Origin and children

Bishop of Ezel

19-year-old Duke Magnus appeared in Arensburg (Esel Island) in the spring of the year. In the hope that he would be supported, the nobility of the island supported him.

Unlike Ezel, the Pilten monastic region was geographically dispersed and consisted of three parts - the dioceses of Pilten, Donedangen, Ervalen in northern Courland, the dioceses of Hasenpot, Neuhausen, Amboten, lying isolated in the south, and the diocese of Sackenhausen on the coast.

The young Duke found himself in a difficult position. On the one hand, the still existing one tried to protest the sale of Pilten and Ezel, since it had to be agreed upon with the order. On the other hand, the Russian state openly tried to take possession of the Baltic lands.

King of Livonia

Magnus brought with him only a small contingent of soldiers, but as King of Livonia he was appointed commander of the Russian troops sent against the Swedes. he and the Russian expeditionary army moved to Livonia. He began the siege.

Denmark did not send a fleet to help Magnus. The Russians did not have their own flotilla, only a few privateers based in Narva. At sea, therefore, the Swedes dominated, who could send reinforcements and ammunition to the Revel garrison. Mr. Magnus was forced to lift the siege of Revel.

In general, the idea of ​​​​creating a vassal kingdom turned out to be successful - Magnus, the son of a European king, was much more attractive in the eyes of the Livonian nobility. At the same time, his loyalty to Moscow was not in doubt.

The Tsar gave a small Estonian city to the King of Livonia. At this time, Magnus’s fiancée, Princess Euphemia Staritskaya, suddenly died. offered him the hand of her younger thirteen-year-old sister, Maria.

Breakup with Ivan the Terrible

In the year Russian troops took the city. Fearing the Russian capture of the cities of Helmet, Ergeme and Ruijena, they chose to surrender to Magnus.

Trying to strengthen his precarious position in Magnus, he began secret negotiations with the king. Magnus appealed to the population to surrender if they did not want to be captured by Ivan the Terrible. It was separately noted that this was being done for their further return to Polish possession. In this way a number of cities were taken, including Kockenhausen and

Bishop of Ezel

19-year-old Duke Magnus appeared in Arensburg (Esel Island) in the spring of 1560. Hoping that Denmark would support him, the island's nobility supported him.

Unlike Ezel, the Pilten monastic area was geographically dispersed and consisted of three parts - the dioceses of Pilten, Donedangen, Ervalen in northern Courland, the dioceses of Hasenpot, Neuhausen, Amboten, lying isolated in the south, and the diocese of Sackenhausen on the coast.

The young Duke found himself in a difficult position. On the one hand, the still existing Livonian Order tried to protest the sale of Pilten and Ezel, since it had to be agreed upon with the order. On the other hand, the Russian state openly tried to take possession of the Baltic lands.

King of Livonia

Magnus brought with him only a small contingent of soldiers, but as King of Livonia he was appointed commander of the Russian troops sent against the Swedes. On June 25, his army, together with Russian troops, set out on a campaign and on August 21 began the siege of Revel.

Denmark did not send a fleet to help Magnus. The Russians did not have their own flotilla, only a few privateers based in Narva and the Neva River. At sea, therefore, the Swedes dominated, who could send reinforcements and ammunition to the Revel garrison. On March 16, 1571, Magnus was forced to lift the siege of Revel.

In general, the idea of ​​​​creating a vassal kingdom turned out to be successful: Magnus, the son of a European king, was much more attractive in the eyes of the German and Danish Livonian nobility than Ivan the Terrible. At the same time, his loyalty to Moscow was not in doubt.

The Tsar presented the Estonian city of Oberpalen to the King of Livonia and issued a charter for the inclusion in the lands of the kingdom of the territory currently included in the Volkhov district of the Leningrad region, as well as the rights to the Karelian lands. At this time, Magnus’s fiancée, Princess Euphemia Staritskaya, suddenly died. Ivan IV offered him the hand of her younger thirteen-year-old sister, Maria.

Trying to strengthen his precarious position in 1577, Magnus began secret negotiations with the King of Poland Stefan Batory, after which he ceded the throne to the Batory family. Magnus appealed to the population to surrender if they did not want to be captured by Ivan the Terrible. In this way, a number of cities were taken and annexed to the Livonian Kingdom, including Valmiera, Cockenhausen and Wenden.

The king, having heard about this, besieged Wenden, summoned Magnus to negotiations and arrested him. Wenden was captured after a brutal bombardment. The remnants of Magnus' soldiers blew themselves up in the western wing of the order's castle, and he himself was imprisoned. (According to other sources, he was restored to the title of King of Livonia, and then again betrayed the king). Denmark, which never supported Magnus, after some bargaining, still retained the rights to Ezel and Pilten.

In 1580, Magnus took part in the war on the side of Batory and raided the Dorpat region.

After the war in 1583, Magnus died in Pilten, leaving a widow with children in his arms. Later, Boris Godunov deceitfully invited the widow Maria to Moscow, where she was forcibly tonsured into a monastery. This was done so that the Poles could not use Mary as a contender for the Russian throne. The fact is that in Russia, unlike most countries of Catholic Europe, they recognized the possibility of succession to the throne through the female line. The daughter was allegedly poisoned.

