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to be u halshuggen ” (executed) in Soderkoping’s great
market-place. But the idea of the hidden treasure which
Balfour promised to reveal so tormented him that he had
the prisoner removed from the Castle of Stegeborg to
Stockholm. On the 6th of June he writes to the
Governor of the Castle, “Though We rather think that
what the traitor Baphur says of King Eric’s treasure-trove
be nothing but lies and deceit, yet after he has given his
word to reveal its hiding-place, within 24 hours, We
desire you to examine him again and let Us know the
result.”1 Balfour to gain time did not fully satisfy the
examiners, but said he would only tell the whole of the
truth to one of the king’s trusty messengers. So
Andrew Keith was sent to pump him, but failed likewise
to elicit anything.2 He returned, however, with the
news that the prisoner had offered eight hundred
Rose-nobles for his life and freedom. It is scarcely creditable
to the king that, in a cynical letter of July 19th, he
commanded the Governor of Stockholm Palace to demand
one thousand. Thereupon Balfour, who could not in
time dispose of so great a sum, was executed in the
month of August 1576. Two of his utterances during
the trial deserve our special attention. He solemnly
declared that after having—partly at least—been satisfied
as to the payment of his soldiers, he refused to have
anything more to do with Mornay’s treasonable plans, and
secondly he asked why did he allow all his men to be
drafted out of the country, if he had any treason in
his mind ?
Remarkable also is a Latin petition to the king in
favour of Balfour, written on the 10th of September and
1 Riks A.
2 Diggings for the treasure were actually proceeded with “ between a
withered and a green tree ” in the king’s Trädgård.
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