Count ' s Feud The Count ' s Feud ( ) , also called the " Count ' s War " , was a civil war that raged in Denmark in 1534 – 36 and brought about the Reformation in Denmark . The Count ' s Feud takes its name from the Protestant Count Christopher of Oldenburg , who supported the Catholic King Christian II , deposed in 1523 , over the election of Christian III . Background . After Frederick I ' s death in 1533 , the Jutland nobility proclaimed his son , then Duke Christian of Gottorp , as King under the name Christian III . Meanwhile , Count Christoffer organized an uprising against the new king , demanding that Christian II be set free . Supported by Lübeck and troops from Oldenburg and Mecklenburg , parts of the Zealand and Scania nobilities rose up , together with cities such as Copenhagen and Malmö . The violence itself began in 1534 , when a privateer captain who had earlier been in Christian II ' s service , Klemen Andersen , called Skipper Clement , at Count Christoffer ' s request instigated the peasants of Vendsyssel and North Jutland to rise up against the nobles . The headquarters for the revolt came to be in Aalborg . A large number of manors were burned down in northern and western Jutland . On 10 August 1534 , Count Christoffer accepted Scania for Christian II ' s rule . The month before , Christoffer was heralded as regent on Christian II ' s behalf by the Zealand Council in Ringsted . The battles of Svenstrup and Aalborg . An army of nobles under the leadership of Niels Brock and Holger Rosenkrantz was defeated at the Battle of Svenstrup on 16 October 1534 . Christian III , in the meantime , forced a peace with Lübeck , from which great reinforcements could be freed up to fight against the rebels . Under the leadership of Johan Rantzau , the royal troops pursued the peasants all the way to Aalborg , where the latter , under the leadership of Skipper Clement , had taken refuge behind the city ' s fortifications . On 18 December , Rantzau ' s troops stormed the city , and it fell . At least 2 , 000 people are thought to have lost their lives in the storming of the city and in the plundering of the following days . For his part , Skipper Clement , badly wounded , managed to escape , but a few days later was recognized by a peasant in Storvorde east of Aalborg and handed over to Rantzau . Skipper Clement was later sentenced to death by the judicial council in Viborg and executed in 1536 . The battles of Helsingborg and Øksnebjerg . Fortune did not fare well for the rebelling supporters of the Catholic faith , nor for the farmers on the Swedish front . The Swedish King Gustav Vasa sent a Swedish army to the aid of Christian III , which invaded Scania at Loshult and plundered , burned , and murdered their way throughout the Gønge area as it advanced toward the town of Vä . Later , a Swedish army invaded Halland , which was destroyed by fire and sword . Some of the Scanian nobles sided with the Swedes , but Tyge Krabbe in Helsingborg Castle supported Count Christoffer . In January 1535 , the Swedes and the army of nobles advanced on Helsingborg . An army consisting of residents of Lübeck and Malmö under Jørgen Kock was entrenched outside of the castle , and in a decisive moment , Tyge Krabbe suddenly had the castle ' s cannons open fire against its defenders , after which he opened the castle to the Swedes , who set fire to Helsingborg and reduced the town to ashes . With that , Denmark east of the Sound was lost for Count Christoffer . After the victory at Aalborg , Rantzau brought his troops to Funen , and on 11 June 1535 , they fought the Battle of Øksnebjerg , where the rest of Count Christoffer ' s army was decisively defeated . Both Copenhagen and Malmö , however , were able to hold out until 1536 , when they were forced to capitulate after several months ' siege . With this , the Count ' s Feud was officially over . The aftermath . In the aftermath of the feud , the nobles regrouped and healed the rifts the usual way , namely through inter - marriage . One of the most powerful among the Danish nobility in Scania at this time was the Bille family , who were tied through blood relations to seven of the eight Catholic bishops of Denmark . The Billes also had six family members on the Council of the Realm and owned castles throughout Denmark and Norway . In order to keep the family ' s powerful position , in spite of the religious affiliation with the Catholic faith , Claus Bille ( of Stockholm Bloodbath fame , second cousin to Gustav Vasa ) , protected the family by forming a political alliance through marriage with the Brahe family , another powerful Scanian family among the Danish nobility at this time . The Brahe family was one of the first among the nobility to convert to Lutheranism . Claus Bille gave his 18 year old daughter Beate in marriage to Otte Brahe , and thus became a grandfather in 1546 to the perhaps most famous Scanian of the era , the astronomer Tyge Brahe , better known as Tycho Brahe . Tycho Brahe ' s paternal grandfather , whom he was named after , Tyge Brahe of Tosterup in eastern Scania , was killed 7 September 1523 during the siege of Malmö , fighting for Frederick I . Axel Brahe , the brother of the older Tyge Brahe , served as governor of Scania for a long period , and was one of the first to convert to Lutheranism . In contrast , the consequences of the peasant uprising cost all parties dearly . Many were forced to purchase their lives with great gifts both to the king and to the nobles . Moreover , the dissatisfactions of the peasants , which had culminated in the uprising of the Count ' s Feud , were only made worse , as the nobility began to stick together even more after this incident . Moreover , Christian III ' s rule , ushered in by this war , saw the rise of royal absolutism in Denmark , and , with it , greater repression of the peasant classes . An important consequence not sufficiently appreciated by Danes at the time was the introduction of a Swedish army into Scania . Though in this case the Swedes came at the invitation of a Danish King to help subdue his rebellious subjects and duly handed over to the King the territory which they conquered , it had a clear effect of whetting Swedish appetite to gain the territory for themselves , which was manifested in a long series of subsequent wars culminating with the final Swedish victory and conquest in 1658 . In popular culture . The science fiction novel " The Corridors of Time " by Poul Anderson — an American of Danish origin , whose work often includes themes from Danish and Scandinavian history — includes a vivid description of Jutland in the immediate aftermath of the Count ' s Feud and the continuing struggle by hunted diehard rebels , as seen by a time - traveller from the 20th century . Notes . Much of the information in this section is translated from the corresponding Danish Wikipedia entry .