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Excerpt characterizing Magnus (King of Livonia)

“I’m not talking about you,” he said, “I don’t know you and, I admit, I don’t want to know.” I'm talking about staff in general.
“And I’ll tell you what,” Prince Andrei interrupted him with calm authority in his voice. “You want to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that this is very easy to do if you do not have sufficient respect for yourself; but you must admit that both the time and place were chosen very badly for this. One of these days we will all have to be in a big, more serious duel, and besides, Drubetskoy, who says that he is your old friend, is not at all to blame for the fact that you had the misfortune of not liking my face. However,” he said, getting up, “you know my last name and know where to find me; but don’t forget,” he added, “that I do not consider myself or you at all offended, and my advice, as a man older than you, is to leave this matter without consequences. So on Friday, after the show, I’m waiting for you, Drubetskoy; “goodbye,” Prince Andrei concluded and left, bowing to both.
Rostov remembered what he needed to answer only when he had already left. And he was even more angry because he forgot to say this. Rostov immediately ordered his horse to be brought in and, having said a dry goodbye to Boris, went home. Should he go to the main apartment tomorrow and call this broken adjutant or, in fact, leave this matter like that? there was a question that tormented him all the way. Either he thought angrily about the pleasure with which he would see the fear of this small, weak and proud man under his pistol, then he felt with surprise that of all the people he knew, there was no one he would want to have as his friend. , like this adjutant he hated.

On the next day of Boris’s meeting with Rostov, there was a review of Austrian and Russian troops, both fresh ones who came from Russia and those who returned from a campaign with Kutuzov. Both emperors, the Russian with the heir, the Tsarevich, and the Austrian with the Archduke, made this review of the allied army of 80 thousand.
From early morning, the smartly cleaned and groomed troops began to move, lining up on the field in front of the fortress. Then thousands of legs and bayonets moved with waving banners and, at the command of the officers, they stopped, turned around and lined up at intervals, bypassing other similar masses of infantry in different uniforms; then the elegant cavalry in blue, red, green embroidered uniforms with embroidered musicians in front, on black, red, gray horses, sounded with measured stomping and clanking; then, stretching out with its copper sound of cleaned, shining guns trembling on carriages and with its smell of armor, the artillery crawled between the infantry and cavalry and was placed in the designated places. Not only the generals in full dress uniform, with extremely thick and thin waists pulled together and reddened, propped up collars, necks, in scarves and all the orders; not only the pomaded, well-dressed officers, but every soldier, with a fresh, washed and shaved face and his equipment cleaned to the last possible shine, every horse groomed so that its fur shone like satin and its mane was soaked hair by hair, - everyone felt that something serious, significant and solemn was happening. Each general and soldier felt their insignificance, recognizing themselves as a grain of sand in this sea of ​​​​people, and together they felt their power, recognizing themselves as part of this huge whole.
Intense efforts and efforts began early in the morning, and at 10 o’clock everything was in the required order. There were rows on the huge field. The entire army was drawn up in three lines. Cavalry in front, artillery behind, infantry behind.
Between each row of troops there was, as it were, a street. Three parts of this army were sharply separated from one another: the combat Kutuzovskaya (in which the Pavlograd residents stood on the right flank in the front line), the army and guards regiments that came from Russia, and the Austrian army. But everyone stood under the same line, under the same leadership and in the same order.
An excited whisper swept through the leaves like the wind: “They’re coming!” they're coming! Frightened voices were heard, and a wave of bustle and final preparations ran through all the troops.
A moving group appeared ahead of Olmutz. And at the same time, although the day was windless, a light stream of wind ran through the army and slightly shook the weather vane's peaks and the unfurled banners, which fluttered against their poles. It seemed that the army itself, with this slight movement, expressed its joy at the approach of the sovereigns. One voice was heard: “Attention!” Then, like roosters at dawn, the voices repeated in different directions. And everything became quiet.
In the dead silence, only the clatter of horses could be heard. It was the retinue of emperors. The sovereigns approached the flank and the sounds of the trumpeters of the first cavalry regiment were heard playing the general march. It seemed that it was not the trumpeters who played this, but the army itself, rejoicing at the approach of the sovereign, naturally making these sounds. From behind these sounds, one young, gentle voice of Emperor Alexander was clearly heard. He said a greeting, and the first regiment barked: Hurrah! so deafeningly, continuously, joyfully that the people themselves were horrified by the number and strength of the bulk that they made up.
Rostov, standing in the front ranks of the Kutuzov army, to which the sovereign approached first, experienced the same feeling that every person in this army experienced - a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of power and a passionate attraction to the one who was the reason for this triumph.
He felt that on one word of this man it depended that this entire community (and he, associated with it, an insignificant grain of sand) would go into fire and water, to crime, to death or to the greatest heroism, and therefore he could not help but tremble and freeze at the sight of this approaching word.
- Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! - it thundered from all sides, and one regiment after another received the sovereign with the sounds of a general march; then Hurrah!... general march and again Hurrah! and Hurray!! which, growing stronger and stronger, merged into a deafening roar.
Until the sovereign arrived, each regiment, in its silence and immobility, seemed like a lifeless body; As soon as the sovereign was compared to him, the regiment became animated and thundered, joining the roar of the entire line that the sovereign had already passed. At the terrible, deafening sound of these voices, in the midst of the masses of troops, motionless, as if petrified in their quadrangles, hundreds of horsemen of the retinue moved carelessly, but symmetrically and, most importantly, freely, and in front of them were two people - the emperors. The restrained passionate attention of this entire mass of people was then undividedly focused on them.
The handsome, young Emperor Alexander, in a horse guards uniform, in a triangular hat, put on from the brim, with his pleasant face and sonorous, quiet voice attracted all the attention.
Rostov stood not far from the trumpeters and from afar, with his keen eyes, recognized the sovereign and watched his approach. When the sovereign approached to a distance of 20 steps and Nicholas clearly, down to all the details, examined the beautiful, young and happy face of the emperor, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and delight, the likes of which he had never experienced. Everything—every feature, every movement—seemed charming to him in the sovereign.
Stopping opposite the Pavlograd regiment, the sovereign said something in French to the Austrian emperor and smiled.
Seeing this smile, Rostov himself involuntarily began to smile and felt an even stronger surge of love for his sovereign. He wanted to show his love for the sovereign in some way. He knew it was impossible, and he wanted to cry.
The Emperor called the regimental commander and said a few words to him.
"My God! what would happen to me if the sovereign addressed me! - Rostov thought: “I would die of happiness.”
The Emperor also addressed the officers:
“Everyone, gentlemen,” (every word was heard by Rostov like a sound from heaven), I thank you with all my heart.
How happy Rostov would be if he could now die for his Tsar!
– You have earned the banners of St. George and you will deserve them.
“Just die, die for him!” thought Rostov.
The Emperor also said something that Rostov did not hear, and the soldiers, pushing their breasts, shouted: Hurra! Rostov also screamed, bending down to the saddle as much as he could, wanting to hurt himself with this cry, only to fully express his admiration for the sovereign.
The Emperor stood for several seconds against the hussars, as if he was undecided.
“How could the sovereign be indecisive?” thought Rostov, and then even this indecision seemed to Rostov majestic and charming, like everything that the sovereign did.
The sovereign's indecisiveness lasted for an instant. The sovereign's foot, with a narrow, sharp toe of a boot, as was worn at that time, touched the groin of the anglicized bay mare on which he was riding; the sovereign's hand in a white glove picked up the reins, he set off, accompanied by a randomly swaying sea of ​​adjutants. He rode further and further, stopping at other regiments, and, finally, only his white plume was visible to Rostov from behind the retinue surrounding the emperors.

