Haakon VI of Norway - Marriage

Marriage

In 1359 the young Princess Margaret of Denmark, the daughter of the Danish King Valdemar IV, was bethroted to Haakon in a marriage contract intended to be a part of a larger alliance treaty between Magnus and Valdemar. It was presumed that Valdemar would assist Magnus in the aforementioned rebellion, started by his eldest son Eric, by invading the province of Scania, which had been pawned by King Christopher II of Denmark before his death in 1332 to Magnus and had been under Swedish rule since. Valdemar in turn would receive Helsingborg Castle as compensation for that assistance, but in June 1359 Eric unexpectedly died of the plague and Magnus tried to renege on his promise to return the castle to the Danish Crown. Valdemar was far too ambitious a ruler to have his plan to reassemble the Danish kingdom fall into pieces, and so he proceeded to invade Scania in 1360 with his mercenary army. The Danish forces quickly occupied the province and started besieging Helsingborg Castle, eventually forcing the Swedish garrison to surrender and capturing the castle. When the castle was captured, Valdermar had virtually regained control over all of Scania, and when Magnus proved to be unable to retake the province by force, it simply passed back to Danish rule. Further strife between the two kingdoms would put the marriage contract on hold for a few years until the two parties eventually reconciled in 1363; Haakon and Margaret were married that year in the Copenhagen Cathedral. Margaret's marriage was broadly considered to be a part of the Nordic power struggle.