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Christian’s measures.
’ ’ Revolts excited.
malignant and obdurate a nature, that "
whomsoever he was wroth with, he was bent upon ruining
utterly."
King Christian came in person to Stockholm, to
encounter the imaginary danger, imposed a new
tax, and committed the levy of it to the archbishop,
while he himself proceeded upon an expedition to
Finland against the Russians, for which he had
appropriated a portion of the subsidy lately
collected by a Papal legate in the north for a war
against the Turks. The peasants refused the new
tax, protesting that they would rather die than pay
any more illegal imposts, and taking up arms, they
obtained a promise from the archbishop for the
remission of the tax, perhaps the more readily, that
even peasants holding of the church were not
exempted by the king from its operation. Upon
his return, however, Christian accused the
archbishop of having himself instigated the revolt, and
brought a multitude of charges against him bearing
upon the prelate’s conduct towards Charles,
although it was his rival who now called him to
account. Even in the council and among the burgesses
the adversaries of the archbishop had the
preponderance. In all the public places papers were
posted up, bearing the words, " the archbishop is a
traitor." Notwithstanding his threat of
excommunication, the king caused him to be
apprehended. The peasants, now regarding him as a
martyr for the liberties of the realm, hurried to
Stockholm, but were beaten back, and numbers of
them treacherously slaughtered in a conflict which
acquired for the marshal Thure Thureson Bielke’,
the surname of peasant slayer 9. Before his
departure, the king is said to have robbed the castle of
Stockholm of all the articles of value it contained,
from the gilt spire surmounting the tower, to the
windows, pots and kettles, as well as to have
broken down walls, dug in the ground, and even
dragged the sea for hidden treasures ; so that a
contemporary letter indignantly reproaches liirn
with having ransacked for money three elements,
the air, the water, and the earth.
Scarcely had the king quitted the capital,
carrying off the archbishop with him a prisoner to
Denmark, when the insurrection broke out anew
under the command of his kinsman Ketil Carlson
(Vasa), bishop of Linkoping, who in the beginning of
1404, assumed the title of administrator at Westeras,
therein supported chiefly by the Dalecarlians, " the
wildest and most warlike," say the monks of
0 The Rhyme Chronicle.
1 Maxime feroces et bellicosi. Piar. Vadsten.
2 See Memoirs relating to the History of Scandinavia
(Handlingar rorande Skandinaviens Historia), v. 5. From
this letter is taken the account of the dismantling of the
castle of Stockholm by the king.
f A.I).
1t163—70.
Vadstena, among the inhabitants of Sweden In
the name of the Dalesmen and all the commonalty
of Sweden, a letter was drawn up, full of the most
vehement denunciations of the king’s government2.
Christian now again came to the defence of
Stockholm, in the depth of winter, but the
Dale-cai’lians retired before him, and at length enticed
him into a thick wood at Haraker’s church in
Westmanland, where he sustained a great overthrow,
and after having been personally in danger, was
obliged to flee to Stockholm, which the
Dalecarlians kept besieged during the whole succeeding
summer. " Then a sudden cry went among the
peasants throughout the land, that they must have
king Charles back ; that Sweden was a kingdom,
and not a captaincy nor a parsonage." The
council was obliged to yield, and Charles was in effect
recalled, but only to be again expelled after six
months by the archbishop 3, now let loose against
him, and in league with bishop Ketil.
During nearly four years, from January, 1464,
to November, 1467, which the king, now a second
time deposed, spent at the castle of Raseborg, in
Finland, in so great poverty that he complains in
his letters of being unable to pay fifty marks which
he owed, we observe first bishop Ketil, then after
his death the archbishop, and within a short time,
opposed to him, the powerful Eric Axelson (Tott),
filling the office of administrator, so that the
partition of the kingdom into several petty
sovereignties, which is said to have formed one of the plans
of the magnates at this time, might soon have been
accomplished 4.
Charles Canuteson was finally for the third time
called to the throne upon the 13th of November,
1467. Shortly afterwards, his irreconcileable foe
the archbishop died in exile. The old king spent
the last years of his life in extex-nal and intestine
warfare, against Christian, who attacked Sweden
anew, and against Erie Carlson (Vasa), who put
himself at the head of an insurrection, until the name
of the Sture’ began to gather lustre in Dalecarlia,
and the success of Nicholas and Steno Sture, first
over domestic revolt, next over foreign aggression,
allowed Charles to die in possession of his crown.
He expired May 15, 1470, in the castle of
Stockholm, in his sixty-first year, and upon his
deathbed transferred the government to Steno Sture’,
counselling him at the same time never to strive
after the regal title and ensigns5.
3 Olave Peterson. " And it wanted but little that he
should have been obliged to beg grace of him."
4 " They would have divided the kingdom into four parts,
and there were to have been four who should govern
them." Id.
5 The Rhyme Chronicle. Joannes Magnus.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. ^recLn and deaTh."
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