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Magnus III

Magnus III Barefoot, or Barefoot (Old Scand. Magnús berfœtt) (1073 - August 23, 1103) - king of Norway (1093 - 1103), son of Olaf III the Quiet and concubine Thora. The reign of Magnus III marked an attempt to revive the aggressive Viking expansion and aimed to create a Norse empire in the Irish Sea and the northern part of the British Isles. After the death of Magnus in Ulster, the empire he created fell apart. There are several versions of Magnus III's nickname. The most common and most plausible: for his commitment to wearing Gaelic clothing, the prototype of the kilt.

King of Norway

In 1093, after the death of his father Olaf III the Quiet, Magnus was proclaimed king of Norway. However, the inhabitants of Oppland, having gathered at the Thing, proclaimed Hakon Magnusson, the son of Magnus II, the cousin of Magnus III, king.

Hakon then went to the capital of Norway, Trondheim, where he demanded that Norway be divided between himself and Magnus III, as their fathers had previously done. This requirement was considered fair. Having become king, Hakon recruited a squad for himself, and also abolished a number of taxes and introduced some improvements to the laws, which won the complete favor of the bonds. Hakon's behavior displeased his co-ruler Magnus III and a conflict arose between the cousins.

At the end of 1093, Hakon and Magnus began to prepare for war against each other and gather troops. However, in the winter of 1094, when Hakon Magnusson died unexpectedly, his supporters did not lay down their arms. Led by Earl Thorir of Steig, Hakon's tutor, the rebels defeated the militia in Northern Norway and plundered the coast. Magnus III quickly suppressed this protest. Earl Thorir and many of the conspirators were executed, and severe punishments were imposed on the rest. King Magnus now ruled the country alone. He established peace in the country and cleared it of Vikings and bandits. He was a decisive, warlike and active man, and in everything he was more like Harald, his grandfather, than like his father. (Snorri Sturluson. “The Circle of the Earth” The Saga of Magnus Barefoot)

Wars in Scandinavia (1094-1100)

Having gained a foothold in Norway, Magnus III began to pursue an aggressive policy towards neighboring states - Denmark and Sweden. The stumbling block was border disputes at the mouth of the Göta Älv river, along which the borders of the Scandinavian kingdoms passed at that time. In 1094, Magnus raided the Danish province of Halland, where he passed with fire and sword, capturing rich booty. In 1095, Magnus III marched with a large army into the Swedish province of West Götaland and forced the local residents to swear allegiance to him.

At a strategic location on the island of Kollandsø, in the middle of Lake Vänern, a wooden fortress was built and a garrison was left there. The very next year, King Inge I the Elder of Sweden took this fortress by storm and regained power over West Götaland. In 1097, Magnus again made a campaign against Sweden, but was defeated by Inge I at the Battle of Foxern.

Finally, in 1099, three rulers met on the coast of Göta Älv: King Magnus III Barefoot of Norway, King Inge I of Sweden and King Eric I the Good of Denmark. The parties made peace on the condition that the borders remain inviolable. To secure peace, Magnus married Inge's daughter Margaret, who received the nickname Margaret Fredkulja ("Woman of Peace").

First campaign in the British Isles (1098-1099)

Magnus's next venture was the invasion of England. More than thirty years had passed since the death of King Harald III of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, but England attracted the attention of the descendants of the Vikings, who dreamed of repeating the invasions of 800-860. But after the Norman Conquest and the establishment of a rigid, centralized royal power, England presented a powerful and formidable enemy. Therefore, as targets for his claims, Magnus III chose areas densely populated by Scandinavian settlers.

