The Rise and Fall of King Waldemar

The downfall of the Hanseatic League started in 1361 by the greedy King of Denmark, Waldemar Atterdag. Hansa-cities had given the privilege to fish in Waldemar territories from earlier years but Waldemar though he should be controlling that area more. So in 1361 Waldemar took over the city of Visby in the island of Gotland in order to gain more control. One leader of the Hansa was angry and he got other on his side to start war against the Danes. With Johann Wittenborg of Luebeck to lead the attacks of the Hansa, they took over Copenhagen and then headed to Scania coastline. There is where the Hansa fleet was caught from sea by the Danish fleet and were forced to surrender. Unfortunately, in the terms of peace the Hansa were to give the revenue from the herring fisheries to the Danish crown. Once Waldemar made peace with the Wendish cities he decided to attack the Prussian ones for the next half decade. He ran out of support and finally had no other way but to sign a treaty that gave the Hanseatic merchants full rights.
Source: http://members.bellatlantic.net/~baronfum/hansa.html; 9/17/2014