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222
Frequency of diets.
Commissions of estates HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Supplies granted to tiie
crown in ttiis reign.
[1611—
further do and ordain, to the benefit of the realm
and his subjects, we will fully accept, guiding our-
selves thereby as obedient subjects, and it may be
at convenience entered in the law-book." Although
the last words aimed at settling the point by law
once for all upon the occasion, we see that the
estates referred the decision to the government.
The economic legislation which in Sweden to this
day appertains solely to the king, is thus sho\vn to
have formerly included a somewhat extensive right
of taxation.
Over the grave of Gustavus Adolphus it was
said :
" He received his kingdom with two empty
hands, yet deprived no man of his own by violence ;
but what the necessities of the realm required,
that did he let his people know on their days of
free assemblage, that they might consider the
matter, and give tribute to the crown according to
its need ^." In comparison with earlier times this
judgment may be viewed as correct, and it
belongs
to the undying renown of this king that he, the
greatest warrior of the Swedish throne, was of all
the rulers of his house the least given to violence.
Those who speak so much of the weight of taxes with
which he loaded the country, should at least reflect
that what under him was done by the law, was
before hira often done against law, and that arbi-
trariness, heretofore almost the rule, now appears
the exception. The times were difficult and try-
ing ; legal forms, as we have seen, indeterminate.
Hence the dissimilarity in their application, even
after the issue of the ordinance for diets. The
committees or commissions of estates (Utskotten),
which afterwards assumed a part so important in
the history of the Swedish legislature, begin with
that most important, of themselves enacting statutes,
as a diet in miniature, with the right of the entire
body ;
for sometimes the collective estates, some-
times again, when circumstances demand speedy
resolutions, only
" some of the chief men among
the estates of the realm" are convoked. Howbeit,
the diets were frequent ;
for Gustavus Adolphus
governed, like his father, in unremitting concert
with the estates of the realm, even as to affairs
belonging to the foreign policy of the kingdom ^.
In the year 1617 general diets were held both at
Orebro and Stockholm, where the estates granted
for the Polish war the war-tax before-mentioned,
the amount being now fixed. In the year 1620,
some delegates of the nobility, the bishops, with
deputies of some towns, were convened at Stock-
holm, in order to consider the disputes with Den-
mark in common with the council and the lieu-
tenants of the provinces ;
and this commission
ordained the levying of the so-called cattle-money,
which was to be paid for two years according to
the number of the horses, the large and small
cattle, and the amount of land sown. It was a
property-tax, which the peasants of the nobility-
paid in the proportion of half against crown and
tax-peasants, and from which the clergy with the
towns freed themselves through a separate benevo-
’
Funeral sermon on Gustavus Adolphus, in Stockholm,
June 22, 1634, by Johannes Botvidi.
2 " While Gustavus Adolphus lived, he inquired of the
estates collectively, if he should go hither or thither, nam
quod populus vull, Deus vult; bnt how he should take the
matter in hand he by no means communicated to the estates,
hut to some of the council, sub fide sileniii." Axel Oxen-
stierna, in the council, 1630. Palmsk. MSS.
lence. In the year 1621 a general diet was held,
at which the war- tax was renewed ;
and again in
1622, when "the little toll" and the excise were
introduced, and the impost on cattle was pro-
longed, the king remitting half of the aid for the
public buildings. The diet of 1624 doubled the
cattle-tax for two years ; and in 1625 all the estates
granted the mill-toll, for the maintenance of a
standing army. The year 1627 saw two diets, in
February and December ;
the former of which
again renewed the cattle-tax, the latter commenced
a change of the mill-toll into the poll-tax, called
man-tale-money (mantalspenningar). At the same
time a secret committee of all four estates was by
the king’s wish elected, in order to declare their
sentiments, as with the right of the collective body,
upon the religious war in Germany. The Opinion
of the Committee is dated January 28, 1628, and
was approved by the estates when they reassembled
in 1629. This was the last general diet of his
reign. In the years 1630, 1631, 1632, only com-
missions of estates, including delegates of the
nobles, clergy, army, and burgesses, were called
together, although these conventions were some-
times styled diets. At the first of these the king
made a proposal (since there was a sufficient force
of soldiers in the country to watch the frontiers,
and he could employ mostly foreigners abroad), that
his subjects should ransom themselves with money
from the levies.
" But forasmuch as it falls some-
what hard upon us (was the reply) to grant this
time such a sum of money, especially as the com-
monalty (or yeomanry), on whom it most presses,
have not themselves been present ;
so it may
please his majesty to appoint commissaries, who
shall travel until the harvest in every province,
convening noble and unnoble, to concert with them
fully what they are willing to do in this respect."
The king’s own letters hereupon to the commis-
sioners of the provinces are dated from the fleet,
in which he was upon the point of sailing for
Germany ’. At the outset of the following year
the council informs him that neither this levy-
money nor the cattle-tax could be collected, on
account of the bad harvest, although the latter
impost had again been voted for two years at the
diet of 1629. The king, albeit at the moment re-
duced to the greatest straits, remitted both. "We
will rather lose the aid," he writes,
" than give
occasion to slander, and let unjust stewards htrd
their pockets with the sweat and blood of the
people, paying us and the army with disputes *."
On the elections to the diet the king did not
bring to bear all that influence which was exer-
cised by the government after him. We find that
the bishops, for the most part, selected the repre-
sentatives of the clergy*; and that the burgo-
masters of the towns were regarded as summoned
in right of their office, we may conclude from the
writs of convocation. It may be noted, that the
3 Elfsnabben (a haven in the island of Muske, on the
coast of Suthermanland), June 9, 1630. Reg.
1 To the diet, New Brandenburg, Feb. 3, 1631. Reg. On
Feb. 18, 1632, the commission of estates determined for the
continuation of the cattle-tax for two years longer.
5 Before the diet of 1621, letters were sent to the bishops,
that they should take with them to the diets the most dis-
creet and intelligent of their clergy, who could comprehend
the dangers of their country, could give some counsel, and
might be spoken with confidentially. Hallenberg, v. 135.
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