Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VI. Steno Sturé the Elder. King John. Suanto Sturé. Steno Sturé the Younger, and Christian the Tyrant. A.D. 1470—1520
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70 War with King John. Death of Steno. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Suanto made guardian. i His character. ’ c a. d. £ 1501—9.
again to instigate the common people to disorders.
But the misfortunes experienced by the king in the
war for the subjection of the Ditmarshers,
undertaken in 1500, with such high-raised expectations of
success, but in which the flower of the nobility of
Denmark and Holstein fell in conflict with an army
of peasants inconsiderable in numbers, awakened
dangerous recollections in Sweden. When John,
in 1501, again set foot on its territory, attended
but by a small retinue, as had been .requested by
reason of the prevailing distress, distrust had already
taken such deep root in his mind, that upon his way
he evaded Steno Sture, who had come forth to meet
him, and fled for refuge to the castle of Stockholm.
Negotiations were indeed set on foot and
conferences held with the former guardian, who with
several of the councillors came to the capital, but
no agreement with the king was effected. With the
late alteration in his fortunes the Swedish magnates
too had now abandoned John, and began again to
rally around Sture, whom tliey had so lately
persecuted, complaining that the Recess of Calmar was
not observed. Steno Christerson Oxenstierna, who
had been deprived of the salmon fishery at
Elf-karleby, took up arms, and put to death one of the
royal governors. Suanto Sture’ declared war against
the king upon his own account, because he had
received small recompence for having " assisted his
grace to the crown, against the will of the
commonalty," as the words of his declaration run.
Steno Sture was again chosen administrator at
Vadstena, July 29, 1501. The peasantry anew
placed themselves in movement, and even the
archbishop was forced by necessity to yield to the
general voice. The rest of the prelates also made,
as appears, common cause with the now united
Stur<?s and Hemming Gadd, the bishop elect of
Linkoping, who had lately returned from Rome,
took the command at the investment of Stockholm,
where king John had left his consort Christina of
Saxony with a promise of hastening to her relief.
The town speedily opened its gates, but the castle
stood a siege of eight months, and when the queen
at length surrendei’ed it, stipulating security of life
and goods for herself and her defenders, among
whom were several Swedish knights, but seventy
men out of a garrison of one thousand were found
alive, and among these hardly ten were unwounded.
Three days after the capitulation, king John with
his fleet appeared before Stockholm to succour the
queen, but was obliged to retire without
accomplishing his object. Of the three castles which had
been occupied by royal garrisons, Stockholm,
Orebro, and Calmar, the last alone remained to be
won 8. Norway too revolted ; and Canute Alfson,
lieutenant of Aggerhus, became the ally of Steno,
but was treacherously murdered at a conference
with the Danes, after which prince Christian
quenched the rebellion in the blood of the Nor-
8 The council had in 1499 consented that the places named
should be entrusted to Danish commanders, yet in the sequel
this was one of the complaints urged against the king.
Among the Danish governors Jens Falster, Captain of
Orebro, made himself remarkable by the outrages committed
under his sanction, and was slain by the peasants.
9 The Rhyme Chronicle imputes this to Dr. Carl,
Physician of the Danish queen. Other accounts accuse Martha
Iwarsdotter, wife of the Norwegian knight. Canute Alfson, a
lady of no good reputation, the mistress of Suanto Sture, and
in 1504 his second wife.
wegian nobles. A Swedish auxiliary force sent by
the administrator to Norway was unsuccessful.
The prince made an attack on West-Gothland,
burned Lcidose, took Oresten and Elfsborg, putting
the garrisons to the sword, although they had
offered to capitulate. The peasantry attributed
this disaster to Eric Ericson (Gyllenstiern), who was
entrusted with the defence of the castles, and cut
him down, although Steno’s general, Ake’ Johanson,
sought to cover him by interposing his own body.
Thus passed away the eighteen months following
the surrender of the castle of Stockholm, after
which period the Danish queen, who had
meanwhile found a refuge in the convent of Vadstena,
was released and escorted to the frontier by Steno
Sture’. On his return he fell sick and died, in the
neighbourhood of Jenkoping, December 13, 1503,
according to the Rhyme Chronicle, of poison<J.
During the remainder of the journey, Hemming
Gadd caused one of the train to personate the
administrator, and forbade his decease to be made
known on pain of death, until in conjunction with
Suanto Sture he had secured the castle of
Stockholm, where the latter was elected guardian,
January 21, 1504. Steno Sture was buried in the
monastery of Gripsholm, which he had founded.
His only son Maurice had died in 1493 ; one
daughter Bridget, a nun in the convent of
Vadstena, lived till 1536.
Suanto was son of Nicholas Sture’, the ancient
comrade in arms of the deceased administrator, of
the family of Natt och Dag. What is said of his
election, that it was " not conformable to the old
laws and customs of the landmay be set aside
as indifferent, since his title merely imported that
he was now the most powerful man in the kingdom.
Even of Steno the elder, Olave Peterson relates
that the peasants gave him their votes for a cargo
of German beei’, an assertion for which the
chronicler incurred the severest displeasure of king
Gustavus I. Suanto Sture was a valiant warrior,
of a bounteous and cheerful disposition. It was
said of him proverbially, that no one was admitted
into his service who was observed to wink
before the blow of a battle-axe, and that he would
rather strip himself of his clothes than suffer a
fellow-soldier to go unrewarded. He is censured
as having looked chiefly to the weal of the soldiery,
but his government was one of almost incessant
war. The people ascribed the public calamities to
the circumstances of the time, and gratefully
remembered on the other hand how the
administrator, on entering the cot of a peasant, greeted
the owner, his wife, and his children, with a grasp
of the hand, sat with them at the same table, and
inquired after their affairs with good-natured
courtesy. His assistant in the government was
Hemming Gadd 2 ; a priest by vocation and learn-
’ Joannes Magnus.
2 He had been Steno Sture’s agent in Rome for nearly
thirty years. Pope Alexander VI. styles him, in a letter of
14U9, Cubicularium nostrum et Vice-Regis et regni Suecite
apud nos oratorem constitutum. In 1501 he had been elected
bishop of Linkoping, not, as Botin says, against the will of
the chapter, and at the command of Alexander VI., but by
the chapter, and against the pope’s order, who had allotted
the revenues of the bishopric to a Spanish cardinal ; hence
in 1506, not only Hemming Gadd himself, but the two Stures,
although Steno was now dead, were placed under the ban of
the church ; the first because he had allowed himself to be
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