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1523.] GUSTAVUS VASA. THE LIBERATION. 97
CHAPTER VIII.
GUSTAVUS VASA. THE LIBERATION.
youth of gustavus. his captivity in denmark and escape. state of sweden under the danish
governors. disturbances. conduct of the bishops and clergy. adventures of gustavus in
dalecarlia. chosen captain of the dales. revolt of the dalesmen. rout of brunneburn.
general insurrection. gustavus administrator. siege of stockholm. flight of christian ii.
from denmark. gustavus chosen king. end of the union.
a. d. 1520—1523.
Gustavus Ericson, as he was called and wrote
himself before he became king, was descended from an
old Swedish family, which had already given
members to the council of state for two centuries The
name of Wasa, which some derive from the estate of
Wasa in Upland, and others, with more probability,
from the family arms 2, was borne neither by
himself nor his forefathers, surnames not being yet in
use among the Swedish nobility. This family was
raised to high consideration by the Steward Christer
Nilson, who aimed at the acquisition of supreme
power for himself, and had a son-in-law and three
grandsons, who actually possessed it, or approached
its attainment3. John, the son of this powerful
noble, allied himself with the family of the
administrator, Steno Sture the Elder, by a marriage
with his sister Brita, which reconciled the patriotic
party to a family that had hitherto zealously
embraced the interest of the Union. The old hostility
of the Vasas, but for some time also both their
influence and their activity, seemed slumbering.
Neither the grandfather of Gustavus, John Christerson,
nor his father, Eric Johanson, councillor and knight,
possessed much weight in public affairs. The latter
was married to lady Cecilia of Eka, who was
likewise of a family which had shed its blood for the
Danish domination in Sweden4.
Eric Johanson is styled " a merry and facetious
lord ;" but in his younger days his temper was
uncontrollably violent. In 1490, at an agreement with
the town of Stockholm in the council-chamber, he
was obliged to sue forgiveness for different acts of
outrage he had committed, and to engage that in
case of wood being cut in his forests, or fish taken
in his waters by any poor peasants, he would not on
1 His oldest seal bears the arms, with the inscription,
Gostaf Ericson. The first of this family who is known with
certainty is the knight Ketil Carlson, member of the
council from 1322 to 1330. Compare Peringskold, Monumenta
Uplandica, 70, and Genealogy (jEttartal).
2 A wase, meaning bundle, and here properly a fagot,
such as is used for filling up ditches, whence the family is
also called Stormwase. Therefore the wase in the arms was
originally black, but Gustavus having given it the yellow
colour, it has since been taken for a wheatsheaf. (Wase, in
the sense of wisp, occurs in Chaucer. The Swedish
orthography of the name is Wasa, the w being pronounced as v,
and now generally retained only in proper names. Trass.)
3 The husband of his daughter, Bengt Jenson
(Oxen-stierna), was administrator in H48; her son was the
archbishop Jens Bengtson, administrator in 1457 and 1405. His
grandsons on the male side were Ketil Carlson, bishop of
Linkoping, administrator in 1464; his brother Eric, in a
letter to his wife, promises that he will in a short time set
the crown on her head.
4 She was daughter of Magnus Carlson of Eka, brother of
the instant " place them in irons, or treat them like
senseless beasts, but allow them their rights in
law 5."
Gustavus, the eldest son of his parents 6, was born
on the manor of Lindholm in Roslagen, then
belonging to his grandmother Sigrid Baner, in the
year 1400, if we may trust the unanimous assurances
of the more recent historians, who claim to know
more than their predecessors ; for these, even such
as were nearmost to Gustavus himself, are
uncertain as to the year of his birth. King Charles IX.,
who himself revised the history of Eric Johanson
Tegel7, where that date is found, assigns to his
father, in the Rhyme Chronicle composed by
himself, an age greater by two years. Peter Brahe 8,
nephew of Gustavus, supposes that he was born in
1495. Other old manuscript chronicles of the reign
of king Gustavus, which differ little from each other,
(they were followed by Tegel, and we have ourselves
compared several of them,) give either the
last-named year, or those of 1497 and 149G, of which
the latter appears to be the correct one. The day
of his birth, however, is better known than the
year ; it was the twelfth of May, " which then was
our Lord’s Ascension Day9." Of all the years
stated, the only one in which this feast falls upon
that day is 149G, and the explanation to which this
points is borne out by several other circumstances.
Gustavus was only a few years old when king
John, during one of his latest visits to Sweden1,
saw him at play with others of his age ; it is said
that, like Cyrus of old, he played the king. John,
as the story goes, patted him on the head, saying,
that "he would yet be a man remarkable in his
days, if he lived," and, it is asserted, kept the boy
Trotte Carlson, a brave warrior, who fell fighting for
Christian I. in the battle of Brunkeberg.
5 Extract from the Minute-book of the town of Stockholm,
in the Nordin Collections, in the Library of Upsala.
6 Magnus, a younger brother, took his designation from
Rydboholm, died unmarried in 1529, and is otherwise
unknown.
1 "So that it may with justice be called bis majesty’s own
work," Tegel says in the dedication of his History of
Gustavus I. to Gustavus Adolphus.
8 In his manuscript Chronicle of King Gustavus, properly
a copy, with additions and emendations, of Rasmus
Ludvic-son’s Chronicle.
9 So Tegel, after the chronicles, although he himself gives
1490 as the year. This date, however, is not more
trustworthy than the account of those same chronicles, that
Christina Gyllenstierna, as consort of Steno Sture the younger,
was present among the elderly dames at the birth. She
was yet a child in the house of her mother, Sigrid IJaner,
and was married November II, 1511.
i In 1499 or 1501.
h
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