In 1380, Hako, the husband of Margaret, who was greatly her senior, paid the debt of nature. Olaf therefore, still a child, became king of Norway. But Hako was also the rightful heir to the Swedish throne, and these rights Margaret determined to secure in favour of their legitimate heir, her son. This indeed was the great, the constant, object of her policy: she had united two kingdoms, and she would now add a third. The mortification of the Swedish king was great. He feared lest the strength of the two hostile kingdoms should be consolidated, and become fatal to himself. To avert this result, he had recourse to hostilities, during the absence of Olaf and his mother in Norway (1381). Though he effected some mischief, he made little impression on that country. Two years afterwards, he made a second attempt, but was compelled to retreat. In 1385, both Olaf and his mother repaired thither to confirm the people in their fidelity, and to gain their attachment by such marks of favour as sovereigns can bestow. [Sidenote: 1386.] In regard to the counts of Holstein, Margaret had more trouble than with Albert of Sweden, or the prince of Mecklenburg. These counts, as we have often intimated, looked to Sleswic as their lawful inheritance; nor had they relinquished their hope of succession after the reversion of the fief to the crown through the default of issue in Henry the late duke. To the surprise of many, count Gerard, grandson of the celebrated prince of that name, was formally invested by Olaf with that important fief. In dismembering (for the act was no better) so important a limb of the Danish body, there was certainly much impolicy; but the act is neither so surprising nor so censurable as some historians assert. In fact there are strong reasons for it. Gerard, the representative of his house, had, according to feudal law, a good claim to the succession. Its justice, therefore, would have weight, not merely with the allies of his house, but with all Germany. Policy, however, more than justice, influenced the queen-mother in this important step. Was it nothing to separate the interests of the Holstein count from those of the Mecklenburg dukes? She well knew the efforts which Albert of Sweden had made, and was making, to secure the active assistance of the former. Besides, most of her subjects, and all her noble subjects, looked upon the count as hardly used by his exclusion from his birthright; and they were not without apprehension that, if left as a precedent, it might operate to their own disadvantage. But the strongest of all reason is, that the count was already _de facto_ duke of Sleswic. Soon after the death of Valdemar III., he had, with the aid of his allies, occupied it by force; and as the people were attached to his government, who was to dispossess him? Certainly to do so was not in the power of the queen-mother, or of her son. But though the standard—the ordinary symbol of infeudation—was