Magnus was forced to negotiate and his son HSIcon now King of Norway was married to Valdemar's daughter Margaret. With Magnus later deposed, power fell into the hands of the magnates who shared out the country. Chief of the ruling nobles was the Steward Bo Jonsson Grip, who controlled virtually all Finland and central and southeast Sweden. Yet on his death, the nobility turned to Hkon's wife Margaret, already regent in Norway (for her son Olof) and in Denmark since the death of her father, Valdemar. In 1388 she was proclaimed "First Lady" of Sweden and, in return, confirmed all the privileges of the Swedish nobility. They were anxious for union, to safeguard those who owned frontier estates and strengthen the crown against any further German influence. Called upon to choose a male king, Margaret nominated her nephew, Eril< of Pomerania, who was duly elected king of Sweden in 1396. As he.had already been elected to the Danish and Norwegian thrones Scandinavian unity seemed assured. The Kalmar Union Erik was crowned king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1397 at a ceremony in Kalmar Nominally, the three kingdoms were now in union but, despite Erik, real power remained in the hands of Margaret until her death in 1412 Erik was at war throughout his reign with the Hanseatic League. Vilified in popular Swedish history as an evil and grasping ruler, the taxes he raised went on a war that was never fought on Swedish soil. He spent his time instead in Denmark, directing operations, leaving his queen Philippa (sister to Henry V of England) behind, Erik was deposed in 1439 and the nobility turned to Christopher of Bavaria, whose early death in 1448 led to the first major breach in the union. No one candidate could fill the three kingships satisfactorily, and separate elections in Denmark and Sweden signalled a renewal of the infighting that had plagued the previous century. Within Sweden, unionists and nationalists skirmished, the powerful unionist Oxenstierna family opposing the claims of the nationalist Sture family, until 1470 when Sten Sture (the Elder) became "Guardian of the Realm". His victory over the unionists at the Battle of Brunkeberg (1471) in the middle of modern Stockholm was complete, gaining symbolic artistic expression in the statue of St George and the Dragon that still adorns the Great Church in Stockholm, Sten Sture's primacy fostered a new cultural atmosphere. The first university in Scandinavia was founded in Uppsala in 1477, the first printing press appearing in Sweden six years later. Artistically, German and Dutch influences were great, traits seen in the decorative art of the great Swedish medieval churches. Only remote Dalarna kept alive a native folk art tradition. Belief in the union still existed though, particularly outside Sweden, and successive kings had to fend off almost constant attacks and blockades emanating from Denmark. With the accession of Christian II to the Danish throne in 1513, the unionist movement found a leader capable of turning the tide.