In his captivity the primate was treated with much rigour. What his proud spirit could least bear was insult; if it be true, that he was forced to wear a cap made from a fox’s skin, we may smile at what called forth the bitter resentment of himself and the pope. The king was soon made to repent his violence. In virtue of the ordinance of the national council at Vedel, the fugitive bishops laid an interdict on the kingdom; the pope espoused the cause of his church; and Jaromir, prince of Rugen, to whose hospitality the bishop of Roskild had fled, was persuaded by both to arm in behalf of the altar. Great was the wrath of Christopher to see the interdict so well observed, and to hear the murmurs of his people. How could he, alone, resist a power which had proved fatal to so many emperors and so many kings, compared with which his was that of the meanest vassal in his dominions? In the hope of obtaining what he called justice, he appealed to Rome. Yet at the same time he endeavoured to dispose his royal neighbours of Sweden and Norway in his favour. _They_, too, had bishops, and the cause of one was the cause of all: it was a struggle, he observed, between the rights of kings and the insolence of their subjects. They promised to assist him in this war alike on the pope and his own clergy, whom he was about to deprive of their temporalities; and had already powerful armaments in motion when intelligence reached them that he was no more. [Sidenote: 1259.] Whether this monarch died naturally, or through poison, is doubtful. The suddenness of that death, and the peculiar circumstances in which he met it, could not fail to create the suspicion, and with some minds suspicion is truth. Even the monk whose fanaticism was said to have occasioned the deed, has been indicated by name. In the letter, however, which both his widow and his son addressed to the pope after this event, no one is implicated, and the charge of poison, true or false, was merely stated in general and indefinite terms. That he fell a victim to poison has not been proved, still less that it was administered by a churchman. The evidence, however, is rather indicative of a tragical end, though the causes and the circumstances must for ever rest a mystery. ERIC VII. SURNAMED GLIPPING. 1259–1286. [Sidenote: 1259 to 1268.]