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154 IV. THE ROMANIZED CHURCH (A.D. 13891520).
meeting at Arboga in 1435, at which Engelbrekt was
elected Rikets hofvidsman, or administrator, was the first
to which not only spiritual and temporal nobles, but one or
more burghers from every town, and some peasants from
every province, were summoned as representatives. The
parochial clergy were not yet summoned, but in other
respects it was a true Parliament. The office to which
Engelbrekt was elected was also a new departure. For
though he was only administrator for one year, he prepared
the way for the Stures, and then for Gustaf Ericsson Vasa,
and finally for the strong-handed measures by which
Charles IX. and Charles XI. broke down the dangerous
privileges of the nobility.
7
The peasant rising of the
Dalesmen was even more obviously a precedent for that
which assisted Gustaf Vasa in the liberation of the country
some eighty years later.
It is further to be noticed about this rising that only one
instance of revenge on the tyrants who had misgoverned the
people is recorded. Josse Ericsson took refuge from the
peasants in the monastery of Vadstena, where he resided
some three years, but in 1436 he was drawn from his retreat
by the East Gothland peasants, taken to Motala, and con
demned to death and executed. He had been a benefactor
to the Church, especially at Vadstena, and his punishment
was considered by zealous Churchmen as an act of
sacrilege.
After Engelbrekt s death, his rival in the affections of
the people, Karl Knutsson, the marshal, remained the
chief man in the kingdom ;
but the Union party soon took
courage again. The nobility and the bishops for the most
part were in favour of a foreign ruler, under whose distant
oversight they might develop their own relative independ
ence. The. important representative of Sweden at the
Council of Basel, Nicolaus Ragvaldi, Bishop of Vexio,
had, indeed, defended Engelbrekt at the council, and he
had won the affection and admiration of Bishop Thomas of
Strengnas, whose verses in his praise I have already cited.
7
S. J. Boethius, I.e., pp. 26-7.
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