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ICIl.]
Offer of the crown to the duke.
Military operations in Livonia. CHARLES IX. Negotiations with the Poles.
Visit of Charles to Finland. 199
Unhappy memorials of civil discords, which parted
the son from the father, and stirred up brother
against brother !
At the diet of Linkoping, in 1600, the unnoble
estates and the officers of the army offered the
crown to the duke. The nobility confined them-
selves to a request that he would continue to ad-
minister the goverinnent. On this account the
statute of the diet recommends two courses ;
the
first, to leave Sigismund yet five months, within
which to send his sou on the terms before men-
tioned ;
the second, forthwith to bar from the
throne the whole family of John III., that is,
not only Sigismund and liis descendants, but his
younger brother John, who was now a boy of eleven
years old, to whom East-Gothland was guaranteed
for his duchy. For the exclusion of this prince
are alleged as grounds, his youth, the kingdom
requiring a ruler, and the revenge which he might
in future be disposed to exact on his brother’s
account. Tlie estates declare that they had moved
the duke to embrace the second alternative, though
he himself had expressed his ai^probation of the
first.
In letters to queen Elizabeth of England, Charles
declared that the estates had offered hira the crown,
and pressed it on his acceptance, althougli he had
refused it, since it
belonged of right to the young
duke John ’
; yet he would further consider their
request. Charles received ambassadors from both
England and France. Elizabeth, whose alliance he
sought in 1599, declared his cause to be just, and
promised her mediation in his disputes with Den-
mark. Charles lamented on her death the sever-
ance of a long friendship, and showed the greatest
reverence for her memory. Henry IV. sought the
hand of the Swedish princess Catharine for prince
Henry of Rohan, and the answer of Charles, evasive
as regarded his daughter, did not interrupt their
good understanding *. The following j’ear Henry
bespoke cannon and balls from Sweden", and in
IG04 offered his mediation in the Polisli affiiirs.
From Linkoping the estates had sent a new,
although in the opinion of Charles not sufficiently
decided memorial of renunciation to Sigismund,
who for answer threw the messenger into prison,
ceded Swedish Estiand to the Poles, and at the
diet of Warsaw in 1600 and ICOl, obtained the
promise of the estates of Poland to support him in
the war against Sweden. Charles, convinced that
every delay upon the path he was treading was a
retrograde step, resolved to seek out his enemy.
After he had obtained at the diet of Linkoping an
engagement that every province should henceforth
maintain a certain number of troopers and infantry,
he crossed in the summer of 1600 with a con-
siderable army to Livonia. He had with him his
consort and the young Gustavus Adolphus, whom
he recommended to the estates, in case any
calamity should befall liimself. Livonia was badly
defended, for the Poles were detested ; Reval with
Estiand immediately declared for Charles. In six
months all the Livonian fortresses had been wrested
7 Ad reginam Anglise, May 14, 1601. Ad Robertum
Cecil et Senatores Anglia. Reg. for 1601.
’^
Responsum, &c. Nycopise, May 14, 1602. The duke
would deliberate with his relatives in Germany. The
princess herself answers in a Latin letter, committing the
matter to her father, and sends sable furs in acknowledg-
ment of the presents.
from the Poles, except Kockenhusen, Dunamunde,
and Riga, which Charles, reinforced by troops from
Germany under the command of count John of
Nassau, in person besieged. Diflfei-ences with the
count, who in a short time quitted the Swedish
service, and want of pay for the troops, occasioned
a retreat. Charles’ progress had caused great
preparations in Poland. In the autumn of 1601 a
Polish army, with which Sigismund himself was
present, entered Livonia. He soon, however, with-
drew, leaving the command in chief to the high
chancellor Zamoisky.
" Our king is no warrior,
nor can endure toils and pains," the brave old
Zamoisky said to Charles Carlson Gyllenhielm,
who at the taking of Wolmar fell, together with
the young Jacob de la Gardie, into the enemy’s
hands. The former was the natural son of Charles.
The defence of Wolmar liad excited the astonish-
ment of the enemy, but did not satisfy the severe
fatJier.
" We have received thy letter, Charles
Carlson," lie writes,
" and although we are little
bound to trouble ourselves about thy liberation,
seeing thou hast held out no better, we will never-
theless ascribe to thy youth what hath taken place,
since we have understood from thy messenger,
that thou hast stood one or two assaults. Thou
mayst therefore apply to the chancellor anent thy
release, and request to know, against which one of
those who are in our power thou mayst be ex-
changed ; thereon we will take order that thou mayst
again have liberty ’." This day of freedom was late
in rising. Sigismund’s exasperation had now found
an object on which to wreak itself. Charles Carl-
son Gyllenhielm spent twelve years in a dungeon,
and of these six and a half in chains. In Livonia
almost all the advantages gained by the Swedes
were again lost, while the war filled the country
with the most frightful misery. The Polish general
appeared not dismclined to peace. Had the duke not
attacked Livonia, he said to the Swedish prisoners,
never would the Poles have saddled a horse against
Sweden ^. These overtures and inculpations led
merely to a warm correspondence, in the course of
which Zamoisky at length challenged Charles to a
duel, receiving for answer that he deserved only a
cudgel by way of reply. A truce could not be con-
cluded, because the conditions demanded would have
made the Poles masters of all Livonia.
Charles had gone to Abo with his wife and son,
and there in the beginning of 1602 received the
oath of homage from the Finnish nobility, where,
he says,
"
greater disorders existed than in any
other quarter of the kingdom." Finland, where
Sigismund’s lieutenants had longest ruled, herein
afforded a proof of what might be expected from
the magnates under an absentee king. The people
were sunk in the deepest misery, and had borne
the main burden of the war, while the nobles took
possession of the estates subject to tax, and treated
the peasants almost as the Livonian nobleman his
bondsmen. Between the peasantry of Sweden and
Finland there was a great difference, as Charles
was informed in reply to his demand why the
latter should be exempted from the post-service,
9
Through Andreas de la Fromentie. Charles answers
Henry IV., Nov. 28, 1602, that the dimensions had not been
stated. Reg.
1
Answer to the letter of Charles Carlson, Abo, Jan. 20,
1602. Palms. Collections. Acta ad Histor. Car. IX. t. ii.
2
Werwing, ii. 51.
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