Christian II., King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as the proud title ran, was in many respects a remarkable man. His life and character have been the subject of much controversy. Some historians have held him up to admiration as a patriot and martyr who suffered for his love of freedom and justice. Others have condemned him as a cruel and vindictive tyrant, whose crimes deserved the hard fate which befell him. Both verdicts are justified in the main. On the one hand, he was an able and enlightened ruler, who protected the liberties of his poorer subjects, encouraged trade and learning, and introduced many salutary reforms. On the other, he was a man of violent passions, crafty and unscrupulous in his dealings, cruel and bloodthirsty in avenging wrongs. His career naturally invites comparison with that of Lodovico Sforza, whose son became the husband of his daughter Christina. Both Princes were men of great ability and splendid dreams. In their zeal for the promotion of commerce and agriculture, in their love of art and letters, both were in advance of the age in which they lived. Again, their vices and crimes, the cunning ways and unscrupulous measures by which they sought to attain their ends, were curiously the same. No doubt Christian II., born and bred as he was among the rude Norsemen, belonged to a coarser strain than the cultured Duke of Milan, and is hardly to be judged by the same standard. But the two Princes resembled each other closely, and the fate which eventually overtook them was practically the same. Both of these able and distinguished men lost their States in the prime of life, and were doomed to end their days in captivity. This cruel doom has atoned in a great measure for their guilt in the eyes of posterity, and even in their lifetime their hard fate aroused general compassion. [Sidenote: JAN., 1516] THE KING'S DOVE]