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,04 Successes^ the patriot HISTORY OF
as lie advanced. On St. George’s Day, the 23(1 of
April, he mustered his army at the church of
Rom-fertuna. The number is stated by the chronicles at
from fifteen to twenty thousand men 9, yet on the
correctness of this little reliance can be placed, even
if we do not absolutely class this account with those
which compare the multitude of Dalesmen in the
fight of Brunneback to the sands on the sea-shore
and the leaves of the forest, and their arrows to the
hail of the storm-cloud. The liberation of Sweden
by Gustavus Vasa is a history written by the
people, and they counted neither themselves nor their
foes. The army was now divided under the two
generals, Lawrence Olaveson and Lawrence
Ericson, both practised warriors. Gustavus next issued
his declaration of war against Christian, and marched
to Westeras. He expected here to be met by the
peasants of the western mining district from
Lin-desberg and Nora, who had already taken the oath
of fidelity to him through his deputies ; but instead
of this he was informed that Peter Ugla, one of
those entrusted with the performance of this duty,
had allowed himself to be surprised at Koping, and
cut to pieces with his whole forceOn the other
hand, tidings arrived that the peasants on Wermd
isle had revolted, slain a band of Christian’s men in
the church itself, and made themselves masters of
two of his ships. The letters conveying the news,
and magnifying the advantages gained, Gustavus
caused to be read aloud to his followers 2.
Theodoric Slagheck, exercising power with
barbarous cruelty and outrage, had himself taken the
command of the castle of Westeras. He caused all
the fences of the neighbourhood to be broken down,
in order to be able to use his cavalry without
impediment against the insurgent peasants, who, on
the 29th April, approached the town. Both
horsemen and foot, with field-pieces, marched against
them ; and Gustavus, who had interdicted his men
from engaging in a contest with the enemy,
intending to defer the attack till the following day,
was still at Balundsas, half a mile from the town,
when news reached him that his young soldiers
were already at blows with their adversaries, and he
hastened to their assistance. The Dalecarlians
opposed their long pikes to the onset of the
cavalry with such effect, that more than four
hundred horses having perished in the assault, they
were driven back on the infantry, who were posted
in their rear, and compelled to flee along with
them, while Lawrence Ericson pushed into the
town by a circuitous road, and possessed himself of
the enemy’s artillery in the market-place. When
the garrison of the castle observed this, they set
fire to the houses by shooting their combustibles,
and burned the greatest part of the town. The
miners and peasants dispersed to extinguish the
flames or to plunder, bartered with one another the
goods of the traders in the booths, possessed
themselves of the stock of wine in the cathedral and the
council-house, seated themselves round the vats,
drank and sang. The Danes, reinforced from the
9 Some thousands, the council of Sweden say in their
Rescript on the tyrannical government of king Christian in
Sweden, June G, 1523. The Danish account says 5000.
Hvitfeld.
1 Ry the Danish lieutenant Anders Person, who afterwards
gave up the castle of (jrebro, and received a letter of peace
from Gustavus. He was however killed by the relatives of
the slain men six years afterwards.
THE SWEDES. Com^ UpS**™’ [1520~
castle, rallied anew, and the victory would
undoubtedly have been changed into an overthrow, had not
Gustavus sent Lawrence Olaveson, with the
followers he had kept about him, again into the town,
where, after a renewal of the conflict, the foe was
put to an utter rout. Many cast away their arms,
and threw themselves, between fire and sword, into
the waters. Gustavus caused all the stores of
spirituous liquors to be destroyed, and beat in the
wine-casks with his own hand.
The fight of Westeras, from its influence on public
opinion, acquired greater importance than of itself
it would have possessed. Little was gained by the
conquest of the town, so long as the castle held out;
and how unserviceable a force of peasants was for
a siege, Gustavus was often subsequently to
experience. Wherever the tidings of his victory
came, the people revolted, and he was already
enabled to divide his power, and to invest the
castles of several provinces. Siege was
accordingly laid to Stegeborg, Nykoping, and Orebro. A
division of the Vermelanders, with the peasants of
Rekarne, in Sudermania, was employed in
beleaguering the castle of Westeras ; of whose
exploits, however, nothing else is told than that they
shot the councillor Canute Bennetson (Sparre), to
whom Slagheck transferred the command, so that
he tumbled in his wolf-skin coat fi’om the wall
into the stream. Howbeit, another detachment
reduced Horningsholm in Sudermania ;
Christian’s governors in Vermeland and Dalsland were
slain ; the people of the former province, under the
command of their justiciary, prepared for an
attack upon the councillor Tlnird Jonson, the king’s
lieutenant in West-Gothland, and, crossing Lake
Vener, entered that district. In Dalsland, 1500
men took up arms ; several thousand peasants from
Nerike marched across the Tiwed with the same
object3. Gustavus had been obliged to grant a
furlough to his Dalesmen about seed-time ; and to
supply their place, he caused the people of several
districts of Upland to be summoned to assemble
in the forest of Rynmingen, at CEresundsbro ; from
which point his two captains essayed an attack
upon the archbishop of Upsala. It was St. Eric’s
day (May 18th), and a great confluence of people
was present at the fair. An assault was expected ;
for a deputation of four priests and two burgesses,
sent from Upsala to the forest, had received from
the leaders the answer, that it must be Swedes, not
outlandish men, who should bear the shrine of
holy Eric, and that they would come to take their
part in the festival. Bennet Bjugg (Barley), the
archbishop’s bailiff, to show his contempt of such
foes, caused a banquet to he set out in the open
space, between the larger and smaller episcopal
manor-houses of that day 4, where, before the eyes of
the people, he made himself and his fellows merry
till late in the night with drinking, dancing, and
singing. Roused from a late sleep by an assault on
the gates of the fortified house, and finding it beset
by the enemy, they attempted to escape by a
concealed passage, which then connected the bishop’s
2 Narrative of Clement Rer.sel, 1. c. He drew up the
letter, which alleged that he had brought 4000 spearmen
from Germany for the service of Gustavus.
3 See the annotations of Lawrence Siggeson Sparre;
Manuscript in the Upsala Library.
4 The former where the Exercise House, the latter where
the Academy of Gustavus now stands.
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