He was a
dauntless sailor who knew as much about sailing a ship as any one of
his captains, and much more about building it. Danger appealed to
him always. When the spire on the great cathedral in Copenhagen
threatened to fall, he was the one who went up in it alone and gave
orders where and how to brace it.
As he grew, he sat in the council of state, learning kingcraft, and
showed there the hard-headed sense of fairness and justice that went
with him through life. He was hardly fourteen when the case of three
brothers of the powerful Friis family came before the council. They
had attacked another young nobleman in the street, struck off one of
his hands, and crippled the other. Because of their influence, the
council was for being lenient, atrocious as the crime was. A fine
was deemed sufficient. The young prince asked if there were not some
law covering the case with severer punishment, and was told that in
the province of Skaane there was such a law that applied to serfs.
But the assault had not been committed in Skaane, and these were
high noblemen.
"All the worse for them," said the prince. "Is then a serf in Skaane
to have more rights under the law than a nobleman in the rest of
Denmark? Let the law for the serf be theirs.
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