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172 Crown-rights over the nobility. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Treatise of Count Brahe. [1569—
hold by horse-service ; but in general he laid so
much stress upon the privileges of nobility, that
estates gained by the unnoble through marriage
with nobles were declared to be forfeited. The
relations of the nobility to the princes produced in
Sweden the first inquiries regarding the mutual
relations of the powers (as they were called) of the
state ; and Eric Sparre"s treatise, " Pro Rege,
Lege, et Grege7," is in this sense the first essay on
the Swedish constitution. Its fundamental query,
What are the king’s legal rights admitted by the
people ? is as yet indeed in its cradle, but still is
discernible in such a shape as was comprehensible
by the most cultivated among the grandees of this
period. The author, going through all the statutes
passed in the time of king Gustavus respecting the
succession, (of which the first passed at Orebro in
1540 is mentioned slightingly, as not having the
consent of the estates, and " devised by a frivolous
busy-body, Conrad of Pyhy," with outlandish
ceremonies,) seeks to show that neither in these nor in
the duke’s letters of investiture, nor in the king’s
testament, was any one of the rights of the crown
called regalities given away, nor could they be
given away, because this was against the law of
Sweden. Herewith the nobility spoke the word for
a struggle which, a hundred years after, under
Charles XI., was to crush its power, and already
under John received an unlooked-for application.
In the outset these maxims were well liked by the
king, even with their aristocratic appendages. The
treatise was really a defence of his ordinance issued
at the diet of 1582 in reference to the king’s rights
within the principality. Of this he caused the
council of state and nobility to pronounce a special
confirmation, thereby even sanctioning the
conclusion of Eric SparrtS, that although the
hereditary settlement and the testament had diminished
the lawful rights of the crown to the advantage of
the princes, the explanation of the law belonged to
the same authority which had made it, namely, to
the king, but with the council of state and the
nobility. Who else should adjust such disputes ?
Did not king Christian and king Charles
appeal-before the council of state in Calmar ?—The
example was suspicious. It is worthy of remark
likewise that the regalities of the crown in Sweden
ai’e further explained by the German feudal law,
or, as it is here styled, the imperial law. The
Swedish nobility of the principality are compared,
in relation to the knight-service, with the
immediate nobility of the German empire, which,
although dwelling under reigning princes, was yet
only bound to perform military service for its head.
One evident object of this tract is to place the
chief nobles, as far as possible, on an equal footing
with the dukes. On the contrary, it was Eric’s
purpose to depress the latter, if possible, to the
level of the nobility, when he created in Sweden
counts and barons with hereditary fiefs. We
see that this measure may bear a double
interpretation.
There exists another not less remarkable book,
which sets before us the Swedish nobleman of those
times, namely, " Count Peter Brahe, whilorne
Steward of Sweden, his CEconomia, or
Household-Book for young nobles, written anno 1585 s."
His view is thus stated by himself: " In what
manner the children of nobles may be well reared
in discipline and instruction, until they come to
mature years, and how they afterwards should
preside in house and hall, thereupon have many in
divers ways written long and much in foreign
tongues. But since of this kind no writings at all
are to be found in our language, which natheless
worked no little harm, for that in so long a time
many young nobles were thereby sorely neglected
and cast in the background, who else might well
have arrived at authority and great consequence ;
therefore is this work simply and shortly set down,
to the end that they who would know, and yet take
not pleasure in much reading, may the sooner
peruse it and the better remember. Amend it who
will and can." He next follows the young
nobleman in his education and upon journeys, to court,
and into affairs of state and war, lastly to the
bridal and the government of a household. His
rules of morals he draws mostly from the Bible and
the ancient Romans ; his domestic counsels from
proverbs and maxims which are still current in the
mouths of the Swedish peasantry. We see the
nobleman of that day in the midst of his
house-folk, his dependents, his fields and meadows, his
various arrangements at different seasons of the
year, even his daily occupations—from the Monday,
when he himself holds inquest and court-leet in his
hall, hearing suits and complaints, and giving orders
for the labours of the week, to the Sabbath, when
he hears mass and sermon, reads the Bible, and
exhorts his inmates to order and good morals. It
is an honour-worthy and well-principled book, full
of patriarchal simplicity. The author was sister’s
son to Gustavus Vasa, the same who has described
for posterity, with admiration and reverence, the
personal appearance of the great king. And yet
he cannot conceal his longing after the old times,
the days of the union in Sweden. This happiness
first vanished before the tyranny of Christian, and
afterwards never returned. " What liberties," he
complains, "the baronage and nobility of this realm
beforetime enjoyed, thereof few now can tell ; few
are they who yet remember that time, when the
spiritual and temporal lords had themselves full
kingly rights over their own peasants ; when every
man did knight-service after his own will and con-
7 " This is reason and document, gathered from all the
hereditary settlements of king Gustavus, that the rights of
the king and the crown, which are termed regalities, must
be preserved to them, over all Sweden." The tract is said
to have been printed, but so far as is known to the present
author, no one (not even Warmholtz) has seen it in any
other form than manuscript. Eric Sparre, born in 1550, was
son of the friend and comrade in arms of king Gustavus,
the high marshal Lawrence Siggeson Sparre, and was
councillor of state and vice-chancellor in 1582. He was
beyond comparison the most learned man of his rank in
Sweden. He kept up a correspondence with learned
foreigners, particularly with David Chytraeus, who has
made use of his statements in his own Chronicon Saxonise.
King James VI. of Scotland made Eric Sparre a baron, on
account of his distinguished natural gifts and his connexion
with the blood royal, and acquaints king John therewith
by-letter of the 23rd of June, 1583. When John in 1590
incarcerated Sparre, he tore up the Scottish patent of barony
before his eyes.
6 Printed at Wisingsborg in 1687, under the care of his
grandson the steward, count Peter Brahe the younger. The
old count is styled in the letter transmitted to Rome by the
Jesuits of Stockholm, " vir ad Catholicam religionem valde
propensus," and letters from Cardinal Hosius to him exist.
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