The love of the Swedish people should have been Margaret’s reward for her abolition of aristocratic oppression, if she had not been in a position which necessitated the imposition of heavy taxes. The existence of the common people was made weary and troublesome through the payment of the “queen’s tax,” the “stake tax” on each hearth, the “rump tax” on each head of cattle, and, worst of all, the “Gothland’s release.” Bailiffs, often of foreign birth, collected these taxes with great severity. When the queen became aware of the complaints against her and her bailiffs, she asked in a letter to the archbishop that the people would forgive her in God’s name. “Some of it one has not been able to better; some we and they might well have bettered, although what is done is done.” Without doubt, there was due reason for the heavy taxes in the unsettled relations with other countries which existed during Margaret’s reign; the support of the Hansa and a war with Holstein, commenced by King Eric, were expensive. The island of Gothland had been captured by the so-called German Order in the last days of Albrecht’s reign. When the island was redeemed through the payment of Swedish money, Margaret made the mistake of installing there a Danish bailiff, and it thus for a long time remained a Danish province. Margaret believed in the Union and counted no Scandinavian a foreigner in either country. But it was contrary to Swedish law to install foreigners as bailiffs and vassals, and as she appointed a great number of Danes to Swedish fiefs, and never a Swede to Danish positions of the same or equal importance, the Swedish complaints, on this point, were justified. Margaret was as severe toward the ecclesiastics as toward the nobles. But when she noticed the forebodings of powerful resistance, she made important concessions. She was anxious to observe religious practices, joining the convent of Vadstena as a “worldly sister,” kissing the hands of all the monks and nuns on that occasion. She took interest in the conversion of the Laps, sending a baptized woman of their race, by the name of Margaret, to preach the Gospel among them. The war with Holstein concerning the possession of Schleswig had been brought to an armistice, and the queen sailed to Flensburg to conduct further negotiations. While still on board of her ship, death surprised her, in 1412.