the Schauenburg dynasty. By 1327, virtually all strongholds in Denmark had fallen under the control of Holsatian noblemen. In 1330, Valdemar III of Denmark abdicated his untenable kingship and returned to his former position as Duke Valdemar V of Schleswig). As compensation, Gerhard was awarded the island of Funen as a fief instead. In 1331 war broke out between Gerhard and the new king, Christopher II, ending in a Holstein-Rensburg victory. The peace terms were extremely harsh. King Christopher was only left in effective control of the island of Langeland and was faced with an impossible task of raising 100,000 silver marks to redeem his country. Denmark had effectively been dissolved and the country was left without a king between 1332 and 1340. Valdemar IV regains Denmark In 1340, King Valdemar IV of Denmark began a more-than-twenty-year-long struggle to reclaim his father's kingdom. Although eventually succeeding in regaining control of Zealand, Funen, Jutland, and the Scanian lands, he failed to obtain control of Schleswig, whose ducal House of Estridsen managed to continue its virtual independence. To gain influence over the province, Valdemar married Helvig of Schleswig, the only daughter of Duke Eric II of Schleswig. In 1372, he again turned his attention to Schleswig and conquered Gram. In 1373, he conquered Flensburg. The southern part of Schleswig had been mortgaged to a number of Holsatian nobles by Duke Henry of Schleswig (d 1375, a son of the former king Valdemar III of Denmark), the last duke of the Estridsen line. The childless, elderly Henry transferred his rights to his kinsman and brother-in-law, King Valdemar IV in 1373. This seemed a clear success for the king, but the Holsatian nobles refused to allow him to repay the mortgage and redeem the area in question. In 1374, Valdemar succeeded in buying large tracts of land in the province and was on the verge of starting a campaign to conquer the rest when he died on 24 October 1374. The nobles acted quickly and managed to establish control over the province in 1376. In 1386, Queen Margaret I of Denmark, the younger daughter of Valdemar IV of Denmark and Helvig of Schleswig, gave Schleswig as a hereditary fief under the Danish crown to Count Gerhard VI of Holstein-Rendsburg, provided that he swore allegiance to her son King Oluf. She too was unsuccessful in regaining effective control of the province. In 1409, Margaret's adopted