Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIX. Christina's Government and Abdication. A.D. 1644—1654
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
338
Claims of new privileges by
the nobility refused. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Solemn protest by the
three unnoble estates. ’[1644—
many of mean birth were there not who had at-
tained to the most considerable offices ? but tbat
a mail should at once arrive at dignity from the
pepper-bag or mud-cart, was not fitting. The
clergy sought to recover their old dominion, the
burgesses to found a new power ; the nobility’s
right of patronage in the parishes, alleged as a
grievance, was hardly exercised by the twentieth
part of them. The peasantry were misled ;
for
although the nobility had by donations and pur-
chase acquired a large portion of the crown estates,
yet they had never maintained that the yeomen
should be excluded from the diets; these still at-
tended when a diet was called, both the peasants
of the gentry and those of the crown, and the
former had as much to say there as their lords,
albeit, if they staid away, affairs could be managed
as well, and there was hardly in the world a king-
dom to be found where the peasants had any voice
at the diet. Many a nobleman was a good master,
so that the peasants under him stood well ; but
those good men, the soke-peasants of the crown,
had begun for some time to raise their heads, and
were bent on quite despising the other common
people ;
these were they who were employed as
instruments by the exciters of disturbance.
The privileges of the clergy had already been
found a stone of offence at the diet of 1649. The
nobility demanded the maintenance of their right
of patronage unimpaired. The provision contained
in these privileges I’especting the family chaplains
of the magnates, that the bishop should only ap-
point such on weighty and urgent grounds, awakened
disgusts. The queen replied, that the nobility were
bound, when not furnished with legal excuse, to
attend the churches ;
else from the number of chap-
lains the land would be overstocked with clergy who
were not wanted, so that they would eventually be
compelled, to the dishonour of the realm and the
degradation of the order, to settle in farms and
become peasants, and be employed by the nobility
like others of their servitors’. The prospect
opened by the charter of privileges to the sons of
priests, of receiving appointments in the civil ser-
vite if they approved themselves capable thereto,
occasioned a renewed petition by the nobility, that
persons of their own order might be employed in
her majesty’s chancery. The queen,
—who in 1G48,
on creating Salvius a councillor of state, had de-
clared to tlie senate,
" when we ask for good
counsel, we inquire not for sixteen ancestors,"
—
answered sharply, that " offices were no hereditary
estates." On the 10th November, 1650, followed
her public declaration with regard to the word
"ill- born," used in the charter for the nobility;
" that no other persons should be understood
thereby, than such as were degenerate from their
gentle birth, applying to no pursuit of virtue or
honour, and staining their descent by sloth and
vileness ;
that all others of legitimate blood and
respectable ancestry, whether they came of the
nobility, clergy, burgesses or peasants, should
neither be called ill-born, nor excluded from any
station of honour in their native country 2."
The ensuing diet brought the matter to a rup-
ture. Priests, burgesses, and yeomen delivered
to the queen before her coronation, on the 3rd
’
Resolution on the complaints of the equestrian order
and nobility, in 1649. Sliernman.
October, 1G50, the well-known " Protestation anent
restitution of the crown estates ^." After gene-
rally representing
" how for some time scot and
crown estates had been abstracted from the crown
and alienated to divers individuals in permanent
possession ; nay, those held merely by concession-
ary tenure (forlaningsvis) had been appropriated
by means of unreasonable reversions ; whei-eby
the crown had received, instead of secure rents,
uncertain and newfangled imposts for supply of its
necessities ;
while the conquered territories had
been held only nominally for the state, but really
for the gain of private persons; and immediate
vassals of the crown had been changed into mediate
.subjects, to the notable detriment of the realm,
and oppression of the lesser estates;’’ they pro-
ceed to enter more minutely into the abuses thus
engendered; as, "that the innumerable manorial
seats (saterier) enjoyed far too great privileges,
and attracted far too many souls into their de-
pendence ; that churches, hospitals, schools, and
clergymen thereby suffered minishing of their
sustenance, old and impotent soldiers were brought
to the beggar’s staff, many properties fell into the
hands of priests and sextons; that the lords of the
land kept grain at a high price ;
that the sove-
reign could not travel through the country without
its being felt as a burden, since all the royal
manors and granges, whither lie had else resorted,
were made away with ; that the yeomen were
compelled to give up their cattle to the gentry, by
whom they were maltreated, in vain claiming the
protection of the law ;
that many peasants had
thus been reduced to be beggars, and their crofts
changed into meadows, horse-pens, or parks; such
alienation being contrary to God’s own mstitutes
among the Jews, against the law of Sweden, the
testament of king Gustavus I., the statute of Norr-
kceping of the year 1604, and all sound policy
besides, making the regalities which Gustavus had
acquired by the I’eduction of 1627 of no effect, and
the late glorious conquests of no use to the realm."
Therefore they insisted,
" that all crown and scot
manors alienated should be again resumed by the
crown;" demanding therewith for the behoof of
coming time,
" that all such allodial donations be
abrogated; that a court of inquest (rsefste-ting) be
held yearly, to redi’ess what misdeeds might be
committed against the rights of the crown and the
liberties of the commonalty ;
that in the pecuniary
exigencies of the throne no estates should be sold,
but only mortgaged, the yeoman himself having
the first option of advancing the loan; that no order
should engross public employments to the exclu-
sion of others; that no one should intrude himself
into the purchase of gavel-lands, without just claim
of birth-right; that no one should enjoy the salary
of lawman or judge of the hundred without doing
the work; that all, without distinction, should be
partakers of law and justice ; that all private
prisons and tortures, which some exercised against
their peasants, as if they were bondsmen, should
be rigorously forbidden and abolished ; that no
one should possess more manor-houses than was
permitted by the recess of 1562; that the estates
might speak freely and without interdiction, anent
2
Stiernman, t. v.
» Printed by Loenbom. Handlingar till konung Carl XL’s
Historia, ix. 70.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
