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I
IRII.]
Tlie king’s relations with
the nobility.
CHARLES IX.
Projects for amending
the laws. 205
empted from the horse-service for two years *. By
the proffer, repeated sevei’al times afterwards, of
abolishing the horse service for ever, if tlie peasants
of the nobles might be assessed in like amounts with
those of the crown, tlie king shook the very founda-
tion (if the privileges of nobility, and hence it was
constantly rejected. The king, on the other hand,
offered freeholds of nobility to all unnoble pei’sons
who would serve with their own furniture on horse
or foot, and thereby make manifest that "the spirit
of the Goths was not yet entirely quenched in their
hearts’." He never confirmed the immunities of
the nobility to the satisfaction of the order. Among
the questionable points of this subject was that
article in the statute of the diet of Norrkoeping,
which provided, that no infeudations of estates by
the king should be valid, unless their confirmation
was solicited and granted on the accession of every
new sovereign. Charles replied to the remonstrances
of the nobility against this enactment, "tliat whoso
misliked it should look how he accepted donations ;
they were forced upon no man ^." Sundry examples
prove that the nobles regarded law and justice as
not binding upon themselves ’. We collect the re-
maining features of the domestic administration of
Charles.
At the diet of Stockholm in 1566, Eric XIV.
had proposed, and the estates had consented, that
the Law of Sweden should be printed, with the
alteration, that the article respecting election to
the crown slujuld be omitted. This resolution was
not carried into efl"ect. Meanwhile the confusion
and dissimilarity of the extant copies occasioned
great inconveniences, and judgments contradictory
of each other ;
wherefore Charles in 1593 referred
it to the council to take order " that no man should
9 Aid for the war granted by the knights and nobles,
Norrkoeping, March 22, 1604. In 1602 a similar agreement
had been concluded for one year. In 1608 the nobility en-
gaged, instead of their horse-service, to furnish horses for
the foreign cavalry. This promise was not fulfilled to the
king’s satisfaction.
" Ye will not ride yourselves," writes
Charles,
" nor do horse-service according to the law ; nor
will ye help by finding horses."
1
In 1606. Werwing, ii. 135.
2 Answer to the memorial anent their privileges, presented
by the nobility. Jenkoeping, March 31, 1609. Reg. The
king says that they ought to be content with the privileges
granted to them at Orebro in 1608.
3 Let one suffice for many. In the Register for 1604,
under the 2d of February, the following singular transaction
appears. Catharine Hans’ daughter, wife of ihe minister of
Farasa, gave in a complaint, that having sent her daughter
Sigrid to the lady Ebba Bielke to service, and wishing to get
her back, especially as her father was now very weak, and
the girl was besides not willing to serve any longer, lady
Ebba refused, and asserted that the girl had been given to
her wholly and solely, concluding with the bishop that he
should deprive the minister, and threatening his family that
she would so manage with her relatives and friends as
they should not thrive. Therefore, because after God parents
are appointed to govern their children, especially while they
are under age, and it is not to be suffered among Christian
people that a man should be sold like an irrational beast ;
and no such serfdom as lady Ebba would practise had been
heard of among (he Swedes since the coming in of Chris-
tianity ; upon these grounds the maiden must be restored.
••
To the council of state, Jan. 14, 1593. Points for the
commonalty and for the council of state, Oct. 4, 1595.
Reg.
5 Charles himself composed
" Reflections upon the Law of
Marriages (Betankande om Giftersmal Balken), how the
have license to write a law-book, unless he had it
in charge from the government, and the same were
i-evised by the council of state;"’ and in 1595, to the
estates at the diet of Soderkoeping,
" that the law
should be examined and amended *." A resolution to
that effect was passed by the estates in 1602, who,
with the king’s consent, appointed divers noblemen
in 1604 to undertake the matter. A code was pre-
pared and submitted for consideration, but with
its tendency Charles was far from being content, as
regarded the power therein assigned to the council
of state; for it was declared that he "must follow
and obey
"
its guidance in what they might find to
be profitable for the king and the realm. He had
therefore himself, with the co-operation of other fit
persons, drawn up another code *, which, on the
other hand, was not very agreeable to the nobility
on account of several of its provisions, especially
that declaring, that "
every nobleman who did
not educate his son, so that he might acquii’e the
learned ai’ts, or be available for military service,
should forfeit his standing as noble." At the diet
of IG09, where the king caused his code to be
read, it was on these grounds rejected, while the
other was not adopted ". It was not until 1734 that
the kingdom obtained an amended law-book. Be-
tween that which Charles IX. tried to pass, and
that which was at length accepted, lies an interval
of an hundred and twenty-five years, and Sweden’s
career of conquest begun and ended ’.
In the administration of the law great disorders
prevailed. The ancient custom of self-vengeance
was yet far from being abolished. Two letters of
Gustavus I. are still preserved, wherein he, on ac-
count of special circumstances, entreats pardon for
homicides from the kinsmen of tlie slain persons ^,
same may be fitly arranged," which are in the Palmskbld
Collections. Acta ad Hist Caroli. IX. t. ii. 151.
6 We refer, in respect to the fact intimated indeed by
Messenius, but hitherto not ascertained, of a twofold code
at the diet of 1G09, to the prize essay in the Royal Academy
of Science, History, and Antiquities, by Hans Jiirta: Essay
at a view of the Swedish Jurisprudence from the accession
of king Gustavus I. to the end of the Seventeenth Century,
which, although not printed, the writer had the goodness to
communicate to us.
’ Before the two above-mentioned new codes had been
proposed to the estates and rejected by them, Charles had
begun to publish a printed version of the ancient laws of
Sweden. The laws of Upland and Eastgothland were printed
in 1607, that of Helsingland in 1609. Then king Christo-
pher’s general Land’s Law was printed, which the king, for
every man’s information, confirmed, Dec. 20, 1008, with the
exception of the church section, whicli, as originating from
Catholic times, was to be used in no court before it had been
revised and amended, and the article regarding the election
to the crown in the king’s section, since Sweden had become
a hereditary monarchy.
8 " It is our royal prayer to you, that ye will for God’s
sake grace him with life, for a fair and just man-bote.
Where we again, in like cases of mercy or otherwise can
hear your petitions, and it may be for your service and profit,
we will gladly do so as a gracious sovereign." This was to a
mother, a poor wom;m at Salberg, whose son, master Eric of
Edby, had been killed by his chaplain. The letter is dated
Temjiore Bri^’ittEe, 1530, and quoted by Eric Sparre in his
Postulata Nobilium. Anotlier examjile is offered by the
Register for 1545, in the king’s letter of July 1, to mistress
Catharine and Jens Laurenceson of Orby, mother and brother
of Eric Laurenceson, who had been killed in the parish of
Vaddce by three brothers, "more out of mishap than pre
conceived will, in drink." These sued for the legal and Chris-
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