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218
New charter of privileges.
House of barons erected. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Consequences of its
institution. 11611—
called for rewards which he least of all men could
refuse, and the conquests of the Russian and Polish
wars supplied new channels for his generosity.
Even the promulgation of the royal minute res-
pecting the privileges of the nobility was dropped.
But that the king did not forget it, is plain from
his own remarks on this subject composed before
his coronation. In consequence of these the coun-
cil altered some points, and the king, having erased
his signature to the privileges of 1611, and caused
the seal to be broken, issued a new charter*. If
this differs in little from the former, yet the whole
transaction indicates, that much of the privileges
was only to hold good until a further arrangement.
In the king’s complaints as to the conduct of the
nobility made at the diet of 1 G17, our attention fixes
especially on the third point ;
" that we have no
clear knowledge of who are rightly franklins
(fraelsemen), whether those only who are called
noblemen and have shield and helm, or those also
who may make their estates freehold under cer-
tain conditions." Herein lay an inducement to the
erection of the Swedish House of Barons (Rid-
darhus), which took place in 1625. The king gave
his assent to the petition of the nobility on this
subject, in recompense of the readiness wherewith
they had received the royal proposals respecting
the maintenance of a standing army, made to the
estates at the diet of that year. At this point
the horse- service virtually ceased to be the gi’ound
* " Animadversions by king Gustavus upon the baronial
privileges, vifritten with his own hand, reposited in the
Archives." Copy (made about 1672) in a collection of re-
cords belonging to the prefect Jiirta. The original was lost
at the burning of the castle in 1697. The first remark points
at sect, vii., which lays down that no nobleman is to be
hound, fettered, or imprisoned, but alway have free conduct
to and from the justice-seat ; whereupon the king writes,
" This strengthens insolence and unright, the chief matter
which I am bound by my kingly oath to guard against. If
I t.hould swear to this point, which strips law of its authority,
it would follow therefrom that I promised to suppress all
wrong, and yet punish no nobleman for his offence, which
were two contraries that fit but ill, and would make such an
oath grievous for me. For this reason a change is needful."
The council and nobles bind themselves to alter this, so that
a nobleman should have no safe conduct, or bail of nobility,
when he was caught in open and grave delinquency. In the
same manner servants and peasants of the nobility, taken in
the fact, might be apprehended by the king’s officers and
lodged in the royal prison, if they were taken without the
jurisdiction of the castle where the husband (or master of the
house) inhabited; if within it, they were to be committed by
the king’s bailiffs to the prison of their master until the next
court-day.
" Now if change be admitted in this point," adds
the king,
" it may have place in others ;
as herein, that I
shall be bound to reveal what is said to me in confidence;"
meaning secret complaints and charges against the nobility.
This was altered to the effect, that the king should not leave
unpunished those who spoke any thing against a knight or
nobleman which touched his honour and good repute. As
matters fit to be changed the king further notes, abuses with
the grants of crown fines, whereby many offences, even such
as concerned life, were concealed for the sake of fines ;
land-
trade and fisheries which the nobility unlawfully pursued ;
the extensive right of patronage (jus patronatus) by the no-
bility in the appointment of ministers; the erection of new
seats by the gentry, with illegal protection for artisans and
exemption from portage and lodgment; crimen laesae majes-
tatis, referring to the plots of Sigisniund’s party, which before
the coronation were particularly rife. He adds, lastly,
"that privileges must only be granted salvo jure tertii."
All these points the council pass by, but comment on the nine-
of freedom of nobility ’, and the old contest re-
garding it became at least of smaller importance.
Nobility, as completely hereditary, was separated
from the other gentry, although left open to merit of
every kind ;
but its destination mainly for warlike
objects continued the same, and hence in Sweden a
standing army and a permanent house of barons
were contemporary institutions. Whatever may be
objected against the first strong aristocratic pre-
ponderance in this house of barons (whence after-
wards arose within it those dissensions, which
imder Charles XI. broke the power of the nobility),
this on one side is a result of the precedence once
ordinai’ily enjoyed by the great families over the
inferior gentry, and still supported by public
opinion ;
and on the other a proof that this war-
like prince, though reigning in a military monarchy,
yet did not strive after absolute sway. What he,
looking into the future, designed by the great dig-
nities wherewith he surrounded his throne, what
he purposed by the nobility of Sweden, is for the
rest as uncertain as what he intended with Sweden
itself. Every where we find the tracks of great-
ness, but no end of the way, scattered premises to
a conclusion cut off by death. That he held con-
trol over his work (which without him became
something entirely different in character), is certain.
After his time it was common to seek in the course
of his government grounds for upholding the claims
of the nobility. In this respect, the aristpcrats of
teenth section of the privileges, that although the peasants
of the nobles, settled within the mile round their mansions,
should have immunity from portage and lodgment, such
should not hold with respect to the peasants on their fiefs.
The Attestation of the Council and Nobility anent these
changes was issued on the 26th October, 1617 (Widekindi,
p. 431), but they did not receive the seals or confirmation ot
the council separately before July 17, 161!) (Palmsk. MSS.
t. 153). It is therein stated that after they had given np
their earlier privileges, his majesty had for these alterations
promised them another charter, revised and improved,
which they were to obtain under his majesty’s secret sanc-
tion, whence we should conclude that the new privileges
were not yet subscribed in 1619, Meanwhile, the alterations
first solemnly confirmed by the council in 1619, were literally
introduced in the charter of 1617, as printed at Stockholm
in 1634 by Ignatius Meurer. This is dated at Upsala, Oct.
8, 1617, which cannot he correct. On this day the king was
not at Upsala, whither he proceeded on the 10th Oct. from
Stockholm to his coronation, which took place on the 12th
Oct. (See Widekindi, 431 ; Hallenberg, iv. 628.) The pri-
vileges thus appear, when the royal signature was afterwards
attached, to have been antedated, and a mistake made as to
the day ; for it is not an error of the press, as in the charter
of Christina that of 1617 is cited with the same date. The
dispute as to whether the charter of 1611 was actually sub-
scribed (see Widek. 23 ; Hallenberg, i. 252), is decided by a
copy, preserved in the collection above-mentioned, of a state-
ment by secretary Eric Simonson Wynblad, that the king
had transmitted to him, through his chancellor, the privileges
of 1611, to which he had set his name. Before the burning
of the castle, Palmskbld had seen the cancelled privileges,
with this testimony, in the Archives. JISS. t. 116.
5 To the house of barons all fines for neglect of horse-
service were awarded. This had been lowered in 1622 to
500 dollars rent ; of the poorer nobles two, or at most three,
might join to keep a horse. A new ordinance respecting the
horse-service was issued in 1626. In the same year the king
wrote to the lieutenant of Livonia, that noblemen who were
not rich enough to ride for their estates, should place them-
selves in his own company of body-guards, that no one
might escape from his service ; it was such court service he
desired, but no waiter!:. Hallenb. v. 451.
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