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238
Danisli invasion of West-
Gothland frustrated. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES, a yJ’.cl%tZ^\7co:’Z;ons. [1612-
Swedish troops which had garrisoned Ryssby fort,
and marched to the town of Wimmerby, which he
found deserted by the inhabitants. Thereafter he
turned again to the coast, burned Westerwieli, and
extended his ravages to Soderkoping, which met a
like fate. He was now compelled, with an army
almost broken up by disorders, want, and the in-
subordination of the German soldiers, to retire
with all speed ;
and Gustavus Adolphus, though he
did not effect his purpose of cutting off his retreat
to Calmar, inflicted on him a severe loss. It was
during this expedition, his great personal exertions
in which subsequently cost the young king an ill-
ness at Jenkoping, that he heard of king Christian
being again on his march against this town. Jeur
koping, after the fall of Elfsborg and Calmar, was
the most important place in the south of Sweden,
" the key of the lower country," for which reason
the works of its yet unfinished fortifications were
being forwarded with all zeal. Gustavus Adolphus
feared from the outset, that the hostile armies
would select it as their point of junction ;
and such
indeed appears to have been the plan of the cam-
paign. How highly the royal youth surpassed his
subordinate generals, is shown in nothing better
than by the proposal of his two lieutenants at
Jenkoping, George Magnusson Stierna and Steno
Claesson Boija, to blow up the fortress and retreat.
In general he was but ill served during this war ;
and in the beginning of a period so fertile in great
warriors, there are loud complaints of a want of
leaders ^. In Jenkoping not more than eight of
the nobility were with the king. Duke John’s se-
cretary writes ;
" God better it ;
no man will obey
another, and thex-efore things go as they do ’."
In this last great peril of Sweden from the
Danish side, it was Gustavus Adolphus personally
and the Swedish peasantry who saved the kingdom.
The yeomen (excepting those of some parishes in
West-Gotliland, and the border tract of Dalsland,
which submitted to the enemy), animated by the
greatest zeal for the defence of the country, them-
selves laid waste their farms, rather than they
should become the prey of ho.stile ravages. They
retired into the forests, where they made intrench-
ments, fell wherever they had an opportunity upon
the enemy scattered in the pursuit of plunder,
and occasioned them constant losses. To these
proceedings the king gave them encouragement,
and it was the little war which here paralyzed great
plans. To the frustration of these contributed also
the fact that the foreign mercenaries of this day
ruled their leaders, rather than were ruled by
them. Rantzou had retired on the news of his
sovereign’s first recession. Christian himself broke
up from Jenkoping on the news of Rantzou’s re-
treat, and made by the shortest way for Halland,
within his own frontier.
Lesser occurrences of this war are the move-
ments on the side of Norway, and king Christian’s
last attempt upon Stockholm. At the commence-
ment of hostilities Gustavus Adolphus had issued a
summons to the Norwegians to unite with Sweden.
Tliey answered by inroads into Dalsland and Ver-
2 Id. ii. 441.
3 Id. ii. 455. A national failing of the Swedes, according
to Axel Oxenstierna, who said in the council, in 1636:
" Tliere is an old proverb of the Swedes,
’
Ordinant, reor-
dinant, et tamen sine ordine vivunt.’
"
Palmsk. MSS.
meland. Of twelve hundred Netherlanders and
Scots who had been levied on Swedish account, the
greatest portion were brought over from Scotland
by Monnickhof, a Dutch officer, who made with
his ships for Trondhem, but being repulsed there,
landed at Stordal, whei’e he met with no opposition.
Thence he marched across Norway to JemteJand
and Herjedale, both districts having been occupied
during the war by the Swedes, after which his
people were quartered in Stockholm and the sea-
towns. Another division of the same levy, under
the command of colonel Sinclair, which landed at
Romsdale in Norway, was cut to pieces by the Nor-
wegian peasantry in a narrow pass upon the road
from that point to Gullbrandsdale. The Swedish
fleet under the high admiral George Gyllenstierna,
had performed nothing during the whole war, to
the king’s great dissatisfaction ; nay, when Chris-
tian himself, after his return to Copenhagen,
embarked in his fleet of thirty-si.x sail, and having
taken on board at Calmar the remnant of Rant-
zou’s troops, sailed into the islets off Stockholm,
Gyllenstierna retired under the guns of the fortress
of Waxholm. The Danes followed, king Christian
landing at Waxholm, and cannonading the fortress.
’J’he tidings spread rapidly over the whole country.
The Dalecarlians i-ose unbidden, and marched to
the defence of the capital. Gustavus Adolphus
hastened night and day from Jenkoping, came
at three o’clock in the morning of the 10th of
September, to Stockholm, and repaired to Wax-
holm two hours afterwards at the head of Mon-
nickhof’s troops. He hoped to be able to destroy
in the narrow straits the Danish fleet, which was
detained by contrary winds. But the same day
the wind changed, and the Danes sailed away.
On both sides the want of peace was felt. Even
Christian, now in appearance the stronger, had ex-
hausted his own, if not Denmark’s, resources. His
power was very limited. The Danish nobles had
no inclination to continue the war, because their
king "might thereby become arrogant, and keep
down them and their privileges," as the Swedish
council of state wrote to Gustavus Adolphus*. A
conference respecting the exchange of prisoners
led to negotiations for peace under English medi-
ation. Axel Oxenstierna and three other council-
lors were the Swedish plenipotentiaries. On the
19th January, 1613, peace was concluded with
Denmark after nearly two months’ negotiations, in
the church hamlet of Knasrced, on the Laga stream
in Halland. Sweden renounced claim to the for-
tress of Sonnenburg on the Oesel, the superiority
over the sea Lapps, from Titis Firth to Waranger
in Norway, and restored Jemteland and Herjedale,
which had been occupied in the war. On the other
hand, it recovered Calmar and Oeland, and Elfs-
borg conditionally after six years, if it were ransomed
in the mean time with a million of rix-dollars ;
if
not, it was to be ceded to Denmark for ever, with
the seven hundreds subordinate to it, and the
towns of New Lojdoese, Old Loedoese, and Got-
teiiburg. This was the second time in forty years
for which Sweden redeemed, from the hands of the
Danes, its then only place on the West Sea, and
now at a price six times dearer than before *. It
’
Hallenberg, ii. 485.
5
By the peace of Stettin in 1570 Elfsborg was ransomed
with 150,000 rix-dollars.
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