himself a master of ferocity and bloodthirsty cruelty in Norway and
Denmark, overcame the Swedes and made himself king of Sweden, is a story
of the type of others which we have told of that unhappy land. It must
suffice to say here that by force, fraud, and treachery he succeeded in
this ambitious effort and was crowned king of Sweden on the 4th of
November, 1520.
He had reached the throne by dint of promises, confirmed by the most
sacred oaths, not one of which he had any intention of keeping, and the
Swedes might as well have set a wolf on their throne as given it to this
human tiger. One thing he knew, which was that the mischief and disquiet
in Sweden were due to the ambition of the great lords, and he mentally
proposed to ensure for himself a quiet reign by murdering all those whom
he feared.
[Illustration: SKANSEN RIVER.]
Under what pretence of legality it could be done, and leave to him the
appearance of innocence in the matter, was a difficult question. To
attempt the bloody work with no ostensible motive might lose for him the
crown which he had striven so hard to win, and in the dilemma he
consulted with his confidential advisers as to what should be done.
Some of them proposed that a quarrel and uproar between the Danes and
Swedes in the town should be fomented, which the lords might be accused
of bringing about. But there was danger that such a pretended quarrel
might become a real one, and endanger his throne. Others advised that
gun-powder should be laid under the castle and the lords be accused of
seeking to blow up the king. But this was dismissed as too clumsy a
device.
Finally it was proposed to proceed against the lords as heretics, they
having some years previously been excommunicated by the Pope for
heretical practices. The king, indeed, had solemnly sworn to forget and
forgive the past, but his cunning advisers told him that while he might
speak for himself, he had no warrant to speak for the Church, the laws
and rights of which had been violated. This pretext was seized upon by
Christian with joy and he proceeded to make use of it in a way that every
churchman in the land would have condemned with horror.
On the 7th of November, the day after the coronation festivities ended,
the king proceeded to put his treacherous plot into effect. A number of
noble Swedes who had attended the festivities were brought to the castle
under various pretences, and were there ushered into a large and spacious
hall. With alarm they saw that the doors were closed behind them so that
none could leave, though others might enter.
When all were gathered Christian entered and took his seat on the throne,
with his council and chief lords about him. Archbishop Trolle was also
present as representative of the Church, but without knowledge or
suspicion of the secret purpose of the king, who had brought him there to
sanction by his presence the intended massacre.
The charge which it was proposed to bring against the senators and lords
was that of trespass against the archiepiscopal dignity and to demand
retribution for the same, and this charge was accordingly brought in the
name of the Church. The king then turned to the archbishop and asked:
"My Lord Archbishop, do you intend to have this matter brought to peace
and friendship according to the counsel of good men or will you have it
judged by the law?"
Archbishop Trolle answered, "The offence being one against the Church,
the cause of the accused should be judged by the Pope."
This was a mode of settling the matter which by no means conformed with
the king's intention, and he answered:
"This is a matter not to be referred to the Pope, but to be terminated at
home in the kingdom, without troubling his Holiness."
In this decision he was not to be shaken, knowing well that if the
archbishop's proposal to refer the matter to the Pope were carried out
his secret sanguinary purpose would be defeated. What he proposed was the
murder of the lords, and he had no intention of letting the matter escape
from his control.
Lord Sten Sture, against whom the accusation had been chiefly directed,
was dead, but his widow, the Lady Christina, was present, and was asked
what defence she had to offer for herself and her husband. She replied
that the offences against the archbishop were not due to Lord Sten alone,
but were done with the approbation of the senate and the kingdom and she
produced a parchment in proof of her words, signed by many of the persons
present. Christian eagerly seized upon the incriminating document, as
giving him a warrant for his proceedings and evidence against those whom
he most hated and feared.
All whose names were attached to it were brought up, one after another,
there being among them several bishops, who had taken part in the matter
on patriotic and political grounds, and a number of senators. Every one
tried to excuse himself, but of the whole number Bishop Otto was the only
one whose excuse was accepted. At the end of the examination all those
accused were seized and taken from the hall, the whole number, senators,
prelates, noblemen, priests and burghers, being locked up together in a
tower, the two bishops among them being alone given a better prison. The
true reason for proceeding against the churchmen was that they had been
the friends of Sten Sture and might prefer their country to the king. The
wicked tyrant, who in this illegal manner had sought to make the Church
responsible for his bloodthirsty schemes, hesitated not to condemn clergy
and laity alike, and ended the session by the arbitrary decision that all
the accused were heretics and as such should die.
