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214 Policy of t]ie crown with
reu’ard to the HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
feudal prestations of
the nobility.
[1611—
but with how great a train a baron should present
himself for the service of the crown at the muster,
seems to have been a matter left to his individual
sense of honour; at least we are acquainted with
no determination of the point supjilied by elder
times. Such, according to the letter of the law,
was the knight-service of the nobles for their own
estates. Scarcely better does the right of the crown
to that which was to be performed in respect of
fiefs appear to have been satisfied; since a com-
petent witness declares that the horse-service in
general, and consequently also that for infeudations,
before the time of Gustavus I., was performed
" at
will and convenience *."
Gustavus Vasa first in Sweden redressed the old
wrong-doing in tallages and immunities; the one by
assessment after the extent of land, the other by
settling the horse-service according to a fixed rent,
both from mherited estates and fiefs ^. This the
nobles seem never to have forgiven him ’. Nor
did they submit obediently to his behest ;
for the
king’s complaint, that knight-service was "
very
defectively performed," continues throughout his
whole time. He was obliged to devise other ex-
pedients; and that he ascended the throne with the
notions of a Swedish nobleman, is shown even in
the method he took of aggrandizing his kingly
power. Thereto appertain his endeavours to be-
come himself the largest landed proprietor in Swe-
den, and his many breeding-farms in all parts of
the country, on which he maintained an armed
force of his own, as the nobility did the same for
their own behoof upon their manors. It is related,
that still in his day the lord Steno Ericson Leyon-
hufvud had eight or ten noblemen in his own house-
hold, and rode out with a hundred horse, and that
others of his compeers, as Suanto Sturg, Peter Brahe,
Gustave Johnson (Roos), and Gustave Olson (Sten-
bock), never came to a diet without having all toge-
ther a strength of six or seven hundred horse.
These statements we take from the treatise, anent
" what advantages the old families erewhile had
above the common franklins or gentry 2." It ap-
pears to belong to the period when Charles IX.
completely broke the power of these families ; but
this lamented change, which was properly the con-
8
Compare above, c. xii.
9 This settlement was made at Westeras in 1525, and
several times afterwards during the same reign.
’
See count Brahe’s complaints, 1. c.
2 Palmsk. MSS. t. 152, p. 277. This armed following of
the magnates (de Storas) may explain the custom of ap-
pointing several castellans, or commanders, to one fortress.
It increased the garrison by the retinue or servants of each,
and they besides kept watch on one another. This usage
still existed at the commencement of the reign of Gustavus
Adolphus.
3 An expression of Axel Oxenstierna in this sense, when
afterwards Christina offered him the rank of duke, is well
known. In the council he said (1640),
" The nobles and
knights (adeln och ridderskapet) of Sweden have equality of
privileges, and are peers in their own right (jure proprio
aequales), although we may fall down and rise up. Even
so have the Poles (the Polish nobles) equality of privileges;
the least of them brags of this, that he is a Polish knight
(eques Polonus), in the stirrup from his mother’s womb."
Palmsk. MSS. t. 190. (The magnanimous reply of the great
chancellor, and of count Brahe, to the proposal of queen
Christina, alluded to by professor Geijer, is thus given by
Arckenholtz :
" Both the one and the other thanked her
majesty very humbly for the honour she wished to confer on
version of the old king-nobles into a monarchic
nobility, first appeared in full operation with Gus-
tavus Vasa and the hereditary settlement, although
the principle had been acted upon from the time of
Magnus Ladulas. The transition shows itself in
manifold guise, and not least in the augmentation
by the kings of the so-called " common gentry
"
(gemena fralset), which was a nobility by royal
patent. Bnt even the higher nobility was trans-
formed after a like fashion; for this was the mtent
of the degrees of count and free baron by royal
grace, first introduced by Eric XIV. ; wherefore
it was long the mode with the great families to
look upon these dignities with indifference, and in-
stead to talk of the ancient parity of the Swedish
nobles^. The kings took them at their word,
maintaining on their own side that nobility enjoyed
its privileges solely because every Swedish noble-
man was born to the service of the crown, and had
no right to shrink from performance, which Gus-
tavus Adolphus called " to lie at home among the
sweepings*." Therefore we find from many pa-
tents of nobility in this period that he who was
raised to this order gave a written engagement to
let himself be employed in what the king charged
him withal. The less the equestrian service an-
swered its object (complaints touching its negli-
gent performance are continually repeated), the
more stress was laid upon these wider maxims.
They concerned indeed the military service more
especially, but they received witliin that field an
extended application. King John III. declared in
1573, that every nobleman, who was more than
seventeen years old, and unable to discharge his
horse-service, behoved, if he would retain his
shield of nobility, at least to serve for pay; since
in the service of the crown he must be *. Charles
IX. required that all sons of noblemen when they
had reached the lawful age, even those whose
fathers had been beheaded or banished, should
come to the weaponshow and follow him to the
war"; wherefore we hear henceforwards of noble
volunteers and "
younkers of gentry ’," who served
as common soldiers, even on foot and for pay.
The right of earning exemption for gavel-lands
them and their families, and entreated her to consider that
all this sort of titles were so great a charge to the state, that
they thought, in place of multiplying them, it would be more
fit to suppress them all, namely, those both of the counts
and barons, replacing the order of nobility on the footing
where it stood when the monarchy was elective ; that it was
solely virtue and personal merit which made a difference
between men ; that no jot of this was to be found in vain
and unknown titles; that they believed the services they
tried to render to the state brought them enough of honour,
and that they hoped their children would endeavour to make
themselves useful to their country, without needing to be
incited thereto by any other recompense than the glory of
fulfilling their duty."
—Meraoires concernant Christine, i.
405. T.)
"
Register for 1626, p. 214. (Perhaps with reference to a
Swedish proverb,
"
They that lie among the sweepings
(sopor), are cast to the swine." T.)
5
Hallenberg, i. 153.
6 " Ye may tell the sons of Gustave Baner, and others of
the nobility who have sons, of the lawful age and able for
our service and the crown’s, to come hither along (att de
ock komma hit med)." Minute for some of the Councillors
of State, Ap. 24, 1611.
’
Hallenberg, i. 156; iii. 7, note a. (Adelsbussar is the
word in the text. Suss, Ger. bursch, is lad or fellow. T.)
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