authority of the League was vested in the deputies of the different towns assembled in Congress. In it they discussed all their measures; decided upon the sum that each city should contribute to the common fund; and upon the questions that arose between the confederacy and other powers, as well as those that frequently arose between the different members of the confederacy. The place for the meeting of Congress was not fixed, but it was most frequently held at Lubeck, which was considered as the capital of the League, and there its archives were kept. … Besides the towns already mentioned, there were others that were denominated confederated cities, or allies. … The Golden Bull proscribed all sorts of leagues and associations, as contrary to the fundamental laws of the empire, and to the subordination due to the emperor and the different princes. But Charles IV., the author of this famous edict, judged it expedient to conciliate the Hanseatic League; and his successors seem generally to have followed his example. As the power of the confederated cities was increased and consolidated, they became more ambitious. Instead of limiting their efforts to the mere advancement of commerce and their own protection, they endeavoured to acquire the monopoly of the trade of the North, and to exercise the same sort of dominion over the Baltic that the Venetians exercised over the Adriatic. For this purpose they succeeded in obtaining, partly in return for loans of money, and partly by force, various privileges and immunities from the Northern sovereigns which secured to them almost the whole foreign commerce of Scandinavia, Denmark, Prussia, Poland, Russia, etc. They exclusively carried on the herring-fishery of the Sound, at the same time that they endeavoured to obstruct and hinder the navigation of foreign vessels in the Baltic. … The Kings of Denmark, Sweden and Norway were frequently engaged in hostilities with the Hanse towns. They regarded, and it must be admitted not without pretty good reason, the privileges acquired by the League in their kingdoms as so many usurpations. But their efforts to abolish these privileges served, for more than two centuries, only to augment and extend them. … Waldemar III., who ascended the Danish throne in 1340, engaged in a furious contest with the League. Success seemed at first rather to incline to his arms. Ultimately, however, he was completely defeated by the forces of the League and its allies, and was even obliged to fly from his kingdom. In his exile he prevailed on the Emperor and the Pope to interpose in his favour. But neither the imperial rescripts nor the thunders of the Vatican were able to divert the confederated cities from their purposes. At length, in 1370, the regents, to whom the government of Denmark had been