Lest he should break this, with as much levity as he had broken all his former engagements, sixty gentlemen of his party were to surrender themselves prisoners to Albert, if he should again disturb the peace of the realm. He did not disturb it, because he was soon afterwards drowned in crossing a ford. [Sidenote: 1371 to 1376.] For some years after this pacification Albert enjoyed comparative security. But he was not popular: he brought over many greedy Germans to share in the spoils of the kingdom; and exhibited in their favour a partiality so gross as much to indispose the nation against him. Like a true German, indeed, he had little regard for any thing beyond his immediate interests, and those of his family. Insecure as was his possession of Sweden, he raised troops to support the claims of his nephew, Albert of Mecklenburg, to the Danish throne, in opposition to Olaf, the son of Margaret and Hako.[179] The enterprise failed: the armament that was sent against the Danes was mostly destroyed by a storm; and there was no disposition to renew the contest. [Sidenote: 1377 to 1387.] The gross partiality of Albert for his foreign mercenaries was not the only fault he committed. Having a high notion of the kingly prerogative, he endeavoured to rule without the control of the diet. For his attempt to restrain the privileges of the nobles he would deserve our praise, were not his motives of the most selfish character. The people had still more reason to complain. Not only were they subject to a tyranny odious as that of the nobles, but they were ground to the earth by new imposts, and, what was still more mortifying, for the enrichment of avaricious foreigners. In this state of the public mind, he convoked a diet at Stockholm, and demanded an augmentation of his income. It was not, he observed, adequate to the decent support of royalty; and he solicited one third of the whole revenue, civil and ecclesiastical. Nothing could equal the indignant surprise of the diet at this extraordinary demand. They replied that former kings had found the usual revenues enough, not merely for comfort but for splendour; and intimated that if he was straitened, the cause lay in the number of foreigners whom he enriched. This intimation might have been expected to produce some good effect; but it had none on this imprudent king except to exasperate him, and to make him resolve that he would wrest by force what had been refused to his solicitations. In vain did both nobles and clergy cry aloud against his arbitrary purpose: in vain did they call upon him to respect the privileges which he had sworn to maintain; he persevered, and consequently plunged the kingdom into a ruinous civil war. [Sidenote: 1388 to 1389.]