Denmark. The brothers met, swore friendship, and separated. [Sidenote: 1249.] Freed from that dreadful scourge, civil war, Eric now projected an expedition into Livonia, to recover the territories which his father had ceded. To defray the expenses, a tax of a silver penny was laid on every plough in the kingdom. With much difficulty he obtained the sanction of the states to this impost; with more difficulty still was it collected, at least in Scania. The inhabitants of that province were fond of rebellion: they rebelled on the present occasion; but as usual they were subdued, punished, and made to contribute like the rest of the Danes. The expedition arrived in Esthonia, but its details are very imperfectly recorded in the national chronicles. They merely tell us that the Teutonic knights acknowledged the king’s right to what he held, and to what he might hereafter conquer from the pagans. Certainly he made no conquests; and probably his troops were defeated by St. Alexander Neusky, governor of Novogrod.[155] [Sidenote: 1250.] Eric, on his return, engaged in war with the count of Holstein, who, conjointly, with the archbishop of Bremen and the bishop of Paderborn, laid siege to Rendsburg. To relieve it, the king advanced at the head of a considerable force. But his doom was at hand. Near Sleswic he was met by Abel, who treated him with the utmost deference, with the most obsequious respect; and so disarmed him, that in the joy of his heart he accepted an invitation to one of the duke’s country palaces, in the immediate vicinity of Sleswic. From that palace he was forcibly dragged on board a boat in the Sley, taken to a solitary part of that river, landed, allowed to make his confession, and beheaded. Heavy chains were then fastened to his corpse, and it was thrown into the deepest part of the river. The news was spread that he had perished by accident in the river; but the monks who had administered to him the last offices of religion, declared that he had been murdered,—by whose contrivance was unknown. The body being afterwards found by some fishermen, confirmed that declaration. It was buried in the church of the monastery. The brethren even asserted that miracles were wrought at his tomb, and they were believed: some years after his death he was canonized; and he is the fifth Danish prince who has been thus deified. ABEL. 1250–1252. [Sidenote: 1250 to 1252.]