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1629.]
Alliance with the
Netherlands. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. RUSSIAN WAR. Affairs of
Russia. 239
was a point vital to the kinnjdom ;
and tlie people
j)aid for it withal, in the hardest times, the heaviest
subsidy which had ever been raised from the
country. Among the conditions of peace were also
freedom from the Somid toll for Swedish vessels,
and free commerce between the subjects of both
realms.
The United Netherlands had likewise offered
their mediation, but Christian rejected it out of dis-
gust with the States-general. These refused to ac-
knowledge Danish sovereignty in the Sound, brought
objections against the toll, and drew closer to Swe-
den. Tlie negotiations in this view, opened during
the war, occasioned in 1614 an alliance for fifteen
yeax’s, by which Sweden acceded to the league
already formed by Lubeck and the States-general
for the protection of trade; "albeit without preju-
dice," it was added on the Swedish side,
" to Swe-
den’s superiority and lordship over the Baltic,"
thenceforth a standing maxim of Swedish policy.
We remark that by this treaty it is provided that
the States-general and the king of Sweden shall in
future maintain permanent legations each to the
other, a custom now first established. In the fol-
lowing year a special embassy from the Nether-
lands arrived in Sweden. In the envoy’s account
of his audience it is stated, that his majesty stood
before the royal chair with uncovered head, clad
in black embroidered satin, with a mantle of black
silk, by reason of the mourning for his maternal
uncle, the duke of Holstein, who was lately dead ;
above his head was a canopy, on his right the regal
emblems on a marble table with silver feet; the
king was slender of body, well shaped, of pale com-
plexion, and somewhat long in the face, with light
hair, and a beard inclining to be brown; he was,
as men said, full of courage against the enemy, not
vindictive, but very kind-hearted, acute, vigilant,
active, remarkably eloqvient, and worthy of being
loved in his converse with all men; from his youth
great things might be expected ’’.
By this em-
bassy the States-general also offtred their medi-
ation in the Russian war.
The contests regarding the succession to the
throne, which preceded the elevation of the house
(if Romanoff, brought Russia to the brink of ruin.
There has been a time when the Swedes ruled
Neva and Novogorod ;
the Poles possessed Smo-
lensko and Moscow ;
and when, after Warsaw had
seen a deposed Czar led in triumph ^, Stockholm
beheld a Russian embassy requesting a Swedish
jjrince for their grand-duke. This was at the
death of Charles IX. Novogorod had solicited
from Jacob de la Gardie either Gustavus Adolphus
or Charles Philip to be its ruler ;
the choice, upon
the news of the accession of the former to the go-
vernment of Sweden, fell upon the latter ;
and the
greatest part of Russia united, from hatred of the
Poles, in this election. Gustavus Adolphus showed
little alacrity to procure this dignity for his bro-
ther. It is evident that he wished to keep the
opportunity open until, after obtaining peace with
Denmark, he could turn it to the profit of Sweden.
Therefore, as well as from the apprehensions of the
6 Journal der Legatie ghedan 16)5 ende 1C16 Graven-
hagen, 1619, p. 123.
7
Wassily Schuisky with his two brothers.
8 Historia Belli Sueco-Muscovitici, pp. 337. 344.
9 From Stockholm, April 29, 1613.
1
Hallenberg, iii. 50. 1S3.
queen mother, the sending of the prince was de-
ferred ;
and when the young Charles Philip at
length ari’ived,in the commencement of July, 1G13,
at Wiborg, the Russians had already elected at
Moscow Michael Romanoff, then in his sixteenth
year, to be Czar. This, after the overthrow of
four pretended Demetries, was so perilous an eleva-
tion that he wished to flee, and his mother burst
into tears and wailing at the news. The adherence
of Novogorod to the Swedish election was now only
one of semblance and compulsion.
We observe about this time some coldness be-
tween the king and the hero of the Russian war,
Jacob de la Gardie, who, left without support from
Sweden, but long exercising princely power within
the circle of his conquests, was near giving Russia
a ruler, and saw this hope vanish from liis eyes.
The caution with which Widekindi speaks of this
misunderstanding^ shows that the matter con-
cerned the king’s person. Discontent seems to
have been awakened by the fact, that De la
Gardie had devolved, without consulting him, upon
Charles Philip an election for which Gustavus
Adolphus himself was first in question. If this
w-ere so, his displeasure was but momentary. In
his own frank manner the king wrote to De la
Gardie ^, acknowledging that his first view of the
matter was grounded
" on ignorance, and an opi-
nion of the position of affairs caught up in haste."
Befoi’e all he must look to the security and advan-
tage of Sweden. He expected little for Charles
Philip, and distrusted the Russians ;
"
they all
nourish a rooted hatred against every foreign
nation, together with a coarse insolence." "As
soon as our troops are gathered in the country
there," he writes in another letter to the Swedish
plenipotentiaries for the negotiations,
" we will no
longer, as hitherto, let ourselves be di’awn about by
the nose, but know whether they are foes or friends."
De la Gardie is ordered, if the enemy were an over-
match for him, to abandon Novogorod, and attempt
a junction with the king, but first to make the town
and castle useless to them ;
" we depend more upon
you," adds the king,
" and our good folk, than upon
Novogorod ’." He had now, against the repeated
representations of the queen dowager and the coun-
cil, firmly resolved to conduct in person the Rus-
sian war, crossed from Finland to Narva, and
thence proceeded to invest the fortress of Augdow,
which after two assaults surrendered to him by
capitulation on the lOth September, 1614. Ten
days after the reduction of the fort, he writes to
his beloved Ebba Brahe: "Especially do I thank
the Divine Omnipotence, which hath granted me
this honour, that I in your favour have overcome
my foes ^." Ebba Brahe, daughter of the high
steward count Magnus Bi’ahe, was the first love
of Gustavus Adolphus. So much of their corre-
spondence as has been preserved shows incontest-
ably that the king intended to make her the partner
of his throne. Love-songs by his hand remain,
written even during this campaign*. Gustavus
Adolphus loved music and song, and himself
played excellently on the lute*. The severity of
2 Ibid. 258 He used in his letters to intertwine the
initials of her name and his own.
’ Several such are contained in the library of his excellency
count Magnus Brahe, at Sko Cloister.
^ Non solum musicam valde aniplexus est, sed ipse illi
operam dedit, dum nempe fidibus testudinis, reginae quasi
\
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