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204
Charles accepts the
crown. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Arrangements for the
public defence. [1599—
distinguished teachers who infused a new life into
the studies of the place, although their dissensions
excited no small turmoil. The university in fact
obtained its privileges, though not by formal chai’ter.
The college founded by Charles was augmented so
as to receive one hundi-ed students’", and the
academy obtained the right of electing
" a political
personage as chancellor’." In the main question
too he at last yielded, and the Augsburg confession,
with the act of the council of Upsala founded there-
upon, was confirmed in his royal Assurance, given
at Upsala the 27th of March, 1C07.
In the year 1()04 he had at length, upon the
often repeated solicitation of the estates, accepted
the crown*, after they had first, at his request,
offered it to duke J(jhn, who declined it. Gustavus
Adolphus was acknowledged Crown-prince, and his
younger brother Charles Philip’-’ hereditary prince
of the kingdom. In default of male heirs of his
body, or of duke John, the succession was to pass
to the eldest unmarried jirincess. This was the
hereditary settlement of Norrkojiing, by which the
hereditaiy right of the line of Gustavus Vasa was
finally transferred to Charles and his descendants.
Howbeit, Charles was not yet tranquil, nor ever
was. Many ciixumstances, the delay of the coun-
cil in not di’awing up the final letter of renuncia-
tion to Sigismund ’,
the treason of 1C05, the attempt
at assassination in the following year by Peter
Petrosa, a concealed Papist in the service of
Charles 2, generated in his mind impatience, bitter-
ness, and unsteadiness of purpose. In the very
same year in which he assumed the title of king,
we find him making a proposal to the council to
abdicate the government, and grant freedom of re-
ligion, even to the Catholics’, throughout the whole
kingdom, excepting the duchy, which together with
Livonia he wished to retain; and in 160G, when the
estates were again assembled to consider of his
coronation, he anew, accoi’ding to his own written
notes, renounced the government, and committed it
to duke John*. In the year 1607 his coronation
was solemnized with pomp at Upsala; and in 1608
s
Every student in it was to pay one mark, or as after-
wards fixed, half a mark in the week, and Charles aided the
foundation with a sum of 5000 dollars. Ordinance for the
College, Reg. 1G04. The king promised also to supply the
amount, when any good wits were pointed out to him who
could not pay.
’ In 1604 the university solicited Gustavus Adolphus for
the chancellor, to which Charles replied that he was still too
young. In ICOG the king proposes three persons for their
choice, count Abraham Brahe, the councillor Ludbert Kauer,
and the lord John Goranson Rosenhane. Peg. The first-
named was the first chancellor of the university.
8 He styles himself elected king and hereditary prince of
the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals.
9 Born at Reval, April 22, IfiOl. Duke of Sudermania,
Nerike, and Vermeland, June 12, 1610.
’
Emitted in the name of the estates, June 17, 1605.
2 He was a Swede by birth, but educated abroad and em-
ployed on embassies. " Hunc rex Carolus toleravit aliquam-
diu in aula sua. Prodidit autem ingenium’fallax, dum
arrepta occasione solitarium regem crudelissimo ausu perfo-
dere tentavit. Quo cognito rex eum carceri custodiendum
tradidit, qui postea in comitiis ffirebroensibus (1606) exami-
nalus, proditionis convictus et condemnatus est, gravibusque
lornientis cruciatus, scilicet fractis cruribus et brachiis,
tandem cor vivo extraxit carnifex
"
Baazius, 1. c. 662.
(Him king Charles sometimes allowed to be at his court, but
he showed a fal.se spirit, for watching his opportunity, he
he made known his purpose, after the old fashion to
ride his Eric’s-gait, or as the Law-Book says, ride
round his land *, which came to pass in the follow-
ing year. Accounts of the progress of the Poles iu
Livonia and Russia interrupted this journey before
it could be completed.
The war demanded an increase of the public
burdens, and the kingdom needed the relief it
received by several good and fruitful years fol-
lowing 1604 ^. At the diet of Norrkoping the
estates engaged to raise and furnish monthly pay
for nine thousand men on horse and foot, besides
the force which could be maintained from the ordi-
nary revenue. Orders issued a short time before
are preserved in the state registries, for the forma-
tion of a land guard (landtvarn), or militia for
home-service, "seeing we with the troops," says
the king,
" are employed abroad against the enc-
my ’." Those called upon for this duty were to
enjoy certain exemptions from taxes, and to be
free from burdens of purveyance (gastning) and
post-service, which are said by the diet of Norrko-
ping in their statute to be " more grievous to tlie
peasant than all his yearly payments;" on which
account Eric XIV.’s ordinance for the erection of
public houses of entertainment was again revived.
It has been already remarked that from the time of
Gustavus I. there was a species of cavalry distri-
buted and maintained upon the estates of the
crown. Charles regulated this institution, dis-
missed the unserviceable trooper.s, fixed the number
to every standard (one hundred and twenty under
each), the revenues allotted to them in peace, their
pay and equipments in war-time. Every house-
liold-man or trooper with his standard was to have
a good and sufficient horse, a shot-proof harness,
two short and two long guns, a good rapier, good
saddle and gear *. This cavalry of the crown was
tlie best proof of the inadequacy of the so much
contested horse-service of the nobles. Charles like-
wise agreed with the nobility in 1604, that in con-
sideration of their sharing in the aids for the war,
granted by the other estates, they should be ex-
made an atrocious attempt to stab the king, while alone.
Finding this, the king consigned him to prison, and being
afterwards tried at the diet of Orebro in 1606, he was con-
victed of treason and condemned. He was subjected to the
most painful tortures ; his legs and arms being broken, and
his heart, while he was alive, torn out by the executioner.)
3 To the council, auent proposals of peace with Poland.
Reg. for 1604.
" " The 22d March, 160C, I laid down the government,
and committed it to my nephew, duke John. April 1 —9.
All these days proceeded the trial anent the Papists and the
business of their treason : also letters were exchanged be-
tween myself and duke John and the estates, and they urged
that I should remain in the government. But I wished
rather to be rid of it, by reason of their unsteadiness; for
they scarcely keep what they have promised." King Charles
IX. ’s Calendar, 1604 —1606. Miscellanea, t. ii. in the Library
of Sko Cloister.
5 To all the provinces, anent the Eric’s-gait. Nykoping,
May 17, 1608. Reg.
^ These appear to have been general. The same is related
of Russia and France.
7 Warrant for Andrew Styfvert, Linkoping, Jan. 25, 1604,
relating to East-Gothland. Probably the project, of which
no mention is made at the diet of Norrkoping, was not
carried into effect. (Landtvarn, landweir.)
8
Ordinance, how the cavalry shall henceforth he main-
tained. Calmar, Oct. 24, 1603. Compare Werwing, ii. 94.
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