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132
End of his
schemes.
history of the swedes.
The king’s
covetousness.
[1544—
like many of the rest, had been hitherto unknown
to the country, and appears to have awakened very
great alarm, since among the accusations of the
peasants, from which the king was obliged to defend
his German chancellor, we find the complaint, that
they had no longer liberty to bake and brew in
peace 6. The police was to be managed by a "
ritt-master" (who was likewise to be an
assistant-councillor), with "a moveable troop ;" they were to be
distributed on the public high-roads, where " they
were to question every one of his occupation and
business, arrest suspected persons, and demand
way-bills or passports from foreign or internal
traders." Whether this constitution, with its police,
was ever brought into practice may be doubted.
Not long after it was framed, the last great
rebellion broke out, produced among other causes by the
levy of that aid which the king with his council of
government was empowered by its provisions to
decree, and the new plan of taxation adopted in 15407.
Three years afterwards Conrad von Pyhy was
overthrown ; of whom the king declared " that he had
meddled much to the loss rather than the behoof of
ourselves and of this realm 8." On his return from
an embassy to France he was charged with bigamy
and also with embezzling a large sum of money,
was stripped of his offices, and ended his days in
prison in the castle of Westeras.
That Gustavus himself would have long consented
to entrust his authority in the provinces to an
administration so composed seems the less credible,
as he loved in all such matters the shortest way,
namely, that of personal interference. The
immediate relation in which he stood to his bailiffs never
left much power to the possessors of the great fiefs,
who were likewise the king’s lieutenants. Their
power over his own peasants he expressly restrict-
ed 9, and his private estates were now very
numerous in all parts of the kingdom. Being related
to the principal families of the country, he could
personally profit by the authorization he had
procured for the nobility to resume possession of family
property that had been allocated to the church, of
which indeed he had himself set the example. In
consequence, many a nearer claim was obliged to
yield to that of the king, and we find it even stated,
"that his majesty often accounted himself related
to one and the other, who could by no means be
brought into his genealogical table1." Hence the
heritable estates of Gustavus, which comprised
2500 manors in the hands of Charles IX.2, not
including the share which John, duke of
East-Gothland, then possessed, were for fifty years after the
death of their owner the subject of continual
disputes and claims for restoration. They were not
merely increased by the expedient mentioned ; the
transactions of his reign supply abundant proofs
that the king sometimes demanded estates and
houses from the proprietors for a promise of
compensation, which was not always fulfilled, sometimes
received them as presents from persons who were
not the proprietors 3, and sometimes appropriated
them solely because they lay convenient for him 4,
to effect which violent measures against the
refractory were not always spared 5.
With all his kinsmen the king had controversies
as to the inheritance of property. He regarded
himself, moreover, as heir-general to all the plate
and moveable goods of the churches, convents,
and ecclesiastical foundations, not forgetting even
copper kettles, and tin cupsG, took the place of
the bishops as co-heir to all clerical estates, and
was not content with the smallest share 1. When
6 Letters of the king to the hundreds lying about Upsala,
1540.
7 This undoubtedly is included among the " intolerable
burdens and taxes " of which the people complained,
according to the king’s letter to the commons of Upland in 1540.
The Smalanders, after the revolt, were exempted from this
aid (again imposed at.the diet of Linkoping in 1544) with
the assent of the council and the nobility, but were obliged
in return to give the king several thousand oxen as an
atonement.
8 Letter of January 4, 1553, to Lars Siggeson Sparre. The
king was equally dissatisfied with Pyhy’s successor in the
chancellorship, Christopher Anderson Rod, who wrote
himself Artium liberalium magister, as well as councillor of state.
He escaped to Lubeck and died abroad. Gustavus did not
again fill up this office.
9 Letter from Upsala, April 14, 1541, that not they who
possess fiefs, but the king’s own bailiffs, should collect from
his peasants the so-called yearly foddering; a contribution
which arose in this way, that horses were distributed to the
homesteads to be supplied with fodder.
1 Manuscript relation of the church estates, already quoted,
made by Ornhielm, by order of Charles XI.
2 Letter of Charles IX., distributing the hereditary estates
among his sons. Nykoeping, March 31, 1610. Registry in
the Archives.
3 " Further his majesty caused various estates to be
reclaimed for himself, yet with no other intention than that those
concerned should receive full compensation in other estates,
which nevertheless was long deferred, and during the life of
his majesty never was brought to any performance ; besides,
it happened that one and the other made over his pretended
rights to different estates to his majesty, who thereupon
took possession, although it was afterwards found that those
who made over the estates had no right to the same." After
the king’s death complaint of such practices was made at
the diet of 1561. Ornhielm’s Relation.
4 To Nils Person, in relation to some lands with extensive
oak woods, which belong to Dame Brita, relict of Lasse
Anderson. " We will that thou, for our behoof, shouldst
take the said lands under thy charge, and lay tax on them."
Vadstena, April 8, 1550. Registry in the Archives.
5 To Simon Nilson, that he should release from prison
Peter Olson of Skeke, since he gives up a farm to the king.
September 14, 1559. Registry.
6 In the instruction for his bailiffs in the district of Upsala,
June 1, 1548, they are required to make search where the
copper and tin vessels in the guild-chambers of the hamlets
had been conveyed. It is there also ordered that all
forest-pastures, as also all good fisheries in lakes and streams,
shall be vested in the lieutenancy, or care shall at least
be taken that the castle shall have its part in them; the
bailiffs are besides forbidden to brawl with, threaten, or
oppress the peasants ; neither may they drink over-deeply.
7 Lars Erson, bailiff in West-Gothland, had requested to
know the king’s will, in relation to 200 ounces of silver and
500 marks in money, which master Mans Ambiornson in
Skara had left. The king, although he was remembered in
the will, (it was now common for both clergymen and
laymen thus to dispose of some portion of their effects,
formerly demised to the Church,) replies, on the 21st March,
1544, that when in former times rich clerks had left such
inheritances, the bishops used to grasp nearly all. The heirs
might give in a memorial as to their sentiments in regard to
the evangelical doctrine, and the king would consider the
matter further. He did not always wait for the death of
the owners of inheritances. He writes to the bailiff at
Ste-geborg, July 29, 1544; " We have understood that the fat
master Peter, who heretofore has held the parish of Grenna,
would give up his cure and fix himself on a socage-farm. So
shall he have neither the parish nor the land, seeing that his
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