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1592.]
Disputes as to the civil
and ecclesiastical
john and charles.
government, of the
duchy.
1c5
venience, and they had good time and pleasant
days to prepare for their out-march, which yet
never went beyond the borders, while the crown
made compensation for damage suffered by man
and horse ; when the Councillors of the realm and
other chief men enjoyed plenteous maintenance
in land and fiefs from the crown, besides free
sway in the Lawmen’s and Hundred-courts. For
sixty years (he continues, and it is to be observed
that this coincides with the beginning of the reign
of Gustavus) we have lost those privileges, and the
knight-service has been continually enhanced from
time to time, until king John lightened it, and
gave his royal word so to conduct his government
that all, but the nobles in especial, should dwell
under him with pleasure and good will." This
king’s charter of privileges was the more to be
valued as the last remnant of former rights, and
yet would these hardly avert the ruin of the order,
since pomp and show, which had been brought into
the land in the time of the tyrant king Eric, had
made all court-service more costly. Accordingly,
it is added, clothing for hand and foot shall be of
silk and satin, the dames shall be bedecked more
finely, and the table spread with foreign liquors,
fruits, and many dainty meats, and withal shall
there be servants with raiment and wage after the
German fashion, albeit our Swedish ways and
means are little fitting thereto ; wherefore,
especially as the estates are distributed among several
heirs, it is impossible that the order should long
retain its power.
We passover the more trivial differences between
the king and the duke,—as of the latter refusing to
submit to "the king’s intolerable tallages" in his
towns, or to pay the aids assessed in his dukedom
" without being heard thereupon,"—in order to
advert to the chief of the remainder. Among these
was a dispute regarding the judicatory. Of that,
whether in spiritual or secular causes, Charles
claimed the regulation in his own duchy; and here
too we see the privileges of the nobility intervening.
A count had the right of nominating the judge of
the hundred in his county. The king refused the
duke that of appointing the Lawman in his
principality. The administration of the law was, in fact,
in the hands of the nobles : they looked upon the
judicial offices as their property ; appropriated the
fines to which their vassals were adjudged ; and
these old claims are for the most part confirmed by
king John’s privileges. The magnates lived like
petty princes on their manors, and it was not
merely the foreigner, duke Magnus of Saxe
Lauen-burg upon his fief in Upland, who treated the,
peasants almost like bondmen, and defied the king
himself. What, for example, did not a man like
count Axel Leyonhufvud permit himself in these
times against the crown, against his dependents, or
even those who could not be so called 9 ? Charles
was of another opinion than his brother, and the king
gets to remind him, that the privileges of the nobles
were also valid in the principality Even if
harmony could have been restored in reference to the
secular jurisdiction, how was that possible with
respect to the spiritual, or indeed generally, so long as
the first of John’s demands always was, that Charles
should acknowledge his new model of religion and
divine service, while he again had but one answer,
that he would depart not a hair’s breadth from that
plan of doctrine and polity in the Swedish communion,
which had been laid down after God’s word by his
father, who also by his testament made the kings
of Sweden defenders of religion? All negotiations
in this matter between the brothers, conducted
through the council, remained entirely fruitless.
The king ordered the use of his liturgy throughout
his dominions; the duke forbade it within his
principality, adhered to the kirk’s ordinance of the year
1571, supported by his clergy, and gave shelter and
office to the persecuted, " because," he writes to
the king, "we profess ourselves of the religion
by which they hold 2." The bishop of Linkoping,
whom John had deprived, was nominated by Charles
pastor of Nykoping. The theologers of Upsala,
five of whom, at different times, had been removed
and imprisoned on account of the liturgy, enjoyed
his protection, and one of them, Peter Jonson, was
raised by him to the bishopric of Strengness. To
him fled, from John’s wrath, the opponents of the
liturgy among the preachers of Stockholm; and the
most vehement of them, Abraham Angermannus,
whom the king was once minded to wrest from the
hands of Charles by force, was sent at his cost to
Germany, where he published his controversial
writings3. Many retracted the assent they had
given to the changes in divine worship, since the
king’s conduct seemed to imperil the whole
Protestant cause. Reports were circulated in the
country, how the archbishop Laureutius Petri
Go-thus, and several promoters of the liturgy, had
expired amidst agonies of conscience. There were
instances of clergymen who fled with wife and
children into the principality. In the year 1587 it
came nigh the outbreak of a civil war, which was
only averted by an accommodation with the king,
effected the same year at Vadstena, through the
compliance of Charles in almost every point, who
yet referred the religious differences to his clergy.
These condemned the liturgy in a synod at
Strengness. In an objurgatory letter the king styles the
clergy of the duchy unlearned smatterers, ass-heads,
Satanists, and declares them, as the devil’s mates,
outlaws throughout his dominions 4.
9 Compare Fryxell, Stories from the Swedish Annals
(Berattelser i Svenska Historien), iv. 71.
1 Declaration of the king upon the reply of duke Charles
to the articles presented to him by the council of state,
August, 1586. King John’s Registers. May 16, 1588,
Charles writes to Hogenskild Bielke : "Although our dear
brother privileged well the nobility of this realm, and we
were the main helpers thereto, this is yet abused in
manifold ways of you and others. Hereof is no word found in the
charters of the nobility, that their peasants should contribute
not the smallest share to the general weal."
2 To John, for the pardon of master Peter Jonson, and
master Abraham Angermannus, Oct. 4, 1581. Register of
duke Charles for this year.
3 June 2, 1587, Charles writes to master Abraham, to
proceed to Wittenberg, Leipsic, and Helmstadt, and request
the opinion of the theologians regarding the liturgy. In a
letter of April 13, 1581, the duke approves the good and
Christian intent of the clergy of the diocese of Strengness,
to send some pious and competent persons to Germany to
study, in consideration of the want of learned divines in the
kingdom, and the great oppression to which they were sub
jected for religion’s sake. IJuke Charles’ Reg. 1581.
4 Patent against the clergy of the principality, Calmar,
Feb. 12, 1588, printed in the Appendix to the Rhyme
Chronicle of Charles IX. p. 203. In the articles upon church
affairs, which the duke caused to be drawn up at GSrebro
in 1586, it is ordained that a share of the unappropriated
tithes should be applied to the maintenance of students, and
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