Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. The Swedish Reformation under Gustaf Vasa and his sons Eric and John (1520—1592 A.D.)
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i. GUSTAF VASA ELECTED KING. 187
formed the plan of escaping to Dalarne, and rousing the
Dalemen to revolt, as they had done under Engelbrekt
some ninety years before. Towards the end of the month,
in the darkness of winter, began that course of changeful
adventures, in which, first on the Dalelf and in the Koppar-
berg, and then in the neighbourhood of Lake Siljan, he
moved from place to place disguised as a peasant, hospit
ably received, and sheltered by some, betrayed by others,
and always pursued by Danish spies and soldiers. These
adventures are full of picturesque episodes, which are even
more interesting to the Swedes than the wanderings of
King Alfred are to ourselves. When, in despair of rousing
the people he was flying into Norway, and had almost
passed the boundary, he was recalled by swift snow-shoe
runners, who brought him back to Mora. Here the assem
bled peasants (who were at last thoroughly shaken from
their torpor by reports of the cruelties and further designs
of Christian) chose him to be their leader, and made him,
as far as they could make him, the administrator of the
kingdom (January, 1521).
The revolution which followed was in an extraordinary
degree the work of this single young man, not yet twenty-
five years old. It is marvellous with what perseverance,
cheerfulness and courage, with what skill, prudence and
self-restraint, he kept the war going, with the aid of foreign
mercenaries and undisciplined peasant levies, and with an
empty treasury. At the end of April he was master of the
central Swedish provinces of Dalarne, Gestrikland, Vest-
manland and Nerike, except the castles. At midsummer
he was able to besiege, though not to take, Stockholm. In
the second half of August he was accepted as adminis
trator of the kingdom (Rikets hofvitsman) at a council of
nobles held at Vadstena in East Gothland. Two years
more were required to take the castles and the towns. On
the 6th June, 1523, he was elected king at the Riksdag in
Strengnas, which was, as you will remember, near his own
home. Here also was the focus at that time of the
reforming movement, which was quite in its infancy.
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