Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIV. Charles IX. A.D. 1599—1611
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
ICU.]
The king’s negotiations.
His death. CHARLES IX. Spirit of his life and
reign.
209
August, the castle of Calmar was surrendered by
Cliristiaa Som^, a soldier famed for courage uo less
than for roughness in the wars of Livonia and
Russia, whom some time before Charles in his
heat had personally maltreated. He now went
over to the enemy ’. Charles, incensed at this
treachery, challenged king Christian, "after the
old manner of the Goths," to single combat ;
if he
came not, then would he not hold the Dane " for an
honourable king and warrior." Christian’s answer
was worthy neither of a king nor of a man, and full
of abuse*. Repeated violent attacks by the
Danes on the Swedish camp at Ryssby were re-
pulsed. Here were now seen both Dutch and Eng-
lish envoys. Extensive negotiations had occupied
the king in his latter years. In 1608 he had sent
ambassadors to the states of the Netherlands, then
upon the point of concluding their contest with
Spain. They were to represent, that the cause in
effect concerned all powers and princes who were
opposed to
"
papistical superstition and Spanish am-
bition," and were to solicit through the States the
mediation of Spain in the war with Poland. If it
ended in a peace, the king would wish to be com-
prehended therein ;
for the war between Sweden
and Poland, no less than that between the States
and Spain, was carried on for religion. If peace
with Spain were nut made, Charles would support
the States yearly with 1000 men on horse and foot,
in return for the liberty of exporting salt from the
Netherlands 3. In 1610 he sent Gustavo Ericsou
Stenbock and John Skytt^ to England, with com-
mis"sion to seek English mediation in the war with
Poland, and to declare the Idng’s readiness to enter
into a conjoint alliance with England, the Nether-
lands, and France ’
;
and Swedish envoys were al-
ready on their way to Henry IV. for a like purpose ^,
when tidings came that he had fallen by the dagger
of Ravaillac^. Now Dutch and English envoys
essayed, although vainly, to compose the quarrel
between the two Protestant sovereigns of the
North. Charles left his camp to hold a new diet.
He fell sick on the way, and died at Nykoeping, the
30th October, 1611, sixty years old.
" The historian should write truth," he himself
7 He wrote afterwards to the king, that he would never
return to Sweden so long as doctor Nicholas Chesnecopherus
and the secretary Eric Elofson reigned there; and would as
little suffer the many boxes on the ear which he must expect,
at their instigation, to receive from the king. Werwing,
ii. 243.
8 E. g.
" We perceive that the dog-days are not yet fore-
spent in thy hams. Thou oughlest shame thee, thou old
fool {geek, gowk), to attack an honourable man. Perhaps
thou hast learned this from old women, who are wont to use
their jaw." Charles’ challenge is dated. Camp at Ryssby,
Aug. 12, 1611 ; Christian’s answer, At our Castle of Calmar,
Aug. 14, 1611.
» Instruction to Jens Nilson, gentleman of the court, and
Augustinus Cassiodorus, the king’s secretary, to the States
of the Netherlands, Orebro, May 4, 1608. Reg.
says in his Rhyme Chronicle. So too have I to
the best of my ability sought impartially to pour-
tray the youngest and greatest son of Gustavus ; in
many qualities his father’s heir, in others both
below, and perchance also above him. Only one
feature is to be added, since even on the brink of
the grave it still strikes the eye in him, and since in
some measure it should mitigate our judgment of
his blood-stained path : it is his inborn striving to
grasp across every limit, beyond every goal to set
another. He battled for himself a crown. At this
point another would have halted ; to him it was so
little the greatest, the sole aim, that he left it less
decided than he might. Whereas the strife ensuing,
which from Sigismund’s slowness and irresolution
might, for some time longer at least, have been
ivaged by words and manifestos, he straightway
removed out of Sweden to Livonia, Poland and
Russia ;
nor did the outbreak of war with Den-
mark prevent him from mustering as it were in his
last gaze the members of a future league against the
Papacy and the house of Hapsburg ; as in his tes-
tament he especially recommends to his children
friendship with the evangehcal princes of Ger-
many*. Thus in the soul of Charles, perchance
more than in any of his contemporaries, laboured
the burning future, which burst forth in the Thirty
Years’ War ;
and not without significance was he
wont to obsei’ve, laying his hand on the head of the
young Gustavus Adolphus,
" llle faciei" (he will
do it). Such men verily there are, full of the here-
after, who, with or without their own will and
uitent, carry the nations onward at their side.
Except his father, no man before him exercised so
deep an influence on the Ssvedish people. More
than a hundred years passed away, and a like per-
sonal mfluence was still
reigning upon the throne
of Sweden. The nation, hard to move save for
immediate self-defence, was borne along, unwilling
and yet admiring, repugnant yet loving ;
as by
some potent impulsion, following her Gustaves and
Charleses to victory, fame, and to the verge of perdi-
tion. This is neither praise nor blame ;
but so it
was. And as I write the history of the Swedish
people, I feel as strongly as may be, that it is the
history of their kings.
’
Instruction, March 19, 1610. Reg.
^ Instruction for Abraham Ericson Leyonhufvud, Olof
Strain, and doctor Jacob Dyk, envoys to France, March 19,
1610. Reg.
3 " Is said to have been made away with by the practices
of the Jesuits," writes Charles to his envoys, June 4, 1610.
Reg.
1 We exhort our well-beloved wife and child, as also the
high-born prince duke John, to be instant in maintaining
that friendship, which we have cultivated with the high
lords aforesaid (namely, the elector palatine Frederic V. and
the landgrave Maurice of Hesse\ and other evangelical
princes of the Roman empire. King Charles IX. ’s Testa-
ment, Aug. 12, 1605. Stiernman, i. 611.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
