1636_ The Saxon Uprising - Eric Flint [64]
It wouldn’t come to that, of course. If Simpson ordered them to steam out of Luebeck, Ulrik would not argue the matter. He’d do it and head north for Copenhagen.
He really wanted to avoid that option, though, if at all possible. He and Kristina would certainly be safe from Oxenstierna in Copenhagen. But Ulrik was almost as anxious to stay out of his father’s grasp as he was to stay out of the Swedish chancellor’s.
Rather to Ulrik’s surprise and certainly to his relief, King Christian IV of Denmark had kept what the Americans called a low profile since the beginning of the political crisis produced by Gustav Adolf’s incapacitation. Why? The prince didn’t know, he could only guess. He wouldn’t have been astonished if his mercurial father had been reckless enough to announce that he was dissolving the Union of Kalmar and reasserting Denmark’s complete independence.
Thankfully, he hadn’t. At a guess, because Christian was a very intelligent man, beneath the grandiose ambitions and consumption of alcohol. He could even be shrewd, from time to time. Perhaps he’d calculated that the crisis was just as likely to enhance Denmark’s status as diminish it—which was Ulrik’s own assessment—and so it would be wiser to let things unfold for a while without meddling.
If Ulrik and Kristina had to seek refuge in Copenhagen, however, he thought his father’s prudence would fly right out the window and head south for the winter. The temptation would be too great. Christian could…
God only knew what might come to his mind, especially when he was drunk. Declaring himself the new ruler of the Union of Kalmar would be almost certain. Gustav Adolf had had his wits addled two months ago and there was no sign of recovery.
Long enough! Long live the new High King!
A few tankards later, the blessed parent might decide his offspring should now be declared the regent of the USE on the grounds that her father’s incapacity had made Kristina the rightful empress—but since she was a mere child, could not rule on her own behalf, and who was the most suitable person to become regent other than the prince to whom she was betrothed?
Unless, of course—let’s say, three tankards later—the king of Denmark decided that his son Ulrik was after all a mere stripling—but twenty-four years of age; pfah! barely weaned—and so Christian himself should assume the burden of regency.
The worst of such schemes is that they would actually work…for a while. No matter who won the civil war in the USE that Oxenstierna and Wilhelm Wettin seemed determined to precipitate, both the USE and Sweden would be greatly weakened. In the case of Sweden, quite possibly weakened enough that Denmark could regain its former dominance of Scandinavia.
Scandinavians! Ulrik supposed it was inevitable that people were parochial, and found it hard to see the world except through their own lenses and prisms. Still, even allowing for that natural bias, did Scandinavian princes have to set the standard for myopic stupidity? Couldn’t they at least strive for the status of mere dullards?
There were today a total of perhaps five million people in all of the Scandinavian lands. There was nothing close to what the Americans would consider a real census, to be sure, but for these purposes the figure was accurate enough. Say, two million each in Denmark and Sweden, and a half million each in Norway and Finland.
There were already at least fifteen million Germans.
And the disparity would simply get worse, as time passed. Ulrik had taken the opportunity on one of his visits to Grantville to look up the figures for himself in one of their “almanacs.” According to the latest almanac in their possession, that of the year 1999—the Ring of Fire had happened in May of 2000, by their reckoning—the population of Germany had