Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/548

534 poor in sickness, however loathsome or offensive, with assiduity and kindness, and appears to have been that best and wisest of ail human characters, a true christian. Idea of Perfect Ladies, &c.

the age of six she was contracted to Haquin, king of Norway; but the Swedes, of whom his father Magnus was king, insisted on his renouncing the alliance; and to oblige them, he consented to demand Elizabeth of Holstein in marriage. This princess, however, though espoused by proxy, was not destined to replace Margaret. A storm drove her on the coast of Denmark, where she was detained by Waldemar, until his daughter was married to Haquin, in 1366.

Waldemar died 1375, leaving two daughters, his other children had died before him. Margaret was the younger; but her son Olaüs, was king of Norway, and, as grandson to Magnus, who had however been deposed, had some claims on the crown of Sweden. The eldest daughter Ingeburga, duchess of Mecklenburg, had also a son; but the rights of succession where then confused and of little certainty, and by means of Margaret the election was decided in favour of her son, then eleven years old, who was placed upon the throne, under her guidance as regent till he should be of age. Haquin died soon after. Olaüs died 1387, at the age of twenty-two; with him the male line was extinct, and custom had not yet authorized the election of a woman. Henry of Mecklenburg, her brother in law, omitted nothing that could forward his pretensions; but Margaret's genius and well-placed liberality, won over