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Dissolution of the
union.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
The nobles and the
commons.
[1520—
trated into their country as far as Opslo, that they
would unite with Sweden if they might rely upon
its support1. Bohusland was subdued, Bleking
likewise on another side, and Gustavus sought,
both by negociations and arms, to enforce the old
claims of Sweden to Scania and Halland. The
town of Calmar was taken on the 27th May, and
the castle on the 7th July. Stockholm having
surrendered on the 20th June, on condition of the free
departure of the garrison with their property and
arms, and of every other person who adhered to
the cause of Christian 2, Gustavus made his public
entry on Midsummer’s Eve ; before the end of the
year Finland also was reduced to obedience. The
kingdom was freed from foreign enemies, but
internal foes still remained ; and Lubeck was an ally
whose demands made it more troublesome than
it would have been as an enemy.
CHAPTER IX.
GUSTAVUS VASA. THE REFORMATION.
state of the country. temper of the people and the clergy. relations of gustavus with
lubeck and denmark. beginnings of religious reformation. insurrections of the dalesmen.
diet of westeras. disturbances in west-gothland. their suppression. invasion of norway
by christian. his defeat ; imprisonment ; and death. war with lubeck. progress and
establishment of the reformation. the dacke feud.
a. d. 1524—1543.
A town wasted in the civil war had been the
scene of the election of Gustavus Vasa to the
throne. In the capital, when he made his public
entry, one half of the houses were empty, and of
the population scarcely a fourth part remained.
To fill up the gap, he issued an invitation to the
burghers in other towns to settle there, a summons
which he was obliged twelve years afterwards to
renew, " seeing that Stockholm had not yet revived
from the days of king Christian 3." The spectacle
which here met his eyes was a type of the
condition of the whole kingdom, and never was it said
of any sovereign with more justice, that the throne
to which he had been elevated was more difficult
to preserve than to win.
The Union was now dissolved, and had left
behind it ruins. It would be an error, however, to
consider this period generally as one of great
oppression. Such it was no doubt at intervals
during its course, and it terminated in a tyranny ;
but it was still more a period of great license.
This was shown on the one hand, by the
independence of the magnates, or in the power
reserved to the council according to the Union, of
governing in the absence of the king, which they
exercised in such a manner, as to be in fact
sovereigns within the limits of their own feudatory
prefectures (Ian), in which also they were generally
by their own possessions the most important
personages. Hence the distribution of those fiefs (so
much the more that they were not hereditary)
formed a perpetual subject of quarrel with the kings
under the Union, and the contests arising therefrom
drove Charles Canuteson twice from the throne.
Hence, too, one of the first questions put by Gus-
tavus to the council was, " whether he might not
freely propose and dispose of the crown fiefs, as the
Law-book declared, without ill will4 ?" The
possessors of these levied the revenues of the crown,
and applied them to their own use 5, for the kings,
with few exceptions, at least during the latter days
of the Union, received no part of the proceeds.
Hence the scheme, which was sometimes openly
urged, of parcelling the kingdom into several
principalities under different rulers, was something more
than a mere vague project of the grandees. The
plan was even to no inconsiderable extent carried
into effect. We find these provincial magnates still
flourishing under Gustavus I., with pretensions more
or less openly put forth ; and that they still
constituted what was called the Council of the Realm,
or more particularly the council in Upland, West
or East-Gothland, Finland, and so forth, we learn
from the letters of Gustavus himself, in which the
council is thus designated according to the
provinces.
On the other hand, during the Union, and in
opposition to the aristocracy, the people had also
become a power. At the call of Engelbert they had
taken up arms, which for a century afterwards were
not laid down, and thus wore an aspect menacing to
all authority. The fortunes of Charles Canuteson
had seemed almost to prove that there could
henceforth be no king in Sweden, whether a native or a
foreigner. The power of the Administrator, in
which men sought a refuge against anarchy, was
essentially too indefinite to afford any security. It
was democratic in the hands of the Sture’s, but
likewise involved in perpetual war against foreign and
domestic enemies, and of necessity lawless. The
1 See the letter from Thure Jenson to bishop Brask, of
April 23,1523, in Linkoping’s Bibliotheks Handlingar, ii. 183.
(Opslo is now Christiania.)
2 By an undated instrument in the archives of Christian
II. with the title " (Artichle oc bewillinge, &c.) Articles and
Agreement which the King sends to Stockholm, conform to
which they shall give up the Town and Castle," we see that
the king had consented to its surrender, although all the
conditions there demanded were not granted in the capitulation.
3 Letters to the trading towns, of July 14, 1523, and Sep-
tember 2G, 1535, in the Registry of the Archives. The
burghers, it is said in the latter, were considering how to
attract the trade of Lubeck to Stockholm ; a town where one
might reap a good harvest, especially if he were conversant
with trade, and could look well to his affairs.
4 Articles of Vadstena, October, 1524. (Lasn, Swed.
Anglo-Sax. and Scot., fief, is the same word as loan. ’1’.)
5 " Never have we heard that the good lords of the council
of state were subject to any other burden than to attend for
the service of the realm with their followers, every man
according to his fief," says bishop Brask in a letter to Thure
Jenson, of October 22, 1524. But a summons of this kind
for the service of the Union kings did not take place, or
was not obeyed, during the latter period of the Union.
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