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1560.] Military force. GUSTAVUS VASA. THE HEREDITARY SETTLEMENT. Navy, Education. 137
time there was no carriage road between Gothland
and Swedeland across the Tived forest.
Considerations of advantage in war, as well as others, led to
the adoption of this plan ; certain places of arms
were appointed on these military roads, as they
were denominated 3, where the soldiery might
assemble on the appearance of danger, and which
were to be fortified 4. The nobility and the towns
were required to furnish statements of the number
of men whom they could have ready for the king’s
service ; and on a hostile invasion every fifth or
sixth man, or in an extreme emergency, one man
from every house, was to march against the enemy.
Yet the king sought to be as sparing as possible in
these summonses to the people, and he makes
frequent mention of the security which the kingdom
enjoyed under his government, who had but a
moderate army, in comparison with the times of
the Union, when the peasant was so often obliged
to take the field with his wallet at his back.
Towards the end of his reign the military force of
native Swedes, maintained by yearly stipend, or by
quartering them in the towns (burgh-leaguer, as it
was called), amounted to 12,934 foot and 1379
horse, besides 549 foot and 296 horse of the
German companies 5. According to an official minute
respecting the army of his majesty upon the
Russian frontier, October 9, 1555, every " headman
over the soldiers" (captain), among the Swedes,
received a monthly stipend of six marks (answering
to about two and a half silver rix dollars6), every
" order-man" (lieutenant) five, every private four
marks, a horseman with fire-arms eight marks, on
which sums they were bound to subsist themselves,
taking nothing from the king’s subjects. The
horsemen complained that their pay was
insufficient. The trifling difference between that of the
officers and privates is surprising, but the former
had probably several means of increasing their
gains ; and it is plain, from the king’s prohibition,
that undue furloughs were one of these. The foreign
troops had higher pay. In the above number the
nobles, who performed knightservice, are not
included. This obligation was more precisely defined
by the king ; but, notwithstanding that towards
the end of his reign its burden was lightened, it was
never adequately fulfilled. Gustavus also created
struction of the canal of Vaddb, first completed in our own
day, as well as for the establishment of public carriages,
which are still wanting, or have only recently been
introduced, between Fahlun and Westeras, and between
Stege-borg and Vadstena. Register for 1548.
3 Those which led from the then frontier of Denmark, into
the upper country, are enumerated in the statute of Vadstena
of 1559, when the matter was again mooted. Tegel 2, 456.
* Particularly Elfsborg, Jonkoping and Vadstena. The
castles of Gripsholm, Swartsjb, Westeras, Stromsholm,
Kro-nohorg, Upsala, and Stegeborg, were almost entirely erected.
Of this plan the fortification of Upsala (Letter to Master
Pafvel, builder, on his sketch of the proposed works;
Register for 1544,) also formed part, as well as the
establishment of a place of strength in Dalarna. The castle of
Stockholm was likewise enlarged and more strongly fortified by
Gustavus.
s In 1557. Essay on the Military Force of Sweden from
Gustavus I. to Gustavus Adolphus, by C. Adlersparre, Hist.
Vitt. och Ant. Acad. Handl. 3, 307. The quartering of
soldiers was one of the causes of Dacke’s rebellion. " We
feared that it might not be well pleasing to all men, that the
soldiery should be dispersed with the nobles and priests
round about;" the king writes, March 1, 1541. Register.
the first naval force which Sweden possessed;
since before his reign, according to his own
expression, there were but a heap of wherries and other
baubles, serving no purpose of offence or defence 7.
Venetian ship-builders, whom he engaged and
liberally paid, practised and taught this art in Sweden,
and the skill by which the Finns and Norrlanders
were soon pre-eminently distinguished, was the
fruit of his provident care. Several of his ships
were of great size, one being manned with a
complement of 1000 soldiers and 300 mariners8;
another vessel, the Elephant, employed in the
Lubecine war, was larger than any that had ever
been seen in the Baltic. These ships carried a
greater number of cannon, though of smaller size,
than is usual at the present day. In the Russian
war the king also employed a kind of coasters or
gun-boats with from ten to twelve oars.
The older seminaries of instruction had been too
closely connected with the ancient Church, not to
be involved in its downfall. Hvitfeld and
Mes-senius, indeed, state, that Gustavus restored in
1540 the university of Upsala, founded twenty years
before ; and two years previously we find him
complaining that circumstances did not permit him to
accomplish this work, which it was his desire to
effect. In the archives of this reign no trace of its
actual performance is to be found, although they
supply many proofs of the king’s fostering care for
the schools, which, nevertheless, do not appear to
have in all respects answered their object, if we
may judge by the trenchant reproof addressed by
him to the bishops in the year preceding his death,
relative to the character of the persons who were
supplied to him by the schools for the service of the
state9. A learned Swede, who resided abroad,
draws at the same time a dark picture of the
condition of his country in this respect, and concludes
that the large hoard of gold and silver, the military
stores, and the ships, the arms, and fortifications,
were rather detrimental than profitable ; inasmuch
as out of all the bands which the king everywhere
maintained, not without great cost, and to the sore
molestation of the subject, not ten men were to be
found, whose counsel he might employ in the affairs
of his kingdom ; and the same held true of the
nobles, the heads of the Church, and the priests
6 Four shillings and twopence, English money. T.
7 Tegel, ii. 168.
8 Olaus Magnus, 1. x. c. 3.
9 August 16, 1559. Celsii Monumenta
politico-ecclesias-tica, p. 44. Little improvement seems therefore to have
been made since 1533, when the king wrote to all the
dioceses, that the schools had so sadly declined, that where
formerly there used to be two or three hundred, scholars, there
were now scarce fifty; in other places the schools were
completely empty, which was chiefly to be imputed to the refusal
of the people to send their children to school as formerly, or
to give assistance to the scholars by alms, as they were
bound. "How then," he asks, " shall Christianity be
maintained, if none are educated to give heed to it? When your
ministers die off, where will you get others ? Therefore we
counsel and exhort you to place your children at school, and
help those who go there. And if any one shall tell you that
they now teach nothing else but Swedish in the schools,
believe him not. Only be not wanting on your own side,
and there shall be no want of learning." Register for 1533.
1 Letter from Goran Gylte to a Swedish baron. Celsius,
id. 53. The king was himself in correspondence with this
person, whom he supported, as he is also known to have
maintained several students at the German universities. In
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