belonged to him. The king couldn't see anything wrong in this plan being that Heinason was a man of word and honour. But before he gave him the free pass, he made Magnus promise not to trade goods, even if his debtors offered him goods instead of money. If he should come into possession of goods, he was to hand them over to the king. Magnus agreed to this. The king granted him free passage for this trip, and Magnus left Copenhagen. Upon returning home he tried to bend the stipulations for his journey abit, but suddenly he had entirely different plans in mind. He met with several of the farmers and high standing people on the Faroes including his half brother Løgmaður Jógvan Heinason, the high Judge of the Faroes. He talked these leaders into a small type of rebellion against the new government monopoly. And Magnus was successful! The people on the islands proposed to the king that instead of the king leading the trade, a supervisor should keep the books and make sure everything was legal. If the king wouldn't agree to this proposal, the Faroese people at least wanted a man of their choice from the Islands to be in command of a ship of his own. He should be able travel back and forth between the Faeroe Islands and Bergen trading in timber and wheat - two commodities which had become scarce since the government had monopolized trade for itself.

At the ting no names were mentioned, but it was clear whom the assembly members had in mind. The Faroese proposal was presented to the king in December of 1578 in Koldinghus. The Faroese men who had traveled all the way to Kolding said that they wished to have a man called Magnus Heinason to be the commander of ships doing trade with their islands. The king did not want to make this decision himself; instead, he turned the matter over to his treasurer and statholder Christoffer Valkendorff. He was to decide what was in best interest for the king, since he was the one who had proposed to the king to begin a monopoly on the Faeroe Islands. While Valkendorff and the clerks were counting numbers, calculating and checking books, Magnus took advantage of the situation and became good friends with King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway. Any way Valkendorff would turn it, any losses he predicted and any facts that he could state - nothing could come between Magnus the his new friend King Frederik II. The king granted Heinason the command of the ships and gave him the trade rights. Christoffer Valkendorff's plan of upholding a trade monopoly on the Faroese vanished in thin air. The Faroese now would send all goods that were produced in the Faroe Islands on ships owned by Magnus Heinason, and all goods needed on the Islands (timber, beer, wheat and the like) would be brought by Magnus’ fleet!