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1543.] His surrender and imprisonment. GUSTAVUS VASA. THE REFORMATION. The king’s conference with the Dalesmen. 123
no effect. And when Christian himself, in an
incursion into Bohusland, met with an obstinate
resistance from the inhabitants, the prompter of
these deceitful hopes, to which the invader had
yielded credence, was obliged to expiate his
misrepresentation with his life. The headless body of
Thure’ Jenson was found one morning upon the
road in Kongelf.
The common danger accelerated the adjustment
of particular differences between Sweden and
Denmark. Bohusland, of which Gustavus had kept
possession for ten years, was again given up to
king Frederic in May 1532, and the settlement of
the claims which both parties preferred to
Gott-land was postponed. The two kings formed a
league for mutual defence, and a Swedish force
entered Upper Norway. The fate of Christian was
soon decided. His ships were burned by the
united squadrons of Denmark and Lubeck. On
one side was a hostile fleet, on the other the castle
of Aggerhus, which was still in the hands of tlie
Danes ; his troops mutinied from hunger and
want; and in pursuance of a convention he
surrendered to the comma nder of the Danish squadron,
bishop Canute Gyllenstiern, stipulating for a safe
conduct to Denmark, in order that he might
nego-ciate in person with his uncle, king Frederic, to
whom he was coming, as he phrased it, like the
prodigal son ; if no amicable compromise of their
disputes could be effected, he was to be free to quit
the kingdom. The bishop however was declared
to have exceeded his powers ; in his own excuse he
suggested that the conditions, although promised,
need not be fulfilled. So bitter was the hatred of
the grandees against Christian, that king Frederic
was obliged to give a written assurance to the
nobility of Denmark and Holstein7, that lie should be
kept in perpetual imprisonment, the document
being committed to the custody of eight barons,
four Danes and four Holsteiners 8. The unfortunate
prince was incarcerated in the eastern tower of
the castle of Sonderburgh, in a vaulted chamber,
of which all the apertures were walled up, one
little window excepted, through which his food was
introduced. In this abode of horror, where a
Norwegian dwarf was his only companion, king
Christian lived seventeen years, the first twelve
without any alleviation of his misery. It was
decreed that a war undertaken in his name, should
once more bring Denmark to the brink of ruin, and
expose Sweden to dangers of the most formidable
kind. His imprisonment lasted in all seven and
twenty years, and was only terminated by death.
After the year 1544, its rigours, at the intercession
of the emperor, were mitigated, and the
renouncement of all his pretensions at length, in 1549,
brought about the removal of the captive to the
castle of Kallundborg, where he received a princely
maintenance, with permission now and then to
divert himself with the pleasures of the chase.
But calamity had broken his strength of mind, and
those attacks of despondency, from which he had
formerly suffered in his most prosperous days,
being now deepened by his immoderate use of the
wines of Italy, in his last years not unfrequently
two or three thousand men conquer all Sweden; such support
did he expect to obtain." Hvitfeld.
’ Hvitfeld says to Gustavus and the Swedish nobility also,
but Gustavus himself complains that in the disposal of
Christian he had not been consulted. Tegel i. 313.
assumed the character of insanity9. His son John,
who was educated at the imperial court, died at
Ratisboti, upon the same day which consigned his
father to a dungeon. Of his daughters, Dorothea
was married to the elector Palatiue, Frederic II.;
Christina first to Francis Sforza, afterwards to the
Duke of Lorraine. These princesses and their
children continued to put forward claims, which
more than once disturbed the peace of the north.
Such being the event of Christian’s invasion,
Gustavus obtained time again to turn his thoughts
to the Dalecarlians, in whose territory all was for
the present tranquil. The Dalesmen, weary of
moving about in arms among their forests, had
made an offer to the king at the end of the year
1531 to redeem their bells with a sum of 2000 marks,
and were the more gladdened by his promise of
pardon l, that they regarded it as a silent confirmation
of their privileges. They celebrated with feasts,
say the chronicles, the old liberty of the Dales.
But the king on the other hand had determined
for ever to extinguish their claims to peculiar
privileges above the other inhabitants of the kingdom;
and he was besides moved anew to indignation
when the miners set at nought his summons to
defend the kingdom against the attack of Christian,
and held communications with his runaway
subjects2. These mutinous excesses were ascribed
more especially to " Magnus Nilson with his
faction," who, the real instigator of the bell-sedition,
was at that time the richest miner in the
Koppar-berg, and of whom it is popularly said, that he shod
his horses with silver. In the commencement of
the year 1533 Gustavus cited his own retainers,
with those of the nobility, to meet at Westeras.
No man knew against whom this armament was
really directed, although rumour spoke of new
com-plots by the factionaries of king Christian. To his
captains the king’s injunctions
were—’’Wheresoever ye see me advance, thither haste ye speedily
after." The expedition took its way to the Dale
country, whose inhabitants had lately sent
representatives to Westeras. These the king detained,
and in their stead despatched proclamations to the
Dalecarlians, purporting that " he well knew that
little of what had happened could be imputed to
the common people ; he came only to hold an
inquisition upon the guilty, whom it was meet they
should cast out from among them." He invited
them all to come to a conference at the Kopparberg.
The king arrived as soon as the letters, and the
commonalty assembled, some with goodwill, others
by constraint. Troops, as on the previous occasion,
encompassed the assembly ; first several lords of
the council spoke to the people, afterwards the
king himself. He questioned the Dalesmen;
whether they remembered their promise made six
years before, when he had pardoned the revolt
then commenced ? Whether they supposed they
might play this game with him every year with
impunity ? This bout should be the last. He
would suffer no province in his dominion to be
hostile ; for the future theirs should be either
obedient, or so desolated that neither hound nor
8 Holberg, Dannemarks Riges Historie, 2, 2G6.
s Id. 2, 378.
1 Reply to the letter of the Dale-folk, November 7, 1531.
Reg. of the Archives.
2 This is slated in the sentence of the delinquents, Tegel,
1, 322.
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