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1543.J The false Sture. His impostures. GUSTAVUS VASA.
monasteries," which was indeed performed in such
a fashion that one after the other was brought under
his own management. The secular fiefs of the
bishops were confiscated5, and the fines at law due
to them were collected by the king’s bailiffs, all
complaints on this head being set at nought. No
further regard was paid to the spiritual
jurisdiction ; on the contrary, the king adjudicated even
in ecclesiastical causes, gave to monks and nuns
who wished to quit their convents letters of
protection 6, and declared excommunications invalid 7.
He appointed and deposed priests by his own
authority, and assumed the episcopal right of
taking the effects of those who died intestate, doing
this even in some cases where the parties had left
a will8, and sharing their revenues with them at
his good pleasure.
The king was encompassed by revolt when he
embarked in these proceedings. In the autumn of
1525, after their defection with the prelates
above-named, the Dalesmen had concluded an agreement
with Gustavus at the provincial diet of Tuna, which
he attended in person ; but this was of no long
duration. In the very next year they refused to
pay the taxes imposed for the discharge of the
public debt, as being unauthorized by law 9 ; and all
Norrland adopted a similar determination. At the
commencement of 1527, consequently six months
before the death of the youth Nicholas Sture, an
impostor, bearing his name, appeared in the more
remote parishes of Dalecarlia. This person fled,
he pretended, before the face of a heretical and
godless king, who would not suffer the rightful heir
of the realm to remain at the court, drawing a
sword against his bosom wherever they might
meet, and continually thirsting for his blood. The
false Sture was a peasant lad from the parish of
Biorksta in Westmanland, the illegitimate son of a
cotter woman, considerably older than the object
of his personation, yet of delicate and fair aspect,
Rebellion in the
Dales.
crafty, smooth-tongued, (he spoke with such
eloquence as to draw tears from the Dalecarlians,) and
not without experience of the world, having served
in noble households. He had been practised in his
part by Peter Grym, who had formerly filled a
place in the household of Steno Sturd the younger,
and was latterly the chief confederate of Peter
Sunnanvaeder. This pretender found many
adherents in the upper Dales, where the Sture name
was highly honoured, and obtained the support of
the archbishop of Drontheim. He married a
Norwegian damsel of condition, surrounded himself with
a body-guard and a court, (his chancellor was a
runaway monk,) coined money, and was called the
Dale-younker, or Dale-king.
At this time, when one or more provinces rose in
revolt against the legal authorities, such affairs
did not cause great exasperation on either side. It
was by no means unusual to declare a willingness to
open a negociation for the adjustment of conditions
of obedience, and Gustavus was always ready to
consent to such a proposal. There was no rebellion
with which he did not negociate, and none which
he did not punish. The discussions with the
Dalesmen, (whose demands he heard with patience, as
for example, their request that he would not suffer
embroidered clothes to be worn at his court, and
that all those who ate flesh on Friday should be
burned alive,) were protracted throughout a whole
year, partly on account of the tribute, payment of
which every man refused and partly on account
of the false Sture, who found support in the upper
parishes, where Gustavus himself had first
commenced his career, but not in the mining districts,
or the southern portion of the province.
Meanwhile the king convoked for the 16th of June, in
Westeras, that diet whose results were to be so
important.
As early as the commencement of 1527, Gustavus
THE REFORMATION.
5 Bishop Brask lost the hundreds of Gullberg, Boberg, and
Aska. See his correspondence, which also contains the
proofs of the following statements.
6 Letter of protection for a monk of the Franciscan
monastery at Arboga," who wishes for reasonable cause to quit his
convent and order." December 27, 1526. Register in the
Archives.
i Thus the king rescinded Brask’s interdict against the
marriage of Olave Tyste, a noble of East-Gothland, which
the parents attempted to hinder by placing the bride, against
her will, in the convent of Vadstena.
8 The priest in the parish of Munktorp, in the diocese of
Westeras, had died. The king orders Bennet the Westgoth,
his bailiff in Westeras, to see that the successor to the
benefice, Master Lars, sends him the silver tankards of the
deceased, and keeps his horse for the king’s use ; also that the
king should get his share of the rest of the silver; yet the
successor might retain some of it, " that he might not be
quite foredone." Reg. in the Archives, 1525. At Abo,
Master Jacob, the provost of the chapter, died, and
bequeathed by will a large sum of money. The king exhorts
the chapter, Aug. 23, 1526, " every man carefully to consider
whether that money could not have been better applied than
Master Jacob had applied it ?" whence he enjoins them to
modify the disposition of it so, that when the heirs and the
poor had obtained their share, the rest might be employed
for the payment of the public debt. They are reprimanded
for having chosen a successor without inquiring the king’s
pleasure; yet their nominee may retain his place, if he will
pay 200 marks yearly into the royal chancery. The king had
previously caused a catalogue to be made out of the benefices
in the gift of the crown in Finland. By a letter of Feb. 1,
1526, they were all taxed at 300, 200, or 150 marks yearly, if
the incumbent preserved his dues. Reg. in the Arch. 1526.
s The king himself appears to have had some doubt on
this head, as he writes to the bailiffs who were to collect the
tax, " Ye have no need to wonder that we give you this
command, seeing that the council have so ordained it." In the
same letter, however, he enjoins the bailiffs to use all their
diligence and pains that the common people may be induced to
consent. It is generally difficult to distinguish between the
exhortations and orders of Gustavus, for he usually begins
with the one and ends with the other. In the spring of
1527, the king complains in a letter to the bishop of Skara,
of the notion spread by certain worthless persons, that " we
were minded to appropriate the said tax to our personal use,"
while he found himself between so many fires, first with the
Lubeckers, if their demands were not satisfied, then with
the Danes and Norwegians, if they had not their own will
with Viken (Bohuslan); lastly, "with our own people, who
bring us into evil repute by reason of this very tax,
clamouring that they are burdened with one impost after another,
especially the Dalesmen and Helsingers, who have yet paid
not a penny, but hatch one treasonable design after another,
and harbour among them in the upper country a notorious
rogue and thief" (the false Sture).
1 In the letter of March 2, 1527, to the commonalty of the
Dales, the king vainly represents that it was absurd for
those who dwelt in Tuna and other places, where there was
good commodity of life by fields and meadows, to expect to
excuse themselves on the plea of inability, like those who
dwelt in Upper Dalecarlia; " but they are not such a set as
they call themselves," he writes to the council of state; "it
is not our mind that they should extort from us better
conditions than others of the realm." Reg. in the Archives, 1527.
i 2
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