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GUSTAVUS VASA. THE LIBERATION. Adminiltrnor. 105
, ,„„ , Siege of Stockholm
begun.
house with the cathedral. But the peasants set
fire to this passage, which was of wood, and shot
fire-arrows at the roof of the episcopal residence,
in which the flames soon burst forth. The building
was laid in ashes, and next day the females of the
household, with some burghers of Upsala, crept out
of its cellars, in which they had taken refuge.
Great part of the garrison perished. The bailiff
escaped with a wound from an arrow, of which he
died after rejoining his master in Stockholm.
This prelate, archbishop Gustavus Trolle, had
lately returned from a journey to Helsingland,
undertaken in order to retain this part of his
diocese in its allegiance to the king. Shortly
afterwards, he received by a messenger from
Gustavus, who had himself come to Upsala at
Whitsuntide, a letter exhorting him to embrace the
cause of his country, to which his chapter had
been persuaded to annex a memorial to the same
effect. The archbishop detained the messenger,
saying that he would carry the answer himself. He
broke up immediately with 500 German horse and
3000 foot of the garrison of Stockholm, and had
come within half a mile of Upsala, before Gustavus
received intelligence of his approach. This the
latter did not at first credit, but remained
expecting an answer to his overture of negociation ; until,
about six in the morning, being on horseback upon
the sand-hill near Upsala, the spot where he
afterwards built a royal castle, he saw the archbishop
marching across the King’s Mead (Kungsang)
towards the town. Gustavus had but two hundred of
his so-called foot-goers, and a small number of
horse with him, for the peasants had returned to
their homes. He made a hasty retreat, but was
overtaken by Trolle’s horsemen at the ford of
Laby. Here a young Finnish noble who was next
to him, in the confusion rode down his horse in the
midst of the stream ; and he would have been lost,
had not the rest of his followers turned upon the
enemy with such effect, as to make them desist
from the pursuit.
Gustavus now betook himself to the forest of
Rymningen, raised the peasantry of the adjoining
districts, and sent out the young men under his
best captains to surprise the archbishop on his
return. The remains of cattle slaughtered on the
road betrayed the ambush to the prelate, who
drew off in another direction. He was
nevertheless overtaken and attacked, escaping the spear of
Lawrence Olaveson, only by bending downwards
on his horse, so that the weapon pierced his
neighbour, and brought back to Stockholm hardly
a sixth part of his army. Gustavus followed close
after with his collected force, and encamped under
the Brunkeberg. Four gibbets on this eniiuence,
stocked with the corpses of Swedish inhabitants,
attested the character of the government in the
capital.
Thus began, at Midsummer of 1521, the siege
of Stockholm, which was to last full two years,
amidst difficulties little thought of now-a-days, after
the lapse of ages, and the admiration which men
so willingly render to exertions in the cause of
freedom, have deprived events of their original
colours. The path of Gustavus was not in general
one of glittering feats, although his life is in itself
one grand achievement. What he accomplished
was the cffect of strong endurance, and great
sagacity ; and though he wanted not for intrepidity,
it was of a kind before which the mere warrior
must vail his crest. All the remaining movements
of the war of liberation consist in sieges of the various
castles and fortresses of the country, undertaken as
opportunity offered, with levies of the peasantry,
whose detachments relieved each other, though
sometimes neglecting this duty when pressed by the
cares or necessities of their own families. Hence
the object of these investments, which was to
deprive the besieged of provisions, could only be
imperfectly attained, and there were many fortified
mansions, of which the proprietors adhered to the
Danish party, as that of Wik in Upland, which
remained blockaded throughout a whole year. These
difficulties were the most formidable where, as at
Stockholm, access was open by the sea, of which
Severin Norby, with the Danish squadron, was
master. The scantiness of the means of attack
may be discovered from the circumstance, that
sixty German spearmen, whom Clement Rensel, a
burgher of Stockholm, himself a narrator of these
events, brought from Dantzic in July, for the
service of Gustavus, were regarded as a
reinforcement of the highest importance. " At this
time," say the Chronicles, " Lord Gustave enjoyed
not much repose or many pleasant days, when he
kept his people in so many campings and
investments ; since he bore for them all great anxiety,
fear, and peril, how he might lend them help in
their need, so that they might not be surprised
through heedlessness and laches. So likewise his
pain was not small when he had but little in his
money-chest, and it was grievous to give this
answer, when the folk cried for stipend.
Therefore he stayed not many days in the same place,
but travelled day and night between the camps."
In the month of August, he arrived at Stegeborg,
which was now besieged by his general, Arwid the
West-Goth, who had recently repulsed with great
bravery Severin Norbv’s attempt to relieve the
castle, and had even begun to take homage for
Gustavus from the people of his province, although
in this he experienced dfficulties. The
East-Goths declared that they had been so chastised for
their attack on the bishop’s castle at Linkoping,
the preceding year, that they no longer dared to
provoke either king Christian or bishop Hans
Brask. The personal presence of Gustavus
decided the waverers, and even the bishop received
him as a friend, because he would otherwise have
stood in danger of a hostile visitation. Gustavus
now convoked a diet of barons at Vadstena, which
was attended by seventy Swedish gentlemen of
noble family, and by many other persons of all
classes in Gothland. These made him a tender of
the crown, which he refused to accept. On the
24th of August, therefore, they swore fealty and
obedience to him as Administrator of the kingdom :
" in like manner, " add the Chronicles, " as had
formerly been done in Upland ;" whence they seem
to have assumed that he had already been
acknowledged as such in Upper Sweden, here called
Upland, as we often find it in the Chronicles of the
middle age. This was the first public declaration
of the nobility in favour of Gustavus and his cause ;
although the greatest barons in this division of the
kingdom, such as Nils Boson (Grip), Holger
Carlson (Gere), and Thure’ Jenson (Roos) in
West-Gothland, all three councillors of state, were still
in arms for Christian. That the first-named noble-
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