INTRODUCTION OR Some Centuries After the Days of Canute the Story of British Relations with Denmark-Norway Tells Mainly of Contest in Fthe Field of Commerce

INTRODUCTION OR some centuries after the days of Canute the story of British relations with Denmark-Norway tells mainly of contest in Fthe field of commerce. The Danes not only hindered traffic through the Sound and by the Elbe, but absolutely forbade to British ships entry to their northern waters, whether for purposes of fishery, of trade to Iceland or northern Norway, or of mere passage. The British, on their side, resented the hindrances and defied the prohibition. Repeated endeavour in the course of the fifteenth century to compose the quarrels by treaty had in each case but pass- ing effect, and although that of 1583 freed the passage to the White Sea, first accomplished thirty years before, the other restrictions were maintained and not infrequently bore fruit in actual hostilities. With the opening of the Thirty Years' War political interests survened. James I, generous in words and promises, incited his brother-in-law, Christian IV, to champion the protestant cause, concluding a treaty of alliance with him in 1621. (Incidentally he borrowed of Christian sums of 200,000 and 100,000 rix-dollars, at six per cent interest, for the relief of his hard-pressed son-in-law, the Elector Palatine.) Four years later Charles I joined with Christian and the States-General in the triple treaty of the Hague, and in 1639 renewed that of 1621. But with the Commonwealth came ill-will. In 1653 the Danes, instigated by and in treaty with the Dutch, closed the Sound to British ships and seized some that ventured the passage. Cromwell then was equal to the occasion, and the restoration of Charles II brought treaties of alliance in 1661 and of commerce in 1665. And though in the next year Louis XIV was able to engage Denmark in war against Great Britain, peace was restored at Breda in 1667.1 Nevertheless, and in spite of a 1 For details of Anglo-Danish negotiations in the years 1660 to 1667 see H. L. Sehoolcraft, The English Historical Review, XXV, 457. Vll Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 28 Sep 2021 at 10:03:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000005987 viii INTRODUCTION last commercial treaty of 1670, the subject of appeal for more than a century, trade differences remained for long years the cause of ever recurrent trouble. A first concern of William III, established in England, was to gather troops for service against France, and none were more desirable than Swedes and Danes. First, however, had to be com- posed the latest outbreak of hostilities between Denmark and Holstein-Gottorp. In June 1689, in the face of a congress assembled at Altona to conciliate, Swedes and Liineburgers were actually marching to support Duke Christian Albert. William sent to Stockholm William Duncombe and to Copenhagen Robert Moles- worth, similarly instructed in the matter, save that threat of armed intervention was to be intimated by the former delicately but by the latter forcibly. And this difference of treatment showed itself in another way; Charles XI was to be invited to join the Grand Alliance, but Christian V, for the present, not. Similarly during the next forty years, save for the four when George I, as elector, was at war with Charles XII, Sweden always had the prior regard. In 1700, for instance, force was applied in aid of Charles XII, and in 1726, while the Swedes were urgently pressed to join the alliance of Hanover, invitation to the Danes to do so was withheld. In after times Swedish hostility to Great Britain altered the case. Before Molesworth could get to Copenhagen the immediate trouble was dispelled by the signature of the treaty of Altona, on 20 June 1689. The envoy's first business, therefore, was to attend to the instructions sent after him, to procure troops. In this he was successful, though at a price confessedly exorbitant. A treaty signed on 15 August engaged Christian V to send to England or Ireland, at the option and expense of William III, 6000 foot and 1000 horse, veteran soldiers; they to take oath of fidelity to him and to remain in his service so long as he was engaged in the present war, unless Christian, attacked in consequence, were obliged to recall them for his own defence. Were they transported to England or Scotland their price was to be 240,000 thalers a year, or if to Ireland 325,000.x Carried to Ireland they did valiant service 1 The treaty, Kecord Office, Treaties 36. It was ratified by William III, with some modifications, on 4 September (O.S.) 1689. For the reasons for his grudging acceptance of it, see the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Finch MSS. II, 237. