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1632.]
Its objects and
organization.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. INTERNAL RELATIONS. Representation of
the army.
219
that day are not always trustworthy witnesses ;
his
courtiers did not entertain the same view. Even
from the better of them we hear, that " he was a
heroical prince, of such a humour, that to subdue
others and aggrandise his own power, he laid hands
on the privileges of others "." The only harsh and
deliberate wrong-doing against a subject which
can be laid to the king’s charge, ^^•as in the case of
a young nobleman who was proud enough to refuse
personal attendance upon him, which he considered
as beneath his rank ’.
In the charter of Gustavus Adolphus, for the
council of state, the baronage, and nobility, to
erect a house of barons in Stockholm *, the chief
points to be noted are the following :
—The whole
baronage, as well old as new, in Sweden and Fin-
land, shall be enrolled and divided into families,
after three orders or classes ;
the first compre-
liending those who have been elevated to the rank
of lords by the titles of count or free-baron, accord-
ing to priority of creation ;
the second those who
can prove that any one of their ancestors was
a councillor of state, whereupon their position shall
be determined once for all by lot ;
the third all
others who serve for their freeholds, and of whom
the elder shall take their places by lot, the younger
according to their patents of nobility. Every
family shall have a seal made for itself, with arms,
and without name, that shall be used only for
statutes of the diet and the sealing of public acts.
The council of the realm to have the foremost seat
in the hall of barons, but without voice, and every
family one vote by him whom it shall choose or
constitute to be its head for the diet ;
all others
(since in the whole baronage he who has come to
lawful years, and has no lawful excuse, must attend
the diet) stand in the hall, to listen and be silent.
He who takes the first place in each class, collects
the votes in a covered vase, counts them publicly,
and delivers them to the land-marshal. The plu-
rality of voices in each class to constitute its vote,
" so that the whole baronage shall consist of three
votes," according to the classes. The land-mar-
shal to have the right of convening the baronage,
of bringing before it the propositions of the king,
of conducting the delibei-ations, of receiving the
votes, and of drawing up the statute by the secre-
8 Words ofcount Peter Brahe in the council, 1636. Palmsk.
MSS. t. 190, p. 449. So too the old hero Jacob de la Gardie
expressed himself; "It was commonly the nature of king
Gustavus Adolphus, of happy memory, that he gladly aug-
mented his regalities and kingly grandeur, but diminished
and cut down the privileges of others."
^ "Our subject Eric Brorson (Ralamb) hath shown dis-
obedience to us (he writes to the council, Hochst, Nov. 19,
1631), and in such sort set at nought our will and command,
that while we sat at supper yester even with divers foreign
princes, and no other was present who might go to the table
and give us due attendance at such a feast, and we com-
manded himself, in order that all might not end indecorously,
to come to the table, and there perform the ordinary fore-
tasting, he gave so little heed to our order, in the presence
of such princes and lords, and being in such need, when no
other was at hand, that on the instant he left the room, and
rendered no further service to us during this repast." The
king commanded him to be sent home and tried; but the
youth escaped, which so incensed him that he wrote home
to order the deposition of Ralamb’s father, Bror Anderson,
then president of the court of Abo, and the sequestration of
his fiefs, for not having better trained his son. Eric Ralamb
died young at Paris in 1635, in the house of Grotius, who, as
tary ;
he is to be nominated by the crown. Sin-
gularly enough, to this office very extensive powers
are generally ascribed, for it is said, that " what
with our permission is enjoined and resolved by
the bai’onage, the land-marshal is to execute, and
no one venture to set himself up against it ; wherein
also our lieutenants in the provinces shall lend
help and hand." The preponderance of the old
families is clear from the reckoning of the votes by
classes, just as that of the nobility generally in the
reserved summons, requiring every man to repair
to the diets ’. It was also the land-marshal, who
with two nobles of each class had to deliver to the
high chancellor the statute of the diet.
The officers of the army continued to be called
to the diets. The statutes were passed in the
name of the " council and estates, counts, free-
barons, bishops, nobles, clergy, military com-
manders, burgesses, and common folk (menige all-
moge) of the realm of Sweden *
;" but the military
commanders, although not named in the ordinance
for the house of barons, were reckoned of the
nobility. The spokesman of the nobility spoke as
well for his own order as for the higher and lower
delegates of the army. In the deliberations which
preceded the king’s coronation,
" the nobility and
war-folk" made conjoint remarks in reference to
the warranty which was to be required of the king,
and the oath of the nobility to Gustavus Adolphus
was sworn by
" Sweden’s baronage and nobility,
military commanders and common war- folk 2."
With all this enhancement of the influence of
the nobility, the king yet possessed, in respect
to all the estates, the power requisite for a ruler,
of having the last word in deliberations and reso-
lutions. This may best be inferred from the Or-
dinance for Diets, passed in 1617, nine years earlier
than the ordinance (ordning) for the house of
barons, because much disorder had heretofore been
at the diets, and many had attended imsummoned.
When the diet shall begin and the estates assemble
in their hall, the king’s chair is to be set foremost,
duke Charles sitting on his right, and duke John
on his left ;
thereafter to the right along the wall
the five high officers of the realm, to the left the
remaining councillors ;
further to the right, on
well as Oxenstierna, highly esteemed him. Adlersparre,
Hist. Collections, i. 151.
8 June 6, 1626. "
Thereby to defend their privileges, and
for the holding of conferences, weddings, and other solem-
nities ;
as also there to institute a school and college for
youth ; likewise that the baronage may assemble at diets
and congresses in their hall, there to consider and deliberate
in order on the affairs proposed to Ihem ; as also that in their
ordinary meetings may come together, as upon a burse, those
who have disputes between them, which are to be settled not
by course of law but by compact, or who have somewhat to
handle among themselves."
9 Axel Oxenstitrna finds herein an accessory precaution.
Among the grounds which, under the government of the
guardians in 1642, the chancellor stated in the council
against the reque>t of the nobility to send their committees
to the diets, is mentioned, that it interests their dignity to
maintain their votes, which is a great dignity and liberty
of the realm, and that they come together to avert much
evil that might befall. Palmsk. MSS. t. 190.
1
So long as the hereditary princes lived, and the queen
dowager was guardian to her younger son, their names
appear first in the statutes of the diet.
2 See the oath in Stiernnian, Resolutions of Diets and
Meetings, i. 728.
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