Four years had elapsed since his departure, and there was a new state of things in Denmark. Luther’s writings had reached Copenhagen, and had been read there with avidity. Above all, Tausen found in his own country two men who seemed to be called to prepare the work of the Reformation. One of these men was Paul Eliæ, a native of Holland,[220] prior of a Carmelite monastery recently founded, the members of which were in general enlightened men who had some degree of sympathy with Luther. The other was a young nobleman, not intended for theology, named Peter Petit of Rosefontaine. He had already seen and heard Luther and Melanchthon before Tausen; and on his return to Copenhagen in 1519 he had determined to avail himself of all his family and social relations to influence other minds and gain them to the side of reform. The most important of the persons whom he persuaded to favor the Gospel was the King of Denmark himself.[221] [Sidenote: Christian II.] This prince, Christian II., who succeeded to the throne in 1513, at the age of thirty-two, as sovereign of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, was a man of extraordinary character. Endowed with a penetrating glance, he distinctly recognized the defects of the constitution of his realm, and the errors of his age; and he was capable of applying a remedy to them with a firm and bold hand. To lessen the oppressive power of the nobility and the clergy, to raise the condition of the townsmen and the peasantry, were the objects of his reign. But it must be confessed that self-interest was the mainspring of this enterprise. A friend to knowledge, to the sciences, to agriculture, commerce, and industry, he nevertheless took after his barbarian ancestors. He was cruel, and would go headlong to extremities. While still a youth, the extraordinary bodily exercises to which he devoted himself alarmed his masters; and his nightly practices, his excesses of every kind, were the talk among all classes. At a later time his swiftness of procedure and his faculty of command in war were admirable; and no less so in peace his power to secure obedience. When the health of his father began to fail, he gave proof of a power of attention to affairs of government of which no one had thought him capable. But this man of the North always retained the fierce temper of a savage, nor did he ever learn to subdue the evil dispositions which actuated him. In his fits of violence he had no regard for age, for virtue, or for greatness; and at the very time that he was contending against the despotism of castes, he was himself the greatest despot of all.[222]