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208
War in Livonia.
Revolutions of Russia. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Disputes with Denmark.
Invasion by Ciiristian IV. [l.’)99-
17tli, where a Livonian nobleman, Henry Wrede,
saved the king’s life by the sacrifice of his own’.
A revolt in Poland hindered Sigismund from de-
riving atiy advantage from his victoi-y. Negotiations
were begun, but broken off through a misunder-
standing 2, and ended with enhanced exasperation.
The war was prosecuted by the Swedes with re-
newed exertion.s, often unsuccessfully, but dis-
tinguished by individual strokes of the highest
chivalrous valour, which forespoke the brilliant
days of Swedisli military glory.
" God is my wit-
ness,"
—so Nicholas Stiernskold, long besieged in
Dunamunde, made answer in 1609, when the
Polish general Chodkewitz threatened to revenge
his resistance on his captive wife and her children,
—"that I would willingly offer up my life for theirs;
but they belong to me, and the fortress belongs
to my king^."
In Russin, about the same time, the so-called
false Demetrius had mounted the throne by Polish
assistance, and shortly lost again his crown and
life. Wassily Schuisky sought the help of Sweden
against the Poles and the faction of Demetrius ;
and Charles, attentive to all that could obstruct the
plans of Sigismund, promised his support. In 1G07
a Swedish auxiliary force was to set out from
Livonia ;
but this was not effected until I()09.
The young Jacob de la Gardie was now appointed
commander, and an alliance was signed at Wiborg
against Poland, by which the new Czar bound him-
self to cede to Sweden Kexholm with its district.
At the head of little more than 4000 men de la
Gardie and Ewert Horn advanced to Moscow, de-
feated the Poles, and delivered the Czar, who was
beleaguered in his capital. Meanwhile Sigismund
himself had burst with a Polish army into Russia,
besieged and taken Smolensko. De la Gardie pushed
on against the Poles. His troops, consisting mostly
of foreign levies, had often shown a disobedient
spirit. Now, when the pay promised by the Russians
was not forthcoming, they mutinied in presence of
the enemy, and for the most part deserted, after
they liad plundered their general’s baggage, and
forced hira to open negotiations. De la Gai-die
and Horn made with four hundred Swedes and
Finns a wonderful retreat through a hostile coun-
try to the Swedish frontiei*. Russia became the
prey of contending parties ; Schuisky was over-
thrown, a new Demetrius assassinated, Vladislaus
son of Sigisnmnd chosen Czar, and again deserted.
During these troubles, in 1611, de la Gardie made
himself master of Kexholm, took Novogorod by
storm, and concluded a convention by which the
Russians agreed to acknowledge a Swedish prince
as their gi’and-duke. These tidings first reached
Charles IX. upon his death-bed.
At the diet of Stockholm, in 1609, he demanded
fx’om the estates new aids for the war. The un-
’ " Our men ran, and let their backs be hacked like a
flock of hens, fleeing before a small body, where they were
four or five to one, and leaving us on the field. The horse
fell under us, and had it not been for a Liflander, Henry de
Wrede, we should have fallen, living or dead, into the
enemy’s hands." The king’s letter to the council of state
upon the unsuccessful action, Sept. 24, 1605. Aug. I, 1G06,
Charles bestowed several manors in Finland, under the con-
ditions of the statute of Norrkoeping, on the widow and
cliildren of Henry Wrede, "because in the battle of Kerk-
liolm, at the time when we ourselves were engaged in the
field against the enemy, he not only demeaned himself as an
noble orders granted them ; the nobility offered
the tenth part of their revenues, but with certiiin
exceptions, to which the king would not consent,
and the statute of the diet was drawn up in the
name of the priests, burgesses, and peasants, with-
out the participation of the nobility. Irritated both
by this afl’air and by the refusal of the nobility to
adopt his new code of law, the king upbraided the
order with so great vehemence that his emotion
brought upon him an attack of apoplexy. From
this time he,could with difficulty sptnk. His facul-
ties of soul, devoured as it were by their own fire,
were no longer the same. The king’s secretaries,
persons of mean extraction, acquired constantly
greater influence, provoked the wrath of the old
and life-weary monarch, and excited great discon-
tent *. Yet his activity was indefatigable to the
end.
Meanwhile the public dangers thickened. With
Denmark various subjects of quarrel had arisen.
The principal were the old dispute concerning the
three crowns, and the complaints of the Danes that
the king of Sweden prohibited trade to Riga, and
took tribute from the Lapps, who, the Danish sove-
reign maintained, were subject to Norway. These
points of contestation were discussed at conferences
of the plenipotentiaries of both kingdoms, but not
adjusted ;
and Charles at length caused his son,
Gustavus Adolphus, to make a journey to Den-
mark, in order to avert a rupture. But Chris-
tian IV. wished for war, as Charles believed, at the
instigation of malcontent Swedes within and out of
their own country, who represented that the king
was feeble and sickly, his son young and under
age, and a good opportunity at hand of making
some attempt^. Danish manifestos and summonses
to revolt flew about the countr}’. The estates met
again at Orebro in November of the year 1610.
The young Gustavus Adolphus now addressed them
for the first time, for the old king could only inti-
mate his will by broken woi-ds and signs. All
dreaded a fresh war, and wished to obviate it
by
yielding the demands of Denmai’k. But to this
Charles would not listen, and waived the estates
from his presence with indignation ^.
They con-
cluded by granting all tliat he required, appeased
him by a new oath of homage, and engaged to fur-
nish a larger aid than ever had been known before.
In the month of April, 1611, came the Danish de-
claration of war, and although Charles renewed his
overtures of peace, the king of Denmark marched
at the head of 16,000 men out of Scania to Calmar.
This town, after two assaults repulsed, was taken;
the castle still held out; and when the Swedi.sh
army, under the king himself, with Gustavus Adol-
phus and duke John, arrived, several petty skir-
mishes fell out, in which, on both sides, the com-
batants fought with great animosity. The 16th of
honourable warrior, but also, when we were deserted by our
own people, assisted us with his own horse, whereby he was
brought to his own death." Reg.
- See Werwing, ii. 185.
3 Chodkewitz could appreciate this heroic spirit, and gave
the prisoners their liberty. Dunamunde at length fell into
his hands from famine, after a siege of more than a year.
• The court-chancellor doctor Nicholas Chernecephorus,
Eric Elofson, Eric Gbranson Tegel, the historian, and others.
’ The king’s letter to the council, Aug. 10, 1610.
^ Relation anent the diet of Orebio in 1610, by an eye-
witness. Printed in the Stockholm Magazine, ii. 6!I4.
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