Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - X. Gustavus Vasa. The Hereditary Settlement. A.D. 1544—1560
<< 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.
1560.] Public assemblies. GUSTAVUS VASA. THE HEREDITARY SETTLEMENT. Conrad of Pyhy. 131
seen in the various insurrections, with what
independence the communities of the provinces which
were for the time quiet acted as mediators and
negotiators, invited to the office by their sovereign
himself. He ordinarily acknowledged the political
influence of the people by accounts and expositions,
publicly rendered, of the transactions of his
administration. Such statements were made not
merely at the diets, but for the most part annually
at the great fairs, especially in Sweden Proper.
There the democracy was stronger, and the king
either himself attended such popular assemblages,
as those of Upsala, Strengness, and Westeras, to
hold discourses to the commonalty, or excusing his
own absence, he sent some of the council with his
letters for the same purpose. These papers
contain either relations of militai’y occurrences (the
bulletins of the time), and hostile assaults
apprehended, or of the course of negociations, or
proclamations in reference to revolts, or the new doctrine
(which the king would never admit to be new), or
the demands of the people to abide in all by that
which they termed " old and of yore," or accounts
of expenditure, or propositions respecting other
administrative affairs, with not unfrequently good
advice upon domestic economy, intelligence of the
king’s health, and other matters, all in language,
the characteristic stamp of which would alone
have proved that it was dictated by himself, had
we not his own testimony, that from want of
intelligent assistants he usually directed his own
chancery in person 1. His industry, like that of all
men without exception whose activity has
bequeathed any fruits, far exceeded the ordinary
measure of exertion2. He used to say to his
sons : " Give due consideration to all things,
execute them quickly and hold to them, deferring
nothing till the morrow. A resolve not carried
out at the right moment, resembles a cloud without
rain in great drought."
Yet it belongs to truth not to conceal that these
dissimilar sides of his administration sometimes
ran into the two opposite extremes of demagoguism
and despotism, which are besides related to each
other as fraud and force. A policy may be termed
demagogic which deludes the masses in order to
manage them ; and history shows that in all cases
in which these influence the government
immediately, not less than in despotisms, such a policy has
prevailed. In Sweden, where democracy was so
powerful, it had been from of old in use. The
Stur£s were no contemptible masters of the art ;
and bishop Hemming Gadd might have given
lessons to students of its mysteries. This arose from
their position as popular leaders, wielding a power
in many respects indefinite and ambiguous,
struggling against the Union without daring to break it.
The path in which Gustavus moved was more open
and lofty, but even he, especially in the earlier
portion of his career, saw himself obliged to employ the
same methods. No one can fail to observe that the
promises he made in moments of peril were not
always to be relied upon when it had passed away.
The Dalecarlians complained in their first
insurrection that truth was never to be found in him ; the
Smalanders during Dacke’s raid did not confide in
his offers of amnesty. And they were right, for his
mandate to his commanders was to the effect that
"they should deal artfully and tenderly with the
rogues ; they were to undertake and engage to grant
them every thing that was possible, even if they
should not keep what they promised 3."
Throughout some years a foreign influence is
observable in the councils and measures of this
king’s government, proceeding chiefly from Conrad
Peutinger, or, as he called himself, Pyliy. This
man was a Netherlandish jurist, who coming to
Sweden in 1538, won the royal confidence by his
attainments as well as by craft and flattery, and
was advanced to the dignity of high chancellor and
privy councillor of government and war. His long
title may serve as a specimen of the style which,
introduced by him, was long established in the
public affairs of the kingdom, and which shows, above
all, an inexhaustible command of unswedish words
respecting the "high and royal power, authority
and perfection." He was one of the projectors
who, when any thing new is passing, force
themselves upon rulers ; an adventurer, as Luther
afterwards styled him in a letter to the king. It was he
who framed the oath whereby the hereditary
succession was first guaranteed at Orebro in 15404,
for which the magnates could never forgive him ;
he was likewise so odious to the people, who said
that they had got with the Dutch chancellor a
new-king and lord in the land, that Gustavus himself
was obliged to undertake his defence in a public
ordinance. The so-called "form of government for
West-Gothland5," of the above-named year,
exemplifies the constitution which the chancellor designed
for the kingdom. A provincial board, composed of
a lieutenant or under-cliancellor (who was also
called conservator in affairs of religion), four
assistant-councillors or assessors, and a secretary,
under the king and the supreme council of state,
was to preside over the government, the
administration of justice, and also, with the concurrence of
the royal chamber of accounts (kammarrad), over
the management of the rents and estates of the
crown, together with the police. This last word,
1 We find it sometimes observed in the registers, " Scripsit
regia majestas ; dictavit regia majestas ;" the latter probably
was more frequently the case. The king was a stickler for
purity of diction : " Besides, thou mayest tell thy clerk," he
enjoins one of his bailiffs in 1529, " that he should keep to
his mother tongue the Swedish, and not write us jeg for
jag" (I).
2 " I have often spoken with the said king Gustavus, who
was a prince very high and puissant, very active and ready,
taking incredible pains and labour with his affairs. As for his
wit and industry, his great and memorable enterprises, his
prudence in conducting them, as well as the wise
administration and preservation of the said kingdom for so long a
time, and the happy success of his designs, do so commend
him that he ought justly to have surmounted all envy."
Correspondence of Charles Dantzai, minister of France at
the court of Denmark. Scand. Memoirs, ii. 25.
3 Letter to the high marshal Lars Siggeson, baron John
Thureson, with several councillors of state, and chief men
assembled in East-Gothland. Stockholm, August 22, 1542.
Registry in the Archives.
4 " In the time of king Gustavus, Conrad von Pyhy, a
foreigner, was high chancellor, who, against the law and liberty
of the kingdom, was set over all native Swedes ; he brought
in new oaths and ceremonies, as was seen at Orebro, and
took upon himself to make new laws and reform the
provincial governments. So, too, Norman, who wished that the
nobility should hold their estates by feudal tenure, alter the
German fashion." Eric Sparre, Postulata Nobilium, 1593.
5 Stjernman, id. i. 137.
K 2
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
