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1569.] Atrocities of the royal court. ERIC AND HIS BROTHERS. War with Denmark. 151
regarded as a main source for the history of
Eric XIV. as well as Gustavus 1., although he cast
but a hasty glance at the records of both these
reigns, alleges that king Eric, being himself present
on the 10th February, 1563, in his new supreme
court, delivered bis sentiments on those cases
which concerned life and honour ; that in such no
judgment should be passed upon written
testimonies, if those who gave such evidence were still
alive, but the witnesses should themselves appear ;
that he exhorted the honourable and trusted men of
his royal court not to proceed with such levity in
capital cases, as many had ordinarily used to act.
The fact itself is correctly stated ; but how far the
conclusion which has thence been drawn in respect
to the king’s real conduct and the proceedings of
the court has any truth, the following remarks may
show. The judgment-book of the royal court for
the year 1562 contains but one sentence of death ;
for the year 1563 not less than fifty-seven, of which
thirty-two related to the business of John’s
defection Down to October 1567, when the records
cease, this court condemned to execution two
hundred and thirty-two persons in all, with few
exceptions either for crimes against the state, or offences
which not the Swedish law, but the court-articles of
king Eric, or even the king’s good pleasure alone
visited with capital punishment7. This number,
which yet does not embrace all the victims of the
scaffold, is sufficiently great, even if the sentence
was in some instances not carried into effect. Most
of the parties were of the lower classes. The capital
sentences upon the grandees, as in 1564 upon Olave
Gustaveson Stenbock, and in 1566 upon Nicholas
Sture’, the king did not venture to execute. It was
first in 1567 that he dipped his hand into the blood
of the higher nobility, and thereby also overthrew
himself. George Person, who is styled " procurator
and secretary of the king’s majesty," was accuser
in the royal court; and although, despite the
vehemence of his charges, there are examples of
acquittal by the tribunal, yet these are but few.
Sometimes he was more successful on bringing the same
accusation a second time. Question by torture
was employed ; and words, even signs, were held
to involve the guilt of treason. February 11, 1566,
the equerry Eric Person was condemned to death
for having painted the arms of his majesty and of
Sweden, three crowns, upside down upon a door in
the north suburb, and thereby assailed the dignity,
rank, and royal government of his majesty.
November 26, 1566, a like doom was passed on two guards
of the king’s tent, for having laid in a secret room
three sticks crosswise, a cap, a grate, and oilier
things for magic practice, as the king thought; and
notwithstanding they knew that wherever he went
he could suffer neither twig, nor straw, nor splint,
or the like, but had forbidden it under penalty of
death.
With Denmark the peace had been renewed in
1562. Nevertheless war broke out the following year?
and accelerated the fate of John. " For king Eric
was fully possessed with the opinion regarding his
brother duke John, that if the king should find the
bulk of his forces necessary against the Danes,
duke John would not be quiet, but would attempt
some disturbance either in Finland or Livonia8."
The causes of the war were partly conflicting
interests in Livonia, where a Danish prince possessed
a portion of the country, partly subjects of old
grudge and personal hostility. The king of
Denmark had assumed the three crowns on his arms ;
Eric took the crowns both of Denmark and
Norway. Swedish envoys, sent to Hesse to prosecute
Eric’s love-suit, were detained in Copenhagen.
A fleet equipped, as was said, to carry off the bride,
encountered the Danish fleet at Bornholm. A
quarrel regarding salutes led to an engagement, in
which the Swedish admiral Jacob Bagge took the
Danish admiral’s ship with two others, an exploit
rewarded by Eric with a triumphal procession, in
which the Danish captives were seen bound and
with heads shaven, conducted by the king’s
court-fool Hercules. Thereupon ensued a declaration of
war by Denmark and Lubeck, whose trade to
Narva Eric had forbidden, because he wished to
confine the Russian commerce to Reval. In this
war, which lasted seven years, the Swedish navy,
which had never been stronger, gained great
honour, first under Jacob Bagge, then, after his
miscarriage and imprisonment in Oeland, under Clas
Cliris-terson Horn, who was recalled from Livonia, and
put to sea in 1566 with sixty-eight ships of war
besides smaller vessels. Sweden, which Gustavus I.
wished to erect into a maritime power, afterwards
exhausted its energies in land wars.
It is with other feelings that the view of Eric’s
own actions inspires us. In military affairs, as
generally, he is especially liberal of instructions.
More copious, more dangerous for those to whom
they were directed9, or bearing clearer witness
to the unhappy disposition of their author, no man
ever wrote. Thus in one of the first with
relation to the Danish war, appears the injunction,
that care should be taken to procure such persons
as understand how to deal with poisoning ; yet it
should be inquired whether their art were certain,
and they should give heed not to injure therewith
their own people. Upon the side of Denmark the
war was opened by the investment of Elfsborg,
which, badly defended, was soon taken ; upon the
side of Sweden by an inroad of Eric into Halland
and the siege of Holmstad. This however he
broke up on the news of the approach of Frederic
II., abandoning besides his campl, in such a
fashion that his own army looked upon his
departure as a flight, and dispersing, was routed upon its
retreat by the Danes. In a letter of apology to the
collective people of the realm 2, the king however
6 " It was a mournful spectacle, to see the heading and
hacking on the wheel, which was executed upon duke John’s
servants in the town and suburbs. I and many with me
could not look upon it without tears." Swen Elofson.
1 Among them were seventy-two tax-gatherers. Jan. 30,
1567, the court sentenced to death seven bailiffs in Salberg at
once, for neglect in procuring timber for the mine. Besides
the whole garrison of Elfsborg for surrendering the fortress,
how many persons are there mentioned, along with the Stures
and their connexions in the year 1567, whose sentence does
not appear in the protocols !
8 Swen Elofson.
9 January 30, 1567, Wolmar Wykman, clerk of the
treasury, was condemned to death in the royal court, because he
had said that the king drew up such instructions as it was
impossible for any one to execute.
1 He allowed a council of war previously to present a
remonstrance, in which it is said among other things that, as
the king of Denmark was expected with a strong force it
would be unlucky that the king himself should be present,
in case they should be obliged to take to flight.
2 Dated at Orreholm in West-Gothland, November 23.
Reg. for 1563.
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