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1569.]
Severity of the
conscription.
eric and his brothers.
Oppression of the
house of Sture.
so soon as both men and women and children are
collected in mass to some two or three thousand,
they shall be sent all together by land to Calmar,
and thence in barges and boats to Stockholm ; but
if all do not present themselves with their wives
and children and housemates, then shall all be wasted,
burned, and slaughtered at every foot throughout all
Bleking, seeing that it is better to have a desert than
an enemy’s country 7." Whether these cruel orders
were executed in their full extent is unknown ; but
what was the appearance of Bleking at the end of
the year we may learn from the king’s letter of
Dec. 7th, which says, that only some few peasants
are still remaining there, who had most humbly
begged to be spared, but that he would rather
have Swedes to be the inhabitants of that country ;
wherefore the Smalanders are invited to remove
thither and take up their abode there, possessing the
land for themselves and heirs. Eric made a
triumphal entry on his return to the capital.
The war was waged at once in Sweden and
Livonia, every fifth or third man being taken for
military service. In the year 1561 the king granted
to all the soldiers, so long as they were in the field,
freedom for their property in land, which however did
not overcome the repugnance felt to engage in the
warfare of Livonia. Afterwards the rigour of the
exactions was enhanced. In 1565 twenty nobles,
some of the chief families of the land, were declared
by the royal court to have forfeited their immunity,
as not having performed their due service. In 1566
a royal equerry was condemned to the gibbet and
wheel, because in Sudermania he had enrolled
women for military services, pretending that he had
command thereto, as no more males were to be
found. In 1568, partly from the incursions of the
enemy, partly from the king’s levies, the male
population of one division of East-Gothland had
been so nearly swept off, that Clas Hwit, who had
fdled the office of bishop of Linkoping, being now
dead as pastor of Soderkoping, it was necessary
that females should carry him to the grave from
want of men 8. Therewithal the plague raged; and
among its victims was the heroic Clas Christerson
Horn. Perpetual complaints are made of the total
absence of discipline, of desertion of the standards,
mutiny and outrages of all kinds. All the wants of
the soldiers, even in respect to clothing and arms,
were supplied by requisitions in the country 9, and
the ill-will of the peasants, which in the border
provinces at length broke out, was punished by the
king with the desolation of several hundreds 1. In
general the war was waged on both sides with great
cruelty. The ravages of the Danes in Smaland and
West-Gothland had provoked Eric’s devastation of
Bleking and Scania. Of such inroads the land war
indeed consisted to the exclusion of more important
events, if we except the reduction of Warberg
(Sept. 15, 1565) by the Swedes, and shortly
afterwards (Oct. 25) a victory won by the Danes under
Daniel Rantzau, against numbers doubly superior,
at Svartera in Halland. This defeat, which Eric
caused to be celebrated as a victory, was imputed
by the commander, Jacob Hastesko, to the German
horse and Nicholas Sture’, captain of the royal
body-guard, although Hastesko himself says in a
letter to Sture’, " What I have seen and heard of
the brilliant deeds and gallantry of your excellency
upon this day I will not conceal in its own time."
We come now to the outbreak of that persecution
which had long threatened this family, the most
distinguished in the realm after that of the king. Its
present head, the old count Suanto Sture’, who under
the former reign had given so many proofs of his
fidelity, was recalled in 1564 from his lieutenancy
in Livonia. Of his five sons, Charles and Maurice
were still children, and fated to survive the
misfortunes of their kin ; Eric had been in the service of
duke John, and was thereafter wounded in the
Danish war. Steno fell in the glorious action with
the Danish fleet on the 7th July, 1565 ; Nicholas,
the eldest, at first the king’s favourite, was
subsequently regarded by him with particular
aversion. Astrological whims contributed to the same
effect ; Eric fancied himself to have read in the
stars that a man with light hair would deprive him
of the crown. This sign applied both to duke John
and to Nicholas Sture’. It is certain that after the
captivity of the former the latter was the principal
object of the king’s fear. Yet after the battle of
Svartera young Sture’ continued to be received,
seemingly, with distinguished favour, and was
despatched first to Warberg, and next to the
investment of Bohus. He carried with him one of
Eric’s unhappy instructions, charging him rather
to cut down the Germanic horsemen, who were
summoned to answer for their conduct, than to
allow one of them to escape, and then to ravage
with fire and sword the hundreds of
West-Gothland, which remained obstinate in their
disobedience relative to the works upon the fortress of
Warberg. These were among "the affairs
entrusted to him by the king’s majesty, which he left
undischarged," although the purport of the
instructions is mentioned only in softened expressions
in the indictment thereupon preferred against him 2.
7 These devastations were inflicted under the command
of a brand-master, as he was called, attached to the army,
without whose sanction and that of the general neither
fire-raising nor fire-contributions were allowed. April 12,
1567, a West-Gothic nobleman, Bennet Swenske, was
condemned to death, because in Norway, instead of burning, he
had levied contributions.
8 Rhyzelii BiskopsVronika, i. 127.
9 Among these requisitions, in the year 1563, brandy is
mentioned. In 1567, the king orders that sheep-skins
should be procured for the soldiers against the winter, and
as much brandy as could be had. That it was scarce in this
day we learn frum the fact, that during the Russian war
Gustavus I. sent fourteen awms of Rhine wine instead of
brandy to Wiborg for the soldiery. This liquor however was
known before in Sweden. In the minute-book of the town
of Stockholm for 1198, is entered a privilege for Cordt the
flask-drawer to keep and retail brandy.
1 The Smalanders were punished, according to the king’s
own remark, because in 1566 they had of their own impulse
made^eace with their neighbours the Scanians in the
Hundred of Gbinge.
2 The sentence is of June 13, 1566. The charges were,
that he had not according to orders cut down the German
cavalry, who instead had plundered the country and deserted
to the enemy (thirty-four were afterwards condemned to death
in Stockholm), and that he had not furthered the works at
Warberg or supplied it with provisions. Several sentences
were passed by the royal court for " neglectfulness," (Eric
wished in 1566 to introduce into the Swedish law offences
thus indefinitely entitled,) notwithstanding that the
prosecutor George Person concealed entirely the purport of the
instructions which the accused was said to have left
unfulfilled. In this way was Jacob Brockenhusen accused
December 24, 1566,—a nobleman of Jutland, who had been
made prisoner, and returned to his captivity after failing in
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