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168
Proceedings of the
Jesuits.
history of the swedes.
King John’s
liluigy.
[1569—
Catholicism and Protestantism, which the king
himself was bent 011 treading. The newly elected
prelate subscribed seventeen articles, wherein the
restoration of the convents, the veneration of saints,
prayers for the dead, and the reception of the
ceremonies of the old church, were approved. He was
consecrated in 1575 with full hierarchical pomp.
Then were again used for the first time the
episcopal mantle, mitre, and crosier, which the Swedish
bishops afterwards retained, although at that time
with much opposition from the clergy. By the
king’s express order the oil of ointment was also
employed 011 this occasion.—In the year 1576 both
the Jesuits above-named came to Sweden.
According to their own account3 they concealed their real
persuasion by the royal command ; and in
Stockholm they were received as good Lutherans. They
inspired respect by their learning, caused
themselves to be presented by the priests as teachers in
the new college, which the king had just founded in
Stockholm, and were even admitted thereinto 4.
All the ministers of Stockholm were enjoined to
attend their prelections. In these they appealed
to the writings of the Reformers, but so as to seek
from their contents arguments against them. The
king caused them to hold public disputations, in
which he took part himself, and inveighed
vehemently against the Pope, but allowed himself to be
confuted. Meanwhile numerous conversions were
secretly made. What unworthy means were
sometimes employed, one example may show. The
secretary John Henryson, although a man generally
contemned, had yet for many years enjoyed the
king’s confidence, presided over the chancery, and
was entrusted with the management of secret and
weighty affairs. It was under his direction that
the murder of Eric had been perpetrated. He
lived notoriously with a woman whose husband he
had killed. Both received from father Laurence
absolution and permission to contract wedlock 5 ;
which so incensed the archbishop, that he, by a
special letter to the Jesuit, then rector in the royal
college of Stockholm, forbade him to exercise his
functions, and declared him unworthy of the priestly
office. Scarcely more creditable is the reservation
I which the king himself makes, in his conditions to
Pope Gregory XIII., that the priests should for the
present read inaudibly the invocations to saints and
prayers for the dead in the Catholic mass fi. Yet
for the sake of truth it must be added, that the
Pope disapproved of the hypocrisy of the Jesuits,
and exhorted the king to make public profession of
the Catholic faith if he were in earnest therewith.
Some years afterwards father Laurence was called
to Rome to make answer before the general of his
order 7.
The Mass and Hand-book had already been
published in Swedish by Olave Peterson, and were
afterwards several times printed. They came by
degrees into use ; but it was not yet forbidden to
celebrate mass in Latin. On the contrary, king
Gustavus gave orders that the custom should be
retained where its intermission gave scandal, until
the people were better instructed. The Kirk’s
Ordinance of 1571 still permits Latin psalms and
prayers ; and the Liturgy of king John is in both
languages. It was arranged by the king himself
and his secretary Peter Fechten, after the Catholic
Mass-book approved by the Council of Trent, with
some omissions and alterations 8, printed under the
revision of the Jesuits, with remarks and
explanations intended to pave the way for the
re-accepta-tion of the mass in the sense of a sacrifice, and
appeared in 1576 with a preface by the archbishop,
who therein assumed its authorship. Of the
remaining bishops, only Erasmus Nilson of Westeras,
formerly the king’s court preacher, had sanctioned
it; but even the opposition anticipated was
employed in furtherance of the hierarchical plan.
John seems at times to have meditated the erection
of a Swedish patriarchate with extended authority.
The courtiers openly declared, that it was
obligatory on the Swedish bishops and clergy to obey
the archbishop as their spiritual father ; the others
were styled subject-bishops (Lyd-Biskopar).
Afterwards the king ordained that the election of the
bishop should not depend only on the clergy of a
diocese, but that the archbishop and archchapter
of Upsala should be co-electors. Consent to the
Liturgy was one condition of all ecclesiastical
promotions. The sequel was, that at the diet of 1577,
after the most turbulent among the clergy of
Stockholm and two professors of Upsala had been
removed, all the rest of this class, with the exception
of the bishops of Linkoping and Strengness, and
some few others, adopted the Liturgy, to which
the assent of the secular estates was easily
obtained.
In the previous autumn the king had already
despatched Pontus de la Gardie and Peter Fechten
to Rome. They suffered shipwreck in the Baltic,
3 Scriptum magistri Florentii Feyt reversi ex Svecia
anno 1577 de statu religionis in regno. Ex archivo arris
S. Angeli. Copy in the Nordin Collections.
4 Insinuat se Pater Laurentius in amicitiam Germanorum,
hi enim faciles sunt. Pergit pater ad ministros, sermonem
miscet de variis rebus. Ministri, homines illiterati,
prom-titudinem Latini sermonis et elegantiam mirantur, operam
omnem promi’.tunt; miseri laqueum, quo suspendantur
postea, sibi contexunt. Adeunt regem, commendant virum.
Rex gratam sibi esse commendationem significat; gaudet
in sinu rem dextre confectam. Hanc opportunitatem nactus
rex patrem Laurentium in theologia: professorem cooptavit,
statuens, ut quotquot Ilolmise ministri essent (erant
au-tem plus minus 30) patris lectionibus interessent. Verum
cum Sveci (ut vulgo fertur) tardi sint, factum est, ut P.
Laurentius non nisi Julio mense Stockholmiam lectiones
suas auspicaretur. Porro cum salutis nostrae inimicus
omnem animarum fructum semper impedire contendit,
ex-citavit aemulum quendam P. Laurentio, Abrahamum
(An-gerniHiinum) scholie rectorem : is animos auditorum sub
vertit et alienos a patre fecit. Progreditur tamen pater,
quotquot atfditores veniant, insinuat se in familiaritatem
aliquorum, nunc hunc, nunc ilium, dante Deo, ad fidem
occulte reducit. Ibid.
5 The dispensation itself, dated Feb. 6, 1578, together with
the letter of the archbishop of March 20, is printed from the
archives in Baazius, Invent. Eccl. Svio-Goth. p. 418. "In the
times of the late king John," says Eric Sparre (Postulata
Nohilium), "all was confided in many years to John
Hin-derson. What kind of man he was, was not unknown." He
died of ebriety.
6 Ut Catholici sacerdotes modo abstineant ab illis
orationi-bus alta voce recitandis, qufe pertinent ad sanctorum
invo-cationem et ad orationes pro defunctis, eaeque submissa voce
dici possent, ne quis suspicetur pra;sentem doctrinam
Lu-theri esse tollendam ; hinc enim magnus rumor et bellum
posset excitari.
7 Messenius, Scondia, vii. 50, 75.
8 Circa haec tempora (1576) rex cum praedicto secretario
novam fabricaverat liturgiam. From the account of the
Jesuits abme qu t, d.
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