The current situation contributed to this. On the Orkney Islands, Earls Paul and Erlend intrigued against each other in the struggle for power; in Scotland there was a civil war waged between King Donald III and his nephew Edgar; in Ireland, a conflict broke out between Norwegian settlers and the indigenous Celtic population; the kingdom of Man and the Isles, after the death of the first king Godred Crovan, was on the verge of collapse; In Wales, the king of Gwynedd, Gruffydd II ap Cynan, rebelled against the Norman barons. The appearance in these conditions of a powerful Norwegian fleet and army under the command of Magnus was doomed to success.

Invasion of Orkney and the Hebrides

Since the time of the first king of Norway, Harald Fairhair, the Orkney Islands have been dependent on the Norwegian crown. However, during the “peaceful” period of the reign of Olaf the Quiet, the dependence of the Orkney jarls became purely nominal. Arriving in 1098 at the Orkney Islands, Magnus III captured the earls Paul and Erlend and sent them into exile in Norway. Having forced the inhabitants to swear allegiance to their son Sigurd, Magnus headed to the Hebrides. Having subjected the population of the Hebrides to the most brutal plunder and seized rich booty, Magnus annexed these islands to his possessions. In addition, the Norwegians also ravaged the coasts of Ireland and Scotland.

The monastery of St. Columba, located on the island of Iona, was taken under the protection of Magnus. A wooden fortress, Rothesay Castle, was built on the Isle of Bute, where a strong garrison was left. The fortress was subsequently rebuilt several times and has survived to this day.

Capture of the Isle of Man

The next target was the Isle of Man. The arrival of Magnus III ended the civil war on the island. Having arrested the sons of Godred Crovan - Olaf and Legman, the king of Norway led the population to an oath of allegiance. Maine became the main base for Magnus' subsequent operations. A wooden fortress, Castle Rushen, was built in the town of Castletown. Another fortress, Peel Castle, was erected on St. Patrick's Island and served as the residence of the rulers of Maine until the mid-13th century. Built at strategic points, these castles were later rebuilt and survive to this day.

Scramble in Wales

While on the Isle of Man, Magnus became embroiled in the Welsh struggle, led by Gruffudd ap Cynan, against Anglo-Norman infiltration into Wales. In the same year, 1098, the Anglo-Norman army under the leadership of Hugh d'Avranches, Earl of Chester and Hugh de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, pursuing Gruffydd ap Cynan, invaded the island of Anglesey, but was suddenly attacked by the Norwegian fleet in the Menai Strait. In a bloody battle, the British were defeated, and Hugo de Montgomery was killed. According to the Scandinavian sagas and Welsh chronicles, King Magnus personally killed the enemy commander with a bow. The result of this battle was the restoration of Gruffydd ap Cynan to the throne of Gwynedd and the cessation of English advance in North Wales until the mid-13th century. “Magnus then took possession of the Isle of Anglesey. This was the southernmost possession that the kings of Norway ever had." British historians admit that Gruffydd, who has Scandinavian roots on his mother’s side, took a vassal oath to Magnus III.

Territorial acquisitions in Scotland

After the Battle of Menai, Magnus Barefoot headed to Scotland. In 1098, the contender for the throne Edgar, with the support of the English king William II the Red, practically took the throne from his uncle Donald III, but was not ready for confrontation with the powerful Norwegian army. The parties entered into negotiations and, upon completion, concluded a peace treaty. “Kon Magnus should have owned all the islands that lie to the west of Scotland, if between them and the mainland it was possible to pass on a ship with a suspended rudder ... His people passed through all the Scottish fjords and straits between the islands, inhabited and uninhabited, and made all the islands possessions King of Norway." In addition, wanting to confirm his rights to Kintyre, the Norwegian king Magnus III ordered himself to be dragged on a boat through the narrowest isthmus of the peninsula, trying to prove that Kintyre belongs to the islands due to Norway. The Scottish king was forced to acknowledge this loss.

After spending the winter in the Hebrides, Magnus III returned to Norway. The lands he captured are ruled by his son Sigurd, whom Magnus, before leaving, marries Bidumin, the daughter of the king of Munster and Leinster Muirchertach Ua Briain.

Second Campaign in the British Isles (1102-1103)

Having settled internal affairs upon his return to Norway, Magnus began large-scale preparations for a new campaign. Finally, with even greater strength, Magnus set out on a campaign. His destination was Ireland. After the death of the High King of Ireland, Toirrdelbach Ua Briain in 1086, no new High King was elected. His son Muirchertach Ua Briain, in a bitter struggle with his brothers, seized royal power in Munster and Leinster, but the kings of Ulster, Connacht and Mead refused to recognize his supremacy. The rulers of Scandinavian-Gaelic Dublin were hostile to any Irish centralized power. Together with King Magnus III, the flower of the Norwegian nobility set off to conquer Ireland in 1102. Having visited the Orkney Islands along the way and received reinforcements there, the army of Magnus Barefoot landed in the Dublin area. King Muirhertach Ua Briain came out in support of Magnus. The Allies captured Dublin and the kingdom of Meade. The following year it was Ulster's turn. Having plundered and conquered most of Ulster, King Magnus prepared to return to Norway. He was only waiting for the Irish to bring him cattle in order to stock up on food for the journey. Meeting his warriors sent for provisions, Magnus III and his squad were ambushed. In the ensuing battle the king was killed; Almost all the noble warriors died with him. Left without a leader, the Norwegians immediately left Ireland. Upon learning of his father's death, Sigurd, who ruled the islands in the Irish Sea, urgently sailed to Norway to lay claim to the royal throne.

