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92
II. THE SWEDISH PEOPLE.
The Ornässtugan. Wooden house in Dalarne, from the loth century.
The mighty national awakening which thus rallied the Swedish people to fight
against the Union, powerfully contributed to the development of the culture and
social conditions of the country. Weapon in hand, the peasant had incessantly
to defend his own liberty and that of his country; and it followed, therefore, as
natural consequences, both that lie succesfully retained the seat and vote he
had previously had in the Iliksdag (or Parliament), and also that the influence
of the Estate of the Peasants at these meetings was often the predominating
one. With this secure basis for their power, the Stures were, so to speak,,
uncrowned kings; and under their hands the fabric of the Swedish commonwealth
was built up on an ancient national foundation. For the most part, too, they
held their own against the Danish kings, even when the latter received the help,
as not unfrequently happened, of an important part of the Swedish Nobility,
and of the Clergy.
After the last Protector of the name of Sture, or Sten Sture the Younger,
had lost his life in 1520, in a battle against King Christian II, the last-named
monarch once more succeeded in restoring the Union. But in consequence of
the insane deeds which began with the "Massacre of Stockholm", and caused
several hundreds of the best men of Sweden to be treacherously put to death,
lie made his rule so detested that, in a few months, the whole of Sweden was
again in a state of insurrection. This time it was the renowned Gustavus Vasa
who placed himself at the head of the war of liberation; and with the successful
completion of the war, and the proclamation, in 1523, of Gustavus Vasa as
King of Sweden, the days of the Kalmar Union were past for ever.
The period we have just described belongs undoubtedly to the most romantic
epochs of the history of Sweden. The Peasantry’s Period of Greatness (1434—1543)
is not less full of general human interest than the almost contemporaneous and
similar period in Switzerland, although not so well known as that. The constant
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