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to be proclaimed Duke of Jutland; erected forts, which he intrusted to German officers, kept a large standing army of German soldiers on the spot, extorted enormous taxes, intro­ duced German laws, and even the German language in his courts of justice. Nothing was wanted to crown his ambition, but the title of King. While the infatuated tyrant was thus wading through slaughter and desolation to the object of his desires, Niels Ebbesen, of Noerreriis, came forward, in the year 1340, to free his unhappy country from slavery and oppression, by meditating a plan to destroy the Usurper. He knew the implicit confidence which the overbearing Count placed in his German mercenaries; he was aware that the tyrant was indebted to power alone for that repose which conscience denied him ; yet de­ termined upon crushing him at his own palace in the very bosom of his slaves. For this purpose, Niels Ebbesen, with sixty followers, departed for Randers, where the Usurper resided. He arrived in the middle of the night, and hastened to the Count’s apart-