Marriage and children

Wife - Margaret Ingidotter (?-1130), daughter of King Inga I of Sweden the Elder, Queen of Norway (1100-1103). After the death of Magnus III, she married King Nils of Denmark, Queen of Denmark (1105-1130). The marriage was childless.
Children:
Son from an unknown concubine of low birth:
Øysten I Magnusson (1088-1123), king of Norway (1103-1123).
Son from concubine Torah:
Sigurd I Magnusson (1089-1130), king of Man and the Isles (1098-1103), king of Norway (1103-1130).
Son from concubine Sigrid Saxedotter:
Olaf Magnusson (1099-1115), during the division of power, after the death of his father, nominally received a third of the kingdom, but 4-year-old Olaf’s share was ruled by his older brothers. He died at the age of 16, without ever ascending the throne.
Son from an unknown Irish woman:
Harald Gilli (1103-1136), king of Norway (1130-1136). Harald showed up in Norway only in 1127 and declared himself the son of Magnus Barefoot. After being tested by God's court, his rights were recognized by Sigurd I.
Son from concubine Thora Saxedotter, sister of Sigrid:
Sigurd the Evil (?-1139), king of Norway (1136-1139). He declared himself the son of Magnus in 1135 and laid claim to the throne.
Daughter by unknown concubine:
Ragnhild Magnusdotter (?-?), married Harald Erikson, son of King Erik I the Good of Denmark.

Magnus III Barefoot, or Barefoot - King of Norway

The Secret of King Magnus.

Magnus's grave is in the old brotherly cemetery of the Valaam Monastery, where he is named "Schemonk Gregory, Swedish King Magnus."

However, the Swedish Chronicle claims that Magnus II drowned in 1374 off the coast of Norway. However, his remains were not found, so there is no burial place in Sweden (and Norway).

King's grave on Valaam

A little about him. At the age of three he inherited the Norwegian throne and was elected to the Swedish one.

Magnus displeased the nobility (1338); The opposition was especially strong in Norway, where in 1343 his son Hakon was elected king.
In 1344, Magnus's second son was chosen as his heir in Sweden. Magnus' attempts to capture Estonia and Livonia ended unsuccessfully. The restrictions he subjected to the German merchants trading in Novgorod led to a clash with the Hanseatic people. Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg repeatedly acted as an intermediary between the king and the cities.
To replenish the treasury, depleted by wars, Magnus appropriated part of the tithes that went to Rome. The pope threatened him with excommunication for this. The clergy also joined the dissatisfied nobles. The son of Magnus, Eric (1356), stood at the head of all the dissatisfied. The king had to divide the kingdom with his son in 1357.

Hostile relations between them, however, soon resumed; this time Magnus found an ally against Eric in the person of Valdemar of Denmark. The sudden death of Eric in 1359 made Valdemar's help unnecessary and Magnus refused to cede to him the previously promised provinces. This caused a war in which success favored Denmark.
Magnus's son Gakon, to put an end to the war, married Valdemar's daughter Margarita; but with this marriage he alienated the entire aristocracy, who insisted on his marriage with Elizabeth of Holstein. The dissatisfied grouped around Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg and proclaimed his son king. Albret arrived in Sweden in 1363, and the following year he was solemnly elected king in Uppsala. Region after region swore allegiance to the new king; in 1365 Magnus became a prisoner of Albrecht and received his freedom only in 1371. Died in Norway in 1374. Magnus’s internal reforms affected the court, serfdom, land peace, etc.

Magnus Eriksson and the Valaam Monastery

Swedish chronicles claim that Magnus II drowned in 1374 off the coast of Norway. However, his remains were not found, so there is no burial place in Sweden (and Norway).
However, Magnus’s grave is in the old brotherly cemetery of the Valaam Monastery, where he is named “Schemonk Gregory, Swedish King Magnus.”
According to this version of events, Magnus and his army intended to raid Valaam or, perhaps, one of the other Orthodox monasteries of Lake Ladoga. However, his ship was shipwrecked. After spending several days in the stormy sea, the king and his companions were picked up and saved by the monks, who saw God’s providence in his misfortune. After everything he had experienced, Magnus converted to the Orthodox faith and decided to devote the short remainder of his days to God: he became a monk (great schema) with the name Gregory. Already a monk, Magnus wrote a will addressed to the entire Swedish people, in which he ordered never to go to war in the Novgorod lands, not to destroy Russian churches and not to be at enmity with the Orthodox faith. The text of this will is contained in one of the Novgorod chronicles (in the First Sofia Chronicle). Shortly after this, the former king died.
The suppression of this version of events by Swedish sources of that time is quite justified: in an era when the most important strategic goal of Western countries was the conversion of Orthodox lands to Catholicism, it was unprofitable to know about a king who abandoned this goal and zealously converted to Orthodoxy. It is therefore quite possible that the story of the sinking of Magnus off the coast of Norway represents a deliberate falsification of Roman origin.