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 28 Sep 2021 at 10:03:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000005987 INTRODUCTION ix there in the years 1690 and 1691, afterwards serving with equal distinction in the Netherlands. One provisipn of this treaty stipulated continuance of negotiation for a defensive alliance. Such further treaty was signed at Copen- hagen on 3 November 169c,1 but it remained unratified. Indeed Christian V, exempted by one clause of it from obligation to enter into war-with France, engaged with Louis XIV to stand neutral. For the rest Molesworth had to deal with the same trouble that spoilt Duncombe's work in Sweden, the prohibition of trade with France (August 1689). With Denmark, after her convention with Sweden for joint protection of their trade, a treaty on the subject was concluded, on 30 June 1691,2 but it had little effect. Seizure of ships and confiscation of their cargoes continued, even after renewal of the Swedish convention, in a stronger form, in March 1693. Actual collisions occurred, as when in the summer of 1694 a Danish captain refused to strike his flag to the British fleet in the Downs and fought his ship till it was taken.3 Offence given by Molesworth to the Danish court in June 1692 compelled his withdrawal. His secretary, Hugh Greg, left in charge of affairs without official character, had little to do but to report occurrences. Negotiations, almost exclusively connected with the war with France, were either conducted at the Hague or entrusted to special envoys. One such envoy, already in Molesworth's time, (April 1691), was Charles, Earl of Selkirk. Another, sent in 1693 to mediate in the matter of Saxe-Lauenburg, was Robert Sutton, Baron Lexington. Both missions were successful; the latter by a treaty signed on 29 September 1693.4 Again, in 1697, James Cressett, envoy to the Brunswick dukes, was deputed to take part in the conferences opened in the previous year at Pinneberg for settlement of quarrel with Holstein-Gottorp renewed. The abortive treaty of 1690 was made good by one with Great Britain and Holland signed at the Hague on 3 December 1696. Stipulated among other things was application of the casus fcedeHs, should France renew attack after peace was made. Secret 1 Record Office, Treaties 37. Mutual succours were fixed at 3000 foot and eix men-of-war for Denmark, and 5000 foot and ten men-of-war for Great Britain. 2 Ibid. 38. 8 See fully on these matters G. N. Clark, The Dutch Alliance and the War against French Trade, 1688-1697, chapter V; Miss M. Lane in the Trans- actions of the Boyal History Society, Third Series, Vol. V. 1 A copy, Record Office, Denmark 23. For the affair see page 2, below. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 28 Sep 2021 at 10:03:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000005987 x INTRODUCTION articles obliged Christian V to prohibit during the present war all commerce of his subjects with France, and to forbid admission of French men-of-war or privateers to his ports, especially in the Sound. In return for this Great Britain and Holland accorded an annual subsidy of 200,000 thalers, until ratification of a treaty of peace, and in addition 300,000 annually for three years. Other secret articles concerned accession by the Emperor to the treaty, the hire of Danish troops by him, passivity on the part of Christian in the matter of the Ninth Electorate (the confirmation of which to Ernest Augustus of Hanover Louis XIV had engaged him strenuously to oppose), and the satisfaction of Danish monetary claims on Spain.I In the year 1700 Cressett was again employed on northern affairs, now with credentials as envoy extraordinary to the new king, Frederick IV. He does not, however, appear to have gone to Copenhagen. His commission had principal regard to the hostilities re-opened with Holstein-Gottorp, the prelude to the Great Northern War. This time the sea-powers, anxious to enlist in their cause Charles XII of Sweden, did not confine their efforts to mediation; they sent to his aid a joint fleet under command of Admirals Sir George Rooke and Philips van Almonde. Rooke was instructed that the fleet was sent to give effect to the guarantees of the treaty of Altona ; he was to act in conjunction with the Swedish and facilitate the transport of Swedish troops into Jutland or the Isle of Fiinen, handing in to Frederick IV demand immediately to cease hostilities and to withdraw his troops out of Holstein.

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