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7 8 HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
Danish incursion.
Public calamities.
not fulfilled, his right to the kingdom of Norway.
By a secret article it was provided that the fiefs
should thereafter be distributed at the pleasure of
the council, that a security for the performance of
this should be required from king Charles at a new
congress in Calmar, and if he refused to confirm
the article, that the council should declare for king
Christian. The secret was divulged, and in
requital, Charles deprived several of the barons of
their fiefs and offices, a step which creates less
surprise than the fact, that among his commissioners
at Hahnstad should again be found the same
individual who had betrayed his cause in Gottland, and
who now publicly passed over to the Danish party,
while the rest were again seemingly reconciled to
Charles. The new congress at Calmar, at which
Charles appealed to the pope, expired without
results. It appeared no longer doubtful that the
quarrel between himself and his competitor could
only be adjusted by arms, and hostilities had already
been begun in the name of king Christian against
Vermeland and East-Gothland.
In the opening of 1452, Charles caused an army
to be assembled on the Scanian frontier, " greater
than had ever before been known to be raised in
Sweden7," says the Rhyme-Chronicle, which
describes with complacency the declaration of war,
the glancing banners, and the king’s skill, acquired
in foreign lands, of setting out his array. Twenty
pieces of cannon, the first we find mentioned in any
Swedish campaign,accompanied its march8, drawn
upon sledges. A devastating inroad into Scania in
the depth of winter, in which the land and towns
were laid waste by fire, was all that was
accomplished by this great army, which the king soon
quitted, leaving orders that similar ravages should
be extended to Bleking. For this purpose the
force was divided, but it appears to have soon
dispersed ; for when in the following spring king
Christian commenced his campaign by an incursion
into West-Gothland, the country lay open before
him, and the castles fell into his hands in the course
of the summer. Charles indeed purposed
ultimately to meet the enemy in the forest of Tiwed, in
order to prevent the invasion of Upper Sweden, but
was recalled by the information that the capital,
defended by peasants, was assailed by a Danish fleet.
The Swedish squadron had been assembled at
Stockholm and then sent on ; when it returned, all
the hostilities that occurred were confined to the
exchange of a few shots. That this should be the
case need not excite wonder if, as we are told, the
commanders of the Swedish ships were Danes9, who
allowed their countrymen to plunder and burn on
the Swedish coast with impunity. Christian was
even permitted in the autumn to retire unpursued
from the interior, without any other loss than he
sustained from the exasperated peasants in his
march across the forest of Holwed. The valiant
Thord Bonde alone, cousin-german of the king,
who had nominated him to the office of marshal,
successfully defended the western frontiers of the
kingdom.
The following years resembled in insecurity and
disturbance that just described, and exceeded it in
public misery. In 1455, the plague which had
raged five years before again broke out in Sweden;
at Stockholm alone 9000 men died. A scarcity of
three years’ duration engendered at the same time
a more grievous famine than had ever happened
within tlie memory of man For the rest,
military occurrences, without plan, alternated with
proposals of peace which led to no result, and
incessant conferences of the councils of both kingdoms.
Sometimes these meetings were held amidst brilliant
festivities, in which Charles displayed his pomp, his
opulence, or his devotion; as for example, at the
consecration of his daughter in the convent of
Vad-stena, where the king himself, decked in his royal
robes, sang the gospel before the altar, and
subsequently at the marriage of Thord Bond(5, where
he entertained the guests on fourteen hundred
silver chargers. Within a year this brave nobleman
was treacherously assassinated by a Dane who stood
high in his service and confidence; a ballad still
preserved attests the popular grief and indignation
produced by his murder.
At this time it was not uncommon to find Danes
in the service of Charles, as well as Swedes in that
of Christian. In some instances these possessed
property, and still more frequently had family
connections in all the three kingdoms, or they sought
their fortune by arms, indifferent what master they
served ; so that men of humble station were soon
the only class who knew what it was to have a
country, or to suffer in its behalf. Charles himself
was without heart for his office, looked too
narrowly to his individual advantage, and from being
a brilliant party leader had become a feeble king.
Towards the magnates he cherished a well-grounded
mistrust, which out of fear he for the most part
concealed, and thereby afforded to his secret
enemies opportunities of openly injuring him. Astute
and compliant in all save pecuniary matters 2, he
sought his ministers in men of mean condition who
resembled himself in these qualities, and betrayed
his interests. In rapacity his governors fell not at
all short of the foreigners whom they replaced,
although they plundered under the cloak of law3.
7 The number is variously stated at from 40,000 to 80,000
men. The army was preceded by skyrannare (skidlopare),
or skate-runners, using the skates made of long curved
wooden staves, fof sliding over the surface of the snow.
8 "Twenty carriage guns with powder and stone-balls
belonging thereto." Cannon, however, were previously used in
the fortresses. In the castle of Stegeborg in 1440 fourteen
were kept (called Fbglare, or birds), which were directed by
a German master gunner. Under Engelbert’s rising, guns
are mentioned in the castle of Stockholm. The town in 1431
had a master gunner and a cannon founder, both salaried.
a Eric Olaveson.
1 Diary of Vadstena. In the autumn of 1464 the plague
broke out anew, carried off 7000 men in Stockholm, and
lasted nearly two years, during which it also desolated
Russia. In Novogorod alone, according to Karamsin,
48,000 men died.
2 " Courteous, but greedy," en old account describes him.
3 Compare the character of Charles Canuteson as drawn
by Eric Olaveson, his contemporary. Although he has been
charged with partiality, his representation is by no means
deficient in truth, and contains a more apposite judgment
than that of the Rhyme Chronicle, which dwells upon the
princely and glittering exterior of Charles. He is also
corroborated by other testimonies : " Habebat pra;fectos ad omnem
nequitiam audacissimos et ad omnem virtutem resque
prje-claras imbellissimos," says Joannes Magnus. Olaus Magnus,
who extols the justice of the governors under Steno Sture
the elder, blames at the same time those of Charles
Canute-son; their conduct towards their own master, indeed,
sufficiently evinces their character.
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