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account of his tyranny and his suspected madness, plots
to release him from prison and to dethrone Johann had
been concocted, plots whose meshes extended to France
and Venice and can be met with in almost all the secret
archives of Europe.
The chief actors in this drama were Charles de
Mornay, Archibald Ruthven, and Gilbert Balfour or
Baphur, as he is frequently called. Let us see what kind
of men they were. Mornay has been called a Scotsman
by various Swedish writers, but he was by birth,
education, and character French. He signs himself Baron of
Varennes, came to Sweden in 1557, and rose high and
rapidly in the favour of the king. His services were
repeatedly made use of in diplomatic missions to
Copenhagen and London, in which latter place he was to promote
Eric’s matrimonial suit with the Virgin Queen ; but neither
there nor with Mary, Queen of Scotland, to whose court
he—now styled u eques aureatus et cubicularius noster”
—together with Peter Brahe and Martinus Helsingius,
betook himself on a like errand, could he boast of any
success. Still more unlucky was he in his capacity as
Swedish General in the war against the Danes. True,
he took Varberg in 1564, but was shamefully beaten
immediately afterwards by the Danish leader Gunter von
Schwarzburg. In July 1566 he was captured by the
Danes, and was kept a prisoner at Elfsborg for close on
five years, till peace was restored between the belligerents.
His great passion was to instigate conspiracies in favour
of the imprisoned Eric. Had it only been this it might
have been excused on the score of his being Eric’s friend
and of his being bound to him by ties of gratitude, but
he did not scruple at the same time to aim at taking
King Johann’s life. A more double-faced character can
hardly be imagined. Whilst almost daily receiving proofs
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