Thyri of Álengiamark (The Kalmar Union)

Thyri was queen of Álengiamark from 1422 to 1459. She was the first dynastically 'spotless' Eiriksdottír queen since Adalbjorg I (i.e. genealogists have been able to prove her direct descent from Eirik the Red).

Whereas the previous elected queens had been chosen more due to their families political machinations Thyri's father Hilmar Haukursson was ambitious and wanted nothing left to chance. Although he thought he could make the election go his way anyway, he wanted Thyri to be the only natural choice in an election. As such a marriage had been arranged between the young Thyri and Peter of Leon, an illegitimate son of King Henry I of Leon. That this helped develop Langaejyar's cross-Atlantic trade was almost incidental; the union instantly elevated the couple to Álengiamark's premier nobility and virtually guaranteed her election as queen in 1422 as Brynia had her burial.

Royal prestige was followed shortly a mini-renaissance in the fortunes of the Althing. With the royal couple installed in the modest palace St. Hafdiss they and the Althing soon became the centre of trade life. Peter's familial connections Leonese traders with access to French and Dutch markets soon rivalled the Portuguese with their Mediterranean connections and nobles from across Álengiamark, and elsewhere, south the couple's license to carry trade on Leonese ships. This enabled Thyri and her ministers to grasp several issues with modest success.

There was for instance the problem of the Bishop of St. Hafdiss. Due to envious state of landowning in Álengiamark, and indeed the relative lateness of the see's creation, the bishop was only endowed with a small parcel of land which could not hope to support the normal outgoings of a 'prince of the church'. The independent abbeys, tending to be jealous of 'the interloper' refused to submit any of their income to him and the cities were intractable as always. Thyri therefore sought to ease his plight and granted a parcel of the Royal Domain to him. However she did this only on the express promise that all of the other earls did the same. It took almost two years of bargaining but eventually the bishop received his full share of lands. This not only placed the bishop firmly into the crown's hands but Thyri received praise from the papacy too.

The Althing waxed and waned but maintained slightly more relevance to everyday affairs than before. Increasingly legal matters were deferred to its judgment and while its remit was barely accepted outside of the royal domains it was regarded as the country's highest court.

In 1434 after pressure from Vinland Thyri signed a pledge of allegiance to the newly created Kalmar Union however her ministers privately doubted what they could do for Scandinavia, or indeed vice-versa. Although Thyri sent delegates to a diplomatic conference in Oslo that same year, they returned bearing the news that the union was to 'protect Denmark's lands only'. All others would have to wait on Denmark's indulgences. Indeed three letters to Copenhagen in which Thyri complains of invasion from Aniyunwiya were answered only to ask for men to fight Denmark's wars in Germany.

Whilst Thyri's armies (drawn from a wider pool of earls and cities than her predecessors) campaigned effectively abroad, a potentially more damaging war was brewing at home; over religion. The students University of St. Hafdiss, established at the same time as the Bishopric, had by the 1440s begun to started to take a more questioning tone. Some like one Jón Irronsson had clearly read Hussite tracts and were seriously challenging established thought. Whereas the tutors saw this as heresy Thryi tended to see this line of questioning as 'mere discussion' but she was critised for protecting potential heretics. Eventually to save her own influence she would exile almost of the accused including Irronsson from St. Hafdiss and the Royal Domain.

Thyri died in 1459 and would be succeeded by the Adalbjorg II whose short reign would see many of Thryi's advances unravel and is chiefly only remembered for the trial and execution of Jón Irronsson.