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1632.]
New administra-
tive offices. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. INTERNAL RELATIONS. Supreme court
erected.
231
mistrust of the council and lieutenants (statlial-
larna), to persons of mean condition, dependent on
the king alone, who though often inculpated, were
yet a necessary evil. Thus matters remained under
the first princes of the house of Vasa, until
Charles IX. broke the old power of the lieutenants,
those "
kings in their districts," as he himself
named them ;
and after him Gustavus Adolphus
ventured to collect around his throne great but
subordinate legal authorities. The tension which
the kingdom felt in all its members required the
reins of government to be tightly drawn. We dis-
cern a sti’icter unity of power in the highest place,
with its inevitable condition, a greater division of
labour in the administration, so far as the pre-
ponderant demands of military affairs allowed, for
the tendencies these impressed on its course over-
powered all other influences. These arrangements,
afterwards developed by Axel Oxenstierna in the
form of government of 1634,
—a complete gradation
of offices, with powers in several respects even
impairing the old political rights of the people,
the five high officers of state at the head of as
many departments, assisted by royal councillors
appointed thereto, and standing boards or colleges,
now first brought into intimate connexion with
the pi’efectures,
—all belong to the period of Gus-
tavus Adolphus, and were already for the most
part reduced by him to practice. The council
again obtained a legal influence ^, which the sove-
reign kept within due limits. New life was in-
fused into the management of the war by the
erection of the war college i. The chancery, which
Axel Oxenstierna calls
" the soul of the kingdom,"
was first regulated by that chancellor 2, who also
founded the state registry •*. The collection of the
taxes was carried on under more precise direction *.
The bailiffs, who had hitherto stood in several
respects immediately under the central govern-
ment, were now placed under the prefects (lands-
hofding) or lieutenants. Yet we still find traces
of mistrust in regard to the latter functionaries,
partly in the shortness of their administration and
the accounts demanded from them, partly in the
9 "
King Gustavus Adolphus did notliing without the
advice of his council ; idea amatiis venerabilis ;
—yet he did
this more in order not to appear the cause of any misfortune
that might befall, than out of necessity." Oxenstierna in the
council, 1642. Palmsk. MSS.
1
Instructions for the War College, 1630; but it was earlier
in operation, and was called the King’s Council of War.
The College of Admiralty was organized under the high
admiral Charles Carlson Gyllenhielni, in 1619.
2 Ordinance regarding offices in chancery, 1612, and further
Nov. 1, 1619. Ordinance for tlie chancery in 1620. Another,
undated, is conjectured to be of the year 1626. For inquiring
into old records and memorials, Andrew Bureus was ap-
pointed antiquary and searcher of chronicles, and received
his instructions, May 20, 1629. His instructions as mathe-
matician were dated April 4, 1628; Fant incorrectly ascribes
his appointment to that office to Charles IX.
3 In former days the chancellors generally kept the records
in their own custody. Charles IX., during the feud with
Sigismund, took them with him to Nykiiping. In the year
1613 the historiographer royal, John Messenius, received the
" old records and secret papers of the chancery," which upon
his disgrace in 1614, were made over to the Secretarius Regni
Michael Olofson, who died in 1615, and after him to Peter
Magnusson Utter, who received his instructions in 1620, and
commenced the arrangement of the documents on the plan
followed out in the state registry under Christina. The
master of the school of Nykbping, Benedict Ingolfson, was
powers with which there was a disposition to invest,
independently of thom, the provincial secretaries
and treasurers ^. The prefect had yearly in the
month of JMay to summon all the bailiffs of his
province to render their accounts before himself
and the treasurer, who at Midsummer gave in the
acquittances to the royal treasury at Stockholm.
In 1023 a state account book began to be kept.
Suits in exchequer matters, which in the outset
were decided by the palace court, were in 1G24
referred to the board of treasury.
For more than half a centui-y the want of a
supreme court had been recognized. The attempt
of Eric XIV. to frame such a tribunal from the
king’s naemnd fell to the ground with him, and
was viewed by the nobility as one of his offences.
The old coui-ts of inquest and ei’ror (Rafst, Rat-
tare-Ting) in the provinces had ceased to be held.
Charles IX. sought to revive them as a supreme
court, and exercised his judicial functions with the
aid of provincial judges, called alternately to his
court. Thus was prepared the institution of the
palace court, which was the work of his successor.
In the ordinance for process of 1614, on which the
king requested the opinion of the estates at the
diet of Orebro, it was laid down that, since the
king could not always take part personally in the
decision of suits, a palace court should be created
at Stockholm, consisting of fourteen persons, namely,
the high steward as president, four councillors of
state, a vice-president, and four assessors of noble
rank, with four learned and experienced lawyers.
The new court, in the chancellor’s inaugural ad-
dress denominated the parliament, was solemnly
installed in the castle of Stockholm, May 19, 1614.
This was the Palace Court of Sweden (Svea Hof-
Ratt) ;
a similar tribunal for Finland was es-
tablished at Abo in 162.3, and by the form of
government of 16.34 a separate court was erected
for Gothland. ’’
V/hat benefits these courts have
conferred," it was remarked after the death of
Gustavus Adolphus’’, "all the indwellers of the
land, high and low, rich and poor, can testify."
called by Gustavus Adolphus to Stockholm, where in five
years, without assistance from others, he arranged tlie
Chamber of Archives "from the scattered accounts which
lay heaped up in two large vaults of the castle, like hay in a
stable." Palmsk. MSS. During the middle age the Registry
was called the Hafdegbmma (Repository of Chronicles), as
we learn from the treatise, On the Government of Kings and
Princes.
> Ordinanceafter which the crown-rents shall be collected,
July 24, 1624. It is to be noted that the peasants had the
right of electing sworn [parish clerks, who were to control
the bailiffs in respect to the just assessment of the ta.xes, and
also of again deposing them. The tax-receiver who de-
manded or accepted of taxes already paid, was to be punished
with death, and the prefect had power to execute the doom
without further question.
* Such was at least Oxenstierna’s opinion,
" that the pro-
vincial administration should consist of a triumvirate, the
prefect, secretary, and treasurer, of whom the two last
should not depend on the prefect, but immediately on the
government ; yet that they, other things being equal, were
to regard the prefect as a vice-king in the province." (Refe-
rente Cancellario Aulico coram Senatu, 1636. Nordin MSS.)
The first instructions for the prefects are of January 8, 1635.
Each had to give an account of his administration at Stock-
holm, yearly about Epiphany tide, was not to hold office
longer than three years, and was afterwards to give a
general account.
6 See the personal anecdotes to his funeral sermon.
L
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