Irreligious, illegal, and ruthless as had been this whole proceeding,
into which the artful king had dragged the archbishop and sought to make
him a consenting party to his plot, Christian had gained his purpose of
providing a pretext for ridding himself of his political enemies, actual
or possible, and proceeded to put it into execution in the arbitrary
manner in which it had been so far conducted, regardless of protests from
any quarter.
The next day the city gates were closed, so that no one could enter or
leave. Trumpeters rode round the streets in the early morning,
proclaiming that no citizen, on peril of life, must leave his house,
unless granted permission to do so. On the chief squares Danish soldiers
were marshalled in large numbers, and on the Great Square a battery of
loaded cannon was placed, commanding the principal streets. A dread sense
of terrible events to come pervaded the whole city.
At noon the castle gates were thrown open and a great body of armed
soldiers marched out, placing themselves in two long lines which reached
from the castle to the town hall. Between these lines the accused lords
were led, until the Great Square was reached, where they were halted and
surrounded by a strong force of Danish soldiers. Around these gathered a
great body of the people, now permitted to leave their houses. Alarm and
anguish filled their faces as they saw the preparations for a frightful
event.
On the balcony of the town hall now appeared Sir Nils Lycke, a knight
newly created by the king, who thus addressed the agitated multitude:
"You good people are not to wonder at what you now behold, for all these
men have proved themselves to be base heretics, who have sought to
destroy the holy Church; and moreover traitors to his Majesty the King,
since they had laid powder under the castle to kill him."
At this point he was interrupted by Bishop Vincent from the square below,
who called out indignantly to the people:
"Do not believe this man, for all he tells you is falsehood and nonsense.
It is as Swedish patriots that we are brought here, and God will yet
punish Christian's cruelty and treachery."
Two of the condemned lords also called out to the people, beseeching them
"never in future to let themselves be deceived by false promises, but one
day to avenge this day's terrible treachery and tyranny."
Fearing an outbreak by the indignant people, if this appeal should
continue, the soldiers now made a great noise, under order of their
officers, and the king, who is said to have gloatingly witnessed the
whole proceedings from a window in the town hall, ordered the execution
to proceed, Klas Bille, an official, placing himself to receive the
golden chain and ring of each knight before he was beheaded.
The prisoners implored that they might confess and receive the Holy
Sacrament before they were slain, but even this was refused, and Bishop
Matthew was led forth first. While he was kneeling, with clasped and
uplifted hands, two horrified men, one of them his secretary, rushed
impulsively towards him, but before they could reach the spot the fatal
sword had descended and the good bishop's head rolled to their feet on
the ground.
They cried out in horror that this was a frightful and inhuman act, and
were at once seized and dragged within the circle, where they would have
suffered the fate of the victimized bishop had they not been rescued by
some German soldiers, who believed them to be Germans.
Bishop Vincent next fell beneath the encrimsoned sword, and after him the
senators, seven in number, and thirteen nobles and knights of the senate.
These were followed by the three burgomasters of Stockholm and thirteen
members of the town council, with fifteen of the leading citizens, some
of them having been dragged from their houses, without the least warning,
and led to execution. One citizen, Lars Hausson by name, burst into
tears as he beheld this terrible scene, and at once was seized by the
soldiers, dragged within the fearful circle, and made to pay by death for
his compassion.
With this final murder the executions for that day ended, the heads being
set on poles and the dead bodies left lying where they had fallen. A
violent rain that came on bore a bloody witness of the sanguinary scene
into the streets, in the stream of red-dyed water which ran down on every
side from the Great Square.
On the next day Christian said that many had hid themselves who deserved
death, but that they might now freely show themselves for he did not
intend to punish any more. Deceived by this trick some of the hidden
leaders made their appearance and were immediately seized and haled to
the square, where the work of execution was resumed. Six or eight of
these were beheaded, many were hung, and the servants of the slaughtered
lords, who happened to come to the town in ignorance of the frightful
work, were dragged from their horses and, booted and spurred as they had
come, were haled to the gallows.
The king's soldiers and followers, excited by the slaughter and given
full license, now broke into many houses of the suspected, murdering the
men, maltreating the women, and carrying away all the treasure they could
find, and for some hours Stockholm seemed to be in the hands of an army
that had taken the city by storm.
For a day and night the corpses lay festering in the street, their bodies
torn by vagrant dogs, and not until a pestilent exhalation began to rise
from them were they gathered up and hauled by cartloads to a place in the
southern suburbs, where a