ejde"
or "Count's War."

The triumph of so fanatical a reformer as Christian brought about the
fall of Catholicism, but the Catholics were still so strong in the
council of state that Christian was forced to have recourse to a _coup
d'etat_, which he successfully accomplished by means of his German
mercenaries (12th of August 1536), an absolutely inexcusable act of
violence loudly blamed by Luther himself, and accompanied by the
wholesale spoliation of the church. Christian's finances were certainly
readjusted thereby, but the ultimate gainers by the confiscation were
the nobles, and both education and morality suffered grievously in
consequence. The circumstances under which Christian III. ascended the
throne naturally exposed Denmark to the danger of foreign domination. It
was with the help of the gentry of the duchies that Christian had
conquered Denmark. German and Holstein noblemen had led his armies and
directed his diplomacy. Naturally, a mutual confidence between a king
who had conquered his kingdom and a people who had stood in arms against
him was not attainable immediately, and the first six years of Christian
III.'s reign were marked by a contest between the Danish _Rigsraad_ and
the German counsellors, both of whom sought to rule "the pious king"
exclusively. Though the Danish party won a signal victory at the outset,
by obtaining the insertion in the charter of provisions stipulating that
only native-born Danes should fill the highest dignities of the state,
the king's German counsellors continued paramount during the earlier
years of his reign. The ultimate triumph of the Danish party dates from
1539, the dangers threatening Christian III. from the emperor Charles V.
and other kinsmen of the imprisoned Christian II. convincing him of the
absolute necessity of removing the last trace of discontent in the land
by leaning exclusively on Danish magnates and soldiers. The complete
identification of the Danish king with the Danish people was
accomplished at the _Herredag_ of Copenhagen, 1542, when the nobility of
Denmark voted Christian a twentieth part of all their property to pay
off his heavy debt to the Holsteiners and Germans.

The pivot of the foreign policy of Christian III. was his alliance with
the German Evangelical princes, as a counterpoise to the persistent
hostility of Charles V., who was determined to support the hereditary
claims of his nieces, the daughters of Christian II., to the
Scandinavi