Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. Gustavus Vasa. The Liberation. A.D. 1520—1523
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
1523.]
Proceedings of
Christian.
GUSTAVUS VASA. THE LIBERATION.
His flight.
Gustavus king.
107
to the pangs of hunger, deprived the garrison of all
spirit for further resistance.
That monarch, after having caused so much
bloodshed in Sweden, had made a splendid visit to
his brother-in-law, the emperor Charles V., in the
Netherlands, to solicit the arrears of his queen’s
dowry, and obtain assistance from the emperor in
his quarrel with duke Frederic of Holstein, his
uncle by the father’s side, and the llanse Towns.
Such was the number and variety of the designs
with which he was generally occupied, and the
impetuosity with which he commenced, abandoned,
then resumed them, that he soon evoked from
these schemes so many weapons which might be
turned against himself. It was to the celebrated
Erasmus that he declared, in the course of this
journey, "men accomplish nothing by gentle means;
the most powerful agents are always those which
shake the whole body 3." He wished to crush the
power of the clergy and nobility, to elevate the
bux-ghers and peasants, break the commercial
power of the Hanse Towns, annex Holstein,
conquer Sweden, and, above all, to rule with absolute
sway ; he wished to effect all this by laws4, schools,
executions, fraud and arms at once, and with a
violence only exceeded, if possible, by the levity with
which he passed from one extreme to another, and
embraced all methods as legitimate. It was the
same Christian who made a papal bull the pretext
for’his cruelty in Sweden, and wished to introduce
the Reformation in Denmark ; the same who
maintained a correspondence with Luther, and called
Carlstadt to Copenhagen, and who, when an
investigation into the murders in Stockholm was
threatened from Rome, made application to the pope for
the canonization of two saints ; the same who raised
his favourite, the universally abhorred Didrik
Slag-heck, to be archbishop of Lund, and afterwards
caused him to be put to death by the gallows and
stake, in the presence of a papal legate, as the
contriver of the massacre 5. One year after this
revolting attempt to rid himself of the imputation,
Christian, just as he was on the point of imposing
a fresh tax for the payment of his newly levied
soldiery, received a letter of renunciation from the
Danish council6, in which they informed him, that
having taken into consideration the rigorous and
dangerous government which had been used in his
time, as also what had been done in Stockholm,
where so many bishops, knights, and good men had
lost their lives without law or right, they dreaded
lest the same fate should at length be brought home
to their own doors " by the instigation of that bad
woman Sigbrit7, who maligned the nobility of the
realm as rogues and traitors, especially seeing that
foreign mercenaries were again called into the
kingdom ; wherefore they disclaimed homage and fealty
to him." The crown was offei’ed to Frederic, duke
of Holstein, who accepted it, and concluded a league
with the Hanse Towns. It was in vain that the
people of Zealand, where Christian had lightened
the fetters of serfage8, and also the nobles of
Scania, took an oath of fidelity to his cause. He did
not dare to trust either his subjects or his soldiers,
collected twenty ships, in which he embarked the
public records, with the treasure and crown jewels,
his consort and child, and his adviser Sigbrit, who
was concealed in a chest. Deserting his kingdom,
he sailed away in the face of the whole population of
Copenhagen, April the 20th, 1523.
Thus ended the reign of Christian II., a king in
whom one knows not which most rivets the
attention, the multiplied undex-takings he commenced
and abandoned in a career so often stained with
blood, his audacity, his feebleness, or that misery
of many years by which he was to expiate a short
and ill-used tenure of power. There are men who,
like the storm-birds before the tempest, appear
in history as foretokens of the approaching
outbreak of great convulsions. Of such a natux-e was
Christian, who, tossed hither and thither between
all the various currents of his time without central
consistence, awakened alternately the fear or pity
of the beholdei’s.
Frederic I., who was chosen to succeed him in
Denmark, wrote to the estates of Sweden,
demanding that in accox’dance with the stipulations of the
Union of Calmar he might be acknowledged king
in Sweden also. They replied, "that they had
elected Gustavus Ericson to be Sweden’s king."
That evexxt came to pass at the diet of Streugness,
June the seventh, 15239. Thus was the Union
dissolved, after it had lasted one hundred and
twen-ty-six years. Norway wavered at this critical
moment, The iixhabitants of the southern portion
declax’ed, when the Swedes under Thure Jenson
Roos and Lawrence Siggeson Sparre had pene-
3 Erasmi Epistolae, Basle, 1533, p. 453.
4 See Christian II.’s so-called Geistlige Lov (Ecclesiastical
Law), given provisionally, May 26, 1521 ("until our dear
lieges the general council of the kingdom of Denmark
shall come together," c. 141 >; and his ordinance or
Verlds-lige Lov (Civic Law), given January 6, 1522 ("with consent
of our dear lieges, the council of the realm"), both last
published by Kolderup Rosenvinge, Collection of old Danish
Laws, Copenhagen, 1824, 4 vols. "He had some intention
also with respect to the law-book of Sweden if time had
suffered." Olave Peterson. It is possible that Gustavus
alludes to this in the Articles of Vadstena of 1524 (Stiernman,
Resolutions, i. 34), where it is said that the law-book should
be amended, as was before resolved upon ; this however was
not done.
5 He was led up some steps to the gallows, thereafter taken
down, and thrown alive into the fire. This took place Jan.
24, 1522.
6 This first letter of renunciation is dated Viborg, Jan. 20,
1523.
7 In a letter of February 5, 1523, king Christian acquaints
his queen with the renunciation of the council. In an in-
closed note he speaks of the universal dissatisfaction with
mother Sigbrit, and requests the queen to receive her into her
own abode at the castle, that she may keep her mouth closed.
How great this woman’s influence was may be seen from a
public rescript dated Copenhagen, December 29, 1522, in
which he declares that Sigbrit Willems had accounted
completely for the customs and finances of the realm, and was
completely free from all responsibility in this respect.
8 The third chapter of Christian’s Geistlige Lov, forbids
the wicked, unchristian custom which had hitherto prevailed
in Zealand, Falster, Lolland, and Moen, of selling the
peasants like creatures devoid of reason, and gives them the
right of leaving their master’s service if he dealt with them
dishonestly, as the peasants in Scania, Jutland, and Funen.
After the dethronement of Christian in Denmark, this law
was publicly burned by the council at the provincial diet of
Viborg, " as a pernicious and destructive law, against good
policy and government." Hvitfeld.
9 Dominica infra octavam corporis Christi, which happened
this year on the 7th June, as is correctly stated in bishop
Brask’s correspondence, Scandinavian Memoirs xvii. 141; not
on the sixth, though this incorrect date appears in
Stiern-man’s Resolutions, and is generally received.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