EPISODES OF LONG HISTORY
However, who is King Magnus and what happened to him? In 1316, in Sweden, a son named Magnus was born into the family of Duke Eirik Magnusson and Princess Ingeborg, daughter of the Norwegian king Hakon V. In 1319, Birger, Magnus's uncle, was overthrown from the Swedish throne, and the three-year-old child became king. In the same year, his grandfather, the Norwegian king Hakon V, also died, and our hero received another throne. At the same time, he was officially called Magnus II in Sweden, and Magnus VII in Norway.
At first, Magnus's mother was regent. But in 1327 she married the Duke of Gotland, Knut Porse, and lost power in both kingdoms and influence over her son. Now a council of guardians, led by Birger Person, ruled for the young king. In the year of Magnus's accession, Person's daughter, 16-year-old Birgitta (Brigitta), married Prince Alpha. After the death of her husband, Birgitta was seized with religious exaltation. For the rest of her life, the inconsolable widow was seized by two manias - the crusade to the East and the creation of “mixed monasteries.”
For many, many centuries, Christian monasteries were either women's or men's. Birgitta believed that faith would help a person “conquer his nature.” In the monasteries she founded, women and men settled approximately equally. I invite the readers to judge for themselves what happened there.
An ordinary person in the 14th century could easily end up at the stake for promoting such ideas. But Birgitta had three important trump cards: first, a huge fortune; secondly, influence on the young king, and, finally, taking possession of the lands of Lord Novgorod the Great was a long-standing dream of most Swedish feudal lords.
To be honest, the victory of Alexander Nevsky on the Neva River in 1240 was only an episode in a series of endless wars between Novgorod and Sweden. For example, on September 9, 1284, the Novgorodians at the mouth of the Neva killed the Swedish army of the governor Trunda. Very few managed to escape.
As a rule, after the next Swedish invasion, Novgorod ushkui boats appeared in the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia. So, in May 1318, Russian ships sailed to the Abo-Aland skerries and along the “Full River” (Aurajoki) rose to Abo (now Turku) - the then capital of Finland. On May 23, 1318, the city was taken and thoroughly destroyed, in particular, the Abov Cathedral was burned. The Novgorodians captured the church tax collected over 5 years from all over Finland, intended to be sent to Rome, and then by sea they safely returned to the mouth of the Neva and, as the chronicle says, “arrived in Novgorod in good health.”
Swedish chronicles are filled with complaints about “bloodthirsty Russians.” Here is the entry under 1322: “George, the great king of the Russians, besieged the castle of Vyborg with great force on the day of St. Clare.” Modern Finnish historians estimate the number of Novgorod troops at 22 thousand people. In fact, the serving Novgorod prince Yuri Danilovich came to Vyborg with several hundred warriors. Vyborg was sleeping, but Yuri failed to take the stone castle.
On August 12, 1323, on Orekhovoy Island at the source of the Neva, the Swedes concluded “eternal peace” with Novgorod. The Novgorodians did not want a long war and agreed to give the Swedes half of the Karelian Isthmus in the direction from south to north. Further, the border went to the basin of Lake Saimaa, and then to the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia where the Puzajoki River flows into it. This was the ancient tribal border between Karelians and Finns - Sumy (Suomi), and it was confirmed and preserved. Thus, all of central Finland remained with Lord Novgorod the Great.

NEW WAR
For a quarter of a century after the conclusion of the treaty, peace was at least maintained. But in the end Birgitta, a kind of “Swedish Rasputin”, convinced Magnus to start a new war. On August 6, 1348, the king managed to capture the Oreshek fortress (future Shlisselburg).
Magnus did not risk spending the winter on the Neva. He left a garrison of 800 people in Oreshka and went to Sweden. As soon as the king left, on August 15 a strong Novgorod army appeared at the fortress. A thousand soldiers were sent to “cleanse” the surroundings of the city of Korela from the Swedes. The aliens were killed there along with their commander Lyudka (apparently Lyuder). Soon the Swedish army remained only in Oreshka. But his turn has come. On February 24, 1349, Russian squads launched an assault. They managed to set fire to the wooden walls of the fortress and a number of buildings inside it. Some of the Swedes were burned, some were killed, and the rest were captured and sent to Novgorod.
At the beginning of the summer of 1350, Magnus made a new campaign against the Novgorod possessions. According to Swedish sources, the king's fleet arrived at the mouth of the Narova River. However, after the approach of the Novgorod army, the ships went into the Gulf of Finland and almost all died during the storm. Magnus himself barely survived and with the remnants of the army reached Sweden. In the Novgorod chronicle under 1350 there is the following message about this: “And the German army died (drowned) in the sea.”

