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178
Mismanagement and
profusion of the court. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
The king determines
to visit Sigismund. [1509-
himself often altered the value of his gold and
silver coins. He re-introduced the need-money
notorious at the outset of the reign of Gustavus
and under that of Eric, cut with the shears,
and therefore called klippings, which were indeed
called in during the year 1575, but in 1589 again
brought into circulation. By repeated prohibitions
against the land-trade it was thought to encourage
the towns, the nobles having in fact possessed
themselves of it by making great purcliases of the
country wares, often in the name of the crown, and
sending them by the country people to the sea-
coast, where they were bartered for cargoes of
foreign goods afterwards distributed in the same way
thi’oughout the country. These pi’actices,itwas said,
were common among councillors of state, prefects,
lieutenants, justiciaries, and others, who had com-
mand among the rural population ^. To this it
gave little relief that the liing sought to promote
the welfare of the burgher class by ordinances
against luxury, at last so stringent, that on the
27th May, 1589, he imposed on every bvirgess who
indulged his female relatives with silk kii’tles and
satin gorgets, the obligation of maintaining one
pikeman for every piece of such cloth ".
Generally there is observable as much disorder
and want of economy throughout the kingdom, as
industry, sagacity, and frugality in the duchy. In
i
1585 the council found itself obliged to make repre-
I
sentations to the king. In his household and on
his estates they declare thei’e is intolerable excess
of eatmg and drinking; for of pages, lackeys, out-
riders," footmen, and other loose people, who with
wife and children follow the court and lay a heavy
burden on the land, there is no end; in the receipt
of taxes is no order, in the accounts nothing is
clear ;
in Finland no exact system of assessment is
yet applied, and the admeasurement begun in the
rest of the kingdom is not carried out’; the ser-
vants of the king, duke Charles, and also of the
nobility, follow civic vocations, to the detriment of
the towns; the king keeps too manyai’chitects, and
at too great cost, although the crown already pos-
sesses stately mansions enow ;
in the distribution of
fiefs great frauds are practised, and many unworthy
holders thereof might be mentioned ; withal, the
council prays, that the disorders committed may
have a remedy, and that the king may not himself
annul his own commands ^. John took these re-
presentations in no good part. According to his
notion tlie rights of the crown must first be en-
forced, as he showed by the declaration, that he
was compelled by the preparations requisite with a
view to war, to revoke all grants of fiefs made to
the nobility, whether in or out of the council. These
menaces 8, first uttered in 1584, were renewed in
1586 and 1588, and at length carried into eifcct
* See the prohibition hereof, issued in 1583, and the king’s
answer to the remonstrances of the council in Reval.
* The old dress of the burgess dames with "
gorget, cap,
and hood witli a cornet, and a plaited gown of good cloth,"
the king on the other hand does not disapprove. The pro-
hibition above quoted refers to what was called the noble
garb.
’
May 30, 1584, an ordinance had been promulgated for a
new groimd-reckoning and assignment of taxes, as the pub-
lic income ever more and more decreased. Registry.
8 Deliberations in king John’s time. Archives.
« See the Registry for the above-named year. That even
in 1590 they were not executed, we may learn by duke
against the lords of the council, who fell into com-
plete disgrace at the conference of the two sove-
reigns in Reval.
Longing for a sight of his son, disgust and impa-
tience of the business of administration, embittered
more and more the king’s temper ; yet he wished
more than ever, out of displeasure against the coun-
cil, that it should be said he alone governed.
This desii-e was so engrossing tliat he carried about
his person the key of the royal treasury, and not
even a letter-carrier could be despatched unless
the king disbursed the money thereto ’. Yet at
this very time complaint was made, that what had
been collected for the army was squandered on
buildings and costly vessels of plate. The govern-
ment fell really into the hands of subordinates and
adventurers, and ai’ound the king rose up that
government of secretaries which afterwards became
notorious enough in Sweden under arbiti’arily dis-
posed rulers. George Person may be named tire
father of this tribe; and his son Eric Goranson
Tegel 2, with all the merits to which he may lay
claim for his services to Swedish history, was not
very different in character. Men like John Henry-
son and Olave Swerkerson^ afterwards acquii’ed,
in these times of bloody and tedious discord in the
royal family, a mournful influence and a shameful
notoriety.
Towards the autumn of 1588 the rumour went of
a conference fixed between John and Sigismund for
the following summer at Reval. Trusty messen-
gers passed to and fro between the princes; of the
councillors none were admitted into the secret save
Clas Fleming, whohad gained John’s good gracesonce
for all by giving advice against the journey of Si-
gismund to Poland. The others named him there-
fore an untrue broker, and in vain sought from the
royal secretaries an explanation as to that which
was really in progress. It was publicly said in
Sweden as well as Poland that the kings would
conjointly endeavour the conclusion of a peace
with Russia; and John already is.5ued in Novem-
ber, 1588, and repeated in the spring of 1589, (no
mention of participation either by the council or
the estates being made,) summonses to the whole
realm, for a general war-tax in wares, and for
an impost under the name of a voluntary loan. He
likewise exacted from the nobility the full per-
formance of the conditions of their knight-service ;
admonishing them that it would well befit them to
extend it beyond its legal obligation, as the king
himself, in his old age, meant to venture his person
against the enemy, and compel them to an honour-
able peace. The council assembled about the king
in Upsala, conjectured some other "especial and
singular reasons
"
why his majesty should so vehe-
Charles’ answer of the same year to the points of complaint
presented by the council and nobility at Reval : the king,
he says, cannot mannge with his revenues, because land and
fiefs are alienated from the crown ; and where not so much
is granted in fief, more has been alienated in perpetuity by
the crown than under any former reign. Appendix to
Werwing, i. 76, 78.
1
Eric Sparre’s Vindicatory Memoir, pt. ii. MS. in the
Nordin Collections.
s Who wrote the histories of Gustavus I. and Eric XIV.
Thans.
3 Also called Olave Perkelson,(Perkel means devil in Fin-
nish,) and Olave Vendekapa or turncoat. John Henryson
has been mentioned before.
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