A few years after the union of Kalmar, Eric, now in his eighteenth year, was declared of age and homage was rendered to him in all his three kingdoms, but during her lifetime Margaret was the real ruler of Scandinavia. So long as the union was insecure, Margaret had tolerated the presence near the throne of "good men" from all three realms (the _Rigsraad_, or council of state, as these councillors now began to be called); but their influence was always insignificant. In every direction the royal authority remained supreme. The offices of high constable and earl marshal were left vacant; the _Danehoffer_ or national assemblies fell into desuetude, and the great queen, an ideal despot, ruled through her court officials acting as superior clerks. But law and order were well maintained; the licence of the nobility was sternly repressed; the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were treated as integral parts of the Danish state, and national aspirations were frowned upon or checked, though Norway, as being more loyal, was treated more indulgently than Sweden. Margaret also recovered for the Crown all the landed property which had been alienated during the troublous days of Valdemar IV. This so-called "reduktion," or land-recovery, was carried out with the utmost rigour, and hundreds of estates fell into the Crown. Margaret also reformed the Danish currency, substituting good silver coins for the old and worthless copper tokens, to the great advantage both of herself and the state. She had always large sums of money to dispose of, and a considerable proportion of this treasure was dispensed in works of charity. Margaret's foreign policy was sagaciously circumspect, in sharp contrast with the venturesomeness of her father's. The most tempting offer of alliance, the most favourable conjunctures, could never move her from her system of neutrality. On the other hand she spared no pains to recover lost Danish territory. Gotland she purchased from its actual possessors, Albert of Mecklenburg and the Livonian Order, and the greater part of Schleswig was regained in the same way. Margaret died suddenly on board her ship in Flensborg harbour on the 28th of October 1412. We know very little of her private character. Contemporary records are both scanty and hostile to a sovereign who squeezed the utmost out of the people. Craft and wiliness are the qualities most generally attributed to her, coupled with the cynical praise that "in temporal matters she was very lucky." See _Danmarks riges historie, den senere Middelalder_, pp. 358-412 (Copenhagen, 1897-1905); Erslev, _Danmarks historie under dronning Margrethe_ (Copenhagen, 1882-1901); Hill, _Margaret of Denmark_ (London, 1898). (R. N. B.)