FINAR GREGORY AND SAINT BRIGITTA
But according to the documents of the Valaam Monastery, Magnus not only escaped during the storm, but later showed up not in Sweden, but... on an island in Lake Ladoga. It is possible that the king was initially picked up by Russian monks from another monastery, and only then the unlucky conqueror arrived on Valaam. Magnus became a monk under the name of Gregory and died with the rank of schemamonk in 1374 in the Valaam monastery.
Is that how it all happened? A number of indirect evidence confirm the correctness of the Valaam documents (among which there was a plan of the old cemetery indicating the location of the graves; later the monks began to be buried in a different place). However, a 100 percent guarantee can only be given by examining the DNA from the burial on Valaam and comparing it with the DNA of the remains of Magnus’s relatives in Sweden. Russian archaeologists offered to conduct an examination to the Swedes, but they categorically refused.
Perhaps someone will be sympathetic to the position of the Swedish authorities: why should such a rich but thrifty nation spend money on finding out “the legends of deep antiquity”?
But, alas, in 2003, the kingdom found millions of euros for pompous celebrations in honor of the 700th anniversary of Saint Birgitta. The fact is that Birgitta died in 1377 and was buried in a monastery in Pirita, a few kilometers from Revel (now Tallinn). The “mixed” monasteries created by her were immediately closed. Nevertheless, in 1391, the Pope canonized Birgitta for her active preaching of crusades against schismatics, that is, the Orthodox. The temple where she was buried was destroyed in 1577 by the troops of Ivan the Terrible during the Livonian War (1558–1583). But this was of little interest to the Swedes, Germans and Estonians, since by that time they had become Protestants.
In 1718, a magnificent statue of Venus (Aphrodite) was unearthed in Rome - a Roman copy of a Greek statue of the 3rd century. BC. The find became the property of Pope Clement XI. Rumors about Venus reached St. Petersburg. Tsar Peter Alekseevich offered the Pope a large sum for her. But Clement was a great lover of antiquities and female charms and categorically refused to sell the statue. Then Peter I proposed to the pope to exchange the statue of the pagan goddess for the relics of Saint Birgitta. Can you imagine the expression on Clement’s face?! I had to agree, and the statue went to the banks of the Neva. At one time, the sculpture stood in the Tauride Palace at Prince Grigory Potemkin, for which it received the name Tauride Venus. Nowadays it is in the Hermitage.
As for Saint Birgitta, after the embarrassment with Venus, the Roman authorities forgot about her for a long time. They remembered Birgitta only after the collapse of the USSR (why?). In November 1999, John Paul II consecrated a sculpture of Saint Birgitta in the Vatican, which he called the Guardian Angel of Europe. 23 people from Estonia, led by Vice-Speaker of the Estonian Parliament Tunne Kelam, arrived in the Vatican to participate in this ceremony. A five-meter tall statue of Saint Birgitta was installed in one of the external niches of St. Peter's Basilica.
In 2003, in Sweden, the solemn service, which was held at the Vadstena Monastery, founded by St. Birgitta, was attended by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia, as well as the presidents of Finland, Latvia, Estonia and 1,400 guests from around the world.
So, neither the rulers nor the church need the schema king, who could become a symbol of reconciliation between the West and the East. But what is in demand is a militant, although not completely normal sexually, nun, who in her “Revelation” precisely indicated the path to “Christian unity”: “start with exhortations, and in case of failure, act by force.”

Article by A. B. Shirokorad from the site

Back in 1974, I had the opportunity to visit the Valaam Monastery for the first time. True, at that time the ancient monastery was turned into a home for the disabled. However, the old monastery cemetery survived, and one of the residents of the island on Ladoga led me to a grave with an old cracked slab, saying that under it lay the remains of the Swedish king Magnus II. Honestly, I ignored this information, considering it a local legend.

A quarter of a century later, while working on the book “Northern Wars of Russia,” I remembered that trip and decided to mention the legend I had heard, further writing something like the following: “... in fact, the Swedish king was buried...” But it turned out that the royal There is no grave in Sweden. More precisely, it was in the form of a pile of large stones on the seashore, and in the 19th century tourists were taken there. But later, having excavated the grave, archaeologists came to the conclusion that this was a Bronze Age burial. According to the Norwegian chronicle, King Magnus drowned in the sea near Bergen.

Episodes from ancient history

However, who is King Magnus and what happened to him? In 1316, in Sweden, a son named Magnus was born into the family of Duke Eirik Magnusson and Princess Ingeborg, daughter of the Norwegian king Hakon V. In 1319, Birger, Magnus's uncle, was overthrown from the Swedish throne, and the three-year-old child became king. In the same year, his grandfather, the Norwegian king Hakon V, also died, and our hero received another throne. At the same time, he was officially called Magnus II in Sweden, and Magnus VII in Norway.

At first, Magnus's mother was regent. But in 1327 she married the Duke of Gotland, Knut Porse, and lost power in both kingdoms and influence over her son. Now a council of guardians, led by Birger Person, ruled for the young king. In the year of Magnus's accession, Person's daughter, 16-year-old Birgitta (Brigitta), married Prince Alpha. After the death of her husband, Birgitta was seized with religious exaltation. For the rest of her life, the inconsolable widow was overcome by two manias - the crusade to the East and the creation of "mixed monasteries."

For many, many centuries, Christian monasteries were either women's or men's. Birgitta believed that faith would help a person “conquer his nature.” In the monasteries she founded, women and men settled approximately equally. What happened there - I invite the readers to judge for themselves.

An ordinary person in the 14th century could easily end up at the stake for promoting such ideas. But Birgitta had three important trump cards: first, a huge fortune; secondly, influence on the young king, and, finally, taking possession of the lands of Lord Novgorod the Great was a long-standing dream of most Swedish feudal lords.

To be honest, the victory of Alexander Nevsky on the Neva River in 1240 was only an episode in a series of endless wars between Novgorod and Sweden. For example, on September 9, 1284, the Novgorodians at the mouth of the Neva killed the Swedish army of the governor Trunda. Very few managed to escape.

As a rule, after the next Swedish invasion, Novgorod ushkui boats appeared in the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia. So, in May 1318, Russian ships sailed to the Abo-Aland skerries and along the “Full River” (Aurajoki) rose to Abo (now Turku) - the then capital of Finland. On May 23, 1318, the city was taken and thoroughly destroyed, in particular, the Abov Cathedral was burned. The Novgorodians captured the church tax collected over 5 years from all over Finland, intended to be sent to Rome, and then by sea they safely returned to the mouth of the Neva and, as the chronicle says, “arrived in Novgorod in good health.”

Swedish chronicles are filled with complaints about “bloodthirsty Russians.” Here is the entry under 1322: “George, the great king of the Russians, besieged the castle of Vyborg with great force on the day of St. Clare.” Modern Finnish historians estimate the number of Novgorod troops at 22 thousand people. In fact, the serving Novgorod prince Yuri Danilovich came to Vyborg with several hundred warriors. Vyborg was sleeping, but Yuri failed to take the stone castle.

On August 12, 1323, on Orekhovoy Island at the source of the Neva, the Swedes concluded an “eternal peace” with Novgorod. The Novgorodians did not want a long war and agreed to give the Swedes half of the Karelian Isthmus in the direction from south to north. Further, the border went to the basin of Lake Saimaa, and then to the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia where the Puzajoki River flows into it. This was the ancient tribal border between Karelians and Finns - Sumy (Suomi), and it was confirmed and preserved. Thus, all of central Finland remained with Lord Novgorod the Great.

New war

For a quarter of a century after the conclusion of the treaty, peace was at least maintained. But in the end Birgitta, a kind of "Swedish Rasputin", convinced Magnus to start a new war. On August 6, 1348, the king managed to capture the Oreshek fortress (future Shlisselburg).

Magnus did not risk spending the winter on the Neva. He left a garrison of 800 people in Oreshka and went to Sweden. As soon as the king left, on August 15 a strong Novgorod army appeared at the fortress. A thousand soldiers were sent to “cleanse” the surroundings of the city of Korela from the Swedes. The aliens were killed there along with their commander Lyudka (apparently Lyuder). Soon the Swedish army remained only in Oreshka. But his turn has come. On February 24, 1349, Russian squads launched an assault. They managed to set fire to the wooden walls of the fortress and a number of buildings inside it. Some of the Swedes were burned, some were killed, and the rest were captured and sent to Novgorod.

At the beginning of the summer of 1350, Magnus made a new campaign against the Novgorod possessions. According to Swedish sources, the king's fleet arrived at the mouth of the Narova River. However, after the approach of the Novgorod army, the ships went into the Gulf of Finland and almost all died during the storm. Magnus himself barely survived and with the remnants of the army reached Sweden. In the Novgorod chronicle under 1350 there is the following message about this: “And the German army died (drowned) in the sea.”

Monk Gregory and Saint Birgitta

But according to the documents of the Valaam Monastery, Magnus not only escaped during the storm, but later showed up not in Sweden, but... on an island in Lake Ladoga. It is possible that the king was initially picked up by Russian monks from another monastery, and only then the unlucky conqueror arrived on Valaam. Magnus became a monk under the name of Gregory and died with the rank of schemamonk in 1374 in the Valaam monastery.

Is that how it all happened? A number of indirect evidence confirm the correctness of the Valaam documents (among which there was a plan of the old cemetery indicating the location of the graves; later the monks began to be buried in a different place). However, a 100 percent guarantee can only be given by examining the DNA from the burial on Valaam and comparing it with the DNA of the remains of Magnus’s relatives in Sweden. Russian archaeologists offered to conduct an examination to the Swedes, but they categorically refused.

Perhaps someone will be sympathetic to the position of the Swedish authorities: why should such a rich but thrifty nation spend money on finding out “the legends of deep antiquity”?

But, alas, in 2003, the kingdom found millions of euros for pompous celebrations in honor of the 700th anniversary of Saint Birgitta. The fact is that Birgitta died in 1377 and was buried in a monastery in Pirita, a few kilometers from Revel (now Tallinn). The “mixed” monasteries created by her were immediately closed. Nevertheless, in 1391, the Pope canonized Birgitta for her active preaching of crusades against schismatics, that is, the Orthodox. The temple where she was buried was destroyed in 1577 by the troops of Ivan the Terrible during the Livonian War (1558-1583). But this was of little interest to the Swedes, Germans and Estonians, since by that time they had become Protestants.

In 1718, a magnificent statue of Venus (Aphrodite) was unearthed in Rome - a Roman copy of a Greek statue of the 3rd century. BC. The find became the property of Pope Clement XI. Rumors about Venus reached St. Petersburg. Tsar Peter Alekseevich offered the Pope a large sum for her. But Clement was a great lover of antiquities and female charms and categorically refused to sell the statue. Then Peter I proposed to the pope to exchange the statue of the pagan goddess for the relics of Saint Birgitta. Can you imagine the expression on Clement’s face?! I had to agree, and the statue went to the banks of the Neva. At one time, the sculpture stood in the Tauride Palace at Prince Grigory Potemkin, for which it received the name Tauride Venus. Nowadays it is in the Hermitage.

As for Saint Birgitta, after the embarrassment with Venus, the Roman authorities forgot about her for a long time. They remembered Birgitta only after the collapse of the USSR (why?). In November 1999, John Paul II consecrated a sculpture of Saint Birgitta in the Vatican, which he called the Guardian Angel of Europe. 23 people from Estonia, led by Vice-Speaker of the Estonian Parliament Tunne Kelam, arrived in the Vatican to participate in this ceremony. A five-meter tall statue of Saint Birgitta was installed in one of the external niches of St. Peter's Basilica.

In 2003, in Sweden, the solemn service, which was held at the Vadstena Monastery, founded by St. Birgitta, was attended by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia, as well as the presidents of Finland, Latvia, Estonia and 1,400 guests from around the world.

So, neither the rulers nor the church need the schema king, who could become a symbol of reconciliation between the West and the East. But what is in demand is a militant, although not completely normal sexually, nun, who in her “Revelation” precisely indicated the path to “Christian unity”: “start with exhortations, and in case of failure, act by force.”