Though the Government of Denmark was more enlightened than that of Norway, and though the Danes were jealously desirous of keeping their trade in their own hands, they, too, could not free themselves from the all-absorbing power of the Hanseatic League. In vain did they endeavour to raise up rivals to these traders; in vain did they even encourage pirates to attack them; in vain did they institute custom dues and taxes; each and all of these measures proved insufficient. The credit of the towns was unassailable. The Hanseatics knew how to vanquish all obstacles, and finally they found themselves in full possession of all their ancient privileges, as well as those which they had extorted in concluding peace with Waldemar. The dissensions of the three northern kingdoms, which lasted for nearly fifty years, and which the Hanseatic League were by no means anxious to see settled (for, above all else, they feared the union of the three northern kingdoms under one head) were admirably utilized. The League played off one set of enemies against another, now aided this faction, now sided with that, never too openly expressed either sympathy or hostility, and yet always contrived so that any advantages accruing were theirs. It was in those troubled times that Lübeck bought from the Danish king the town of Kiel and adjoining lands, while the queen pawned her jewels to the city in order to raise money for war purposes. Denmark was of immense importance to the Hanseatic League, not only for the grain and cattle it produced, but because it was the key to the passages of the Belt and the Sound, the only maritime routes for passing from the Baltic to the North Sea. And, above all, the Sound was of first-class importance as dominating the coveted province of Scania, that mediæval Peru. This tongue of land, which juts out into the sea in form of a hook on the extreme south-west of Sweden, and shows to-day two miserable towns, Skânoe and Falsterbo, almost buried in driving sand, presented in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, from St. Jacob's to St. Michael's Day (July 25th to September 29th), a most animated spectacle. Nothing more strange is to be found in either hemisphere than was the tumultuous life of this arid province. Here each foot of ground was jealously disputed by fishermen and merchants.