In that country there was a revolt of the whole servile population against their lords, of whom most were Germans. The grand master of the Teutonic knights being requested to succour the local feudatories, consented to do so; but from his measures it was evident that he aimed at supplanting the Danish monarch. Valdemar sailed to the coast; but on his arrival he found that a truce had been signed between his own governors and the other party. From thence he proceeded to the Holy Land—probably in consequence of some vow—and this circumstance proves that his kingdom must have been in a more secure state than the chroniclers of the age would have us believe. By the pope he is said to have been censured for presuming to visit the holy places without the licence of the apostolic see. His absence, however, must have been short; for in the following year (1346) he was again in Esthonia. His motive for this second expedition may be inferred from the result; he sold that province to the Teutonic knights for 19,000 marks. This act has been much censured by historians; but to us it appears a wise one. The expense of maintaining that distant possession was greater than it was worth: troops could not be spared for it when every disposable man was required at home; and the money was necessary to pay some importunate demands, and to redeem another portion of the national domains. Well was that money employed; it enabled him to recover all the fortresses in Jutland and Zealand that had not been previously redeemed. In exchange for other possessions, he received from the counts of Holstein one half of Fionia and the town of Nyburg. This circumstance confirms what we have just mentioned—that the intervals of war were neither so frequent nor so long as those of peace; that he lived with the counts and his other rivals on terms much less hostile than from the strict language of the chroniclers we should be justified in believing. [Sidenote: 1348 to 1350.] Another opportunity of replenishing his empty treasury was opened to Valdemar in the aid which he afforded to his brother-in-law the margrave of Brandenburg, son of the emperor Ludovic of Bavaria. For that aid he received the annual tribute which the city of Lubeck paid to the margrave’s family for the protection (or advocacy, as it was called during the middle ages) afforded by that family to the commerce of the inhabitants. [Sidenote: 1351 to 1357.]