left Trondhjem and went at once to Hamar. The bishop had determined to make a strong resistance, and had prepared his palace for a siege; but at the last his courage failed him, when he saw the force which Ulfstand had brought with him, and after an interview with the Danish commander he agreed to surrender. On June 23rd he was led away a prisoner. We have a truly pathetic account of the departure of the last bishop of Hamar from his home by one who witnessed it :

"As Herr Truid and the bishop went together to Strandbakken, he fell on his knees and thanked God in heaven for every day he had lived. Then he bid goodnight to the canons and the priests, then to his cathedral and cloister, then to his chief men, to the common people, both townsmen and bønder, entreating them all to pray heartily for him, and said he hoped he would soon come to them again. But added, 'O God our Heavenly Father, if not before, grant that we may meet one another in heaven.' This prayer he uttered with many tears and added, 'Vale! Vale! Vale!'"*

The old bishop never saw Hamar again. He was taken to Denmark and kept as a semi-prisoner at Antvorskov cloister, where he died in 1543.

There were two more bishops still left. Bishop Hoskoldssøn of Stavanger had the year before, along with Eske Bilde and others, approved of the election of Kristian III. He was a timid man, and hoped by this to avert the hostility of the king against all members of the episcopate. Through Eske Bilde he sent Kristian a present of a silver bowl, and as long as he (Bilde) remained in power the bishop was left alone. But the year after he seems to have been imprisoned by Thord Roed in Bergen, where he soon afterwards died.

* From a description of Hamar in "Thaarup's Magazin," quoted by Bang, p. 859.

The remaining bishop was Hans Reff of Oslo. We have seen what sort of a man he was, time-serving and crafty, and always ready to make the best terms he could with the winning side. He had already accepted Kristian, but in spite of this he was carried to Denmark by Ulfstand, after he had seized the bishop of Hamar. When in Denmark Hans Reff used his time well. Being not overburdened by any special religious convictions, he was able to assure King Kristian, of his zeal for Lutheran doctrines, and, what was even of more importance to the king, he was ready to make a complete surrender of all the temporalities of his see into the king's hands, and then offered to Kristian and his heirs, "as he valued 'his soul's salvation,' true and faithful allegiance for all time to come."

Under these circumstances the king saw fit to reinstate him as bishop or evangelical superintendent, of the diocese of Oslo, and further, to show his zeal for "God's pure Word," the king added to Oslo (already a full burden for one man) the diocese of Hamar, which had been left without a chief pastor. Hans Reff did not remain long in his new capacity as Lutheran superintendent; he died in the summer of 1545, and next year we find a new man, Anders Matson, in his office.

There is only one more diocese of which we must speak, namely, Bergen. We have seen that after Olaf Thorkildssøn's death in 1535 the archdeacon Geble Pedersson was chosen as his successor. This man was of a good family in Norway, and had studied in Alkmar and Louvain, where he met Vincent Lunge. In 1523 he was in Rome, where he remained for some time, and was very indignant at the abuses which he saw everywhere in that city. He seems to have always been favourable to the principles of the Reformation, and when the king decided to have his own kind of bishops he was quite willing to accept the nominee of the Bergen chapter to act as bishop of that

From a Photograph by]

RUINS OF THE CATHEDRAL OF HAMAR.
Commenced in 1152 and finished about a century later.

important diocese. In 1537 Pedersson went to Denmark, where Bugenhagen had come in order to "consecrate” the new Danish superintendents who were to take the place of the imprisoned bishops. By him Geble Pedersson was set apart for the management of the Bergen diocese, and, for a time, for that of Stavanger as well. We are told he was the only one of those thus set apart by Bugenhagen, who made him a gift afterwards. Pederssøn's offering was a substantial present of wine, and the famous Lutheran on accepting it, exclaimed, "Nonne decem mundati sunt, et nemo reversus est, nisi hic alienigena."* Geble Pederssøn lived until 1557, when he died in Bergen.

Thus the ancient Church of Norway lay helpless and wounded at the feet of her conqueror, who for the sake "of the Holy Gospel and the pure Word of God" (as he expressed it at the time of the coup d'état) had imprisoned or driven away her bishops and seized on her revenues. Her natural leaders failed her in the hour of her trial, and among the general body of the clergy and laity, there was no one ready or able to strike a blow on behalf of the Church of St. Olaf and Eystein.

Archbishop Olaf did not long survive his exile. In May, 1537, he came to Brussels. By the truce concluded between the emperor and Kristian III. the personal safety of the archbishop was secured, and he retired to Lierre, in Brabant. Kristian made claims upon him for the treasures both of the State and the Church, which he had carried away with him in his flight from Trondhjem, and the family of Nils Lykke demanded an account of certain valuables of which they alleged the archbishop had charge. The latter he admitted, but before restitution was made, Olaf Engelbrektssøn, the twenty-seventh and last archbishop of Nidaros, had passed away. On March 7th, 1538, he died at Lierre.

"Norske Samlinger," Vol. I., quoted by Nissen, p. 222, and L. Daae's Geistliges Kaldelse.