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266 VI. GREAT KINGS AND BISHOPS (A.D. 15931718).
rod, followed by the deluging of the delinquent by so many
buckets of ice-cold water. So severe was this treatment
that many of those who suffered it fell half dead. Excep
tional offences were punished with fines, which were partly
paid to the cathedral, partly to the parish church. Whip
ping in churches at this time and later was not an uncom
mon punishment, and the archbishop defended himself on
this ground against the charges of cruelty which were
naturally made to the duke. But besides his severity, he
seems to have acted imprudently and inconsiderately in
regard to matters of marriage discipline, and to have been
needlessly puritanical in his abolition of old usages, and to
have also been the cause of much vandalism in regard to
old monuments.
From this time the Duke Charles and the archbishop
were on bad terms.
The duke was now in a position of direct resistance to
one whom he had acknowledged as lawful king. He was
not easy in it until the end of his life, for he had great
reverence for his father s testament and for the hereditary
principle. For himself he regularly took the title of
"
hereditary prince and governor," and (at a later date),
when he allowed the publication of Christopher s land s-
law, he made a change in the article de rege asserting the
hereditary principle. On the other hand, he felt the
necessity of resisting a government which brought back
all the evils and weakness of the old Union period, and
added to them the danger of a war of religion. His way
was made clearer by the invasion of Sweden in 1598 by a
Polish army and the defeat of Sigismund at Stangebro,
near Linkoping. On this occasion, strange to say, Arch
bishop Abraham, who had long been at variance with the
duke, turned round to support the king. In 1599 the
estates announced the withdrawal of their allegiance from
Sigismund as a papist, if he should ever return to Sweden.
The case of Abraham was gone into, but the clergy,
though ready to censure and suspend him, would not de-
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