The death of Christopher of Bavaria afforded the Swedes an opportunity to assert again their independence. The common hatred of the Danes enabled the hostile estates to forget their differences and to unite in electing Charles Knutsson Peasant king of Sweden. The Norsemen had a candidate for the throne of Norway in the regent, Sigurd Jonsson, a descendant of Agnes, the daughter of Haakon Longlegs, but they failed to support him. One party desired to make common cause with Sweden and elect Charles Knutsson, while another favored Count Christian of Oldenborg, who had just been elected in Denmark. This latter party, supported by the Danish nobles, who already wielded a great influence, was victorious. King Christian I. (1450-1481) arrived in Norway in the summer of 1450, and was crowned in the cathedral of Drontheim. At a meeting of the Council of Regency in Bergen, it was resolved that Norway was to remain eternally united with Denmark under one king, but that each kingdom should be free and the other's equal, and should be governed in accordance with its own laws and by native-born officials. [Illustration: Christianus. I. _Rex Daniæ._] Christian could not give up the thought of reëstablishing the Kalmar Union, and he therefore waged war for several years with King Charles Knutsson. In 1452 the latter invaded Norway and conquered Drontheim, but the commandant in Bergen, Sir Olaf Nilsson, again drove him back across the frontier. Soon internal dissensions in Sweden enabled Christian to defeat Charles and expel him from his country (1457); and, in 1458, the three kingdoms were thus again united. Christian's extortions and shameless breaches of faith made him, however, soon so detested both among peasants and nobles, that a rebellion broke out; Charles was recalled, and, though he did not at once become master of the situation, he succeeded in keeping the Danes at bay. He died as King of Sweden in 1470. When Christian during the following year made an attempt to conquer Sweden, he was overwhelmingly beaten at Brunkeberg near Stockholm by the regent, Steen Sture the Elder. In Norway Christian broke his promises with the same cynical disregard as he did in Sweden. Instead of appointing native officials, he allowed the Danish nobles to plunder as of old, and made no effort to discipline them. The German merchants in Bergen also became constantly more insolent in their behavior toward the citizens, whom they drove away from the wharves and treated like conquered people; but Christian did not dare to restrain them in their violations of law and order, because he feared that the Hansa might avenge itself by interfering in his war with Sweden. Even when the Germans murdered Sir Olaf Nilsson, his friend, Bishop Thorleif, and sixty other citizens, and burned the cloister of Munkeliv, the king refrained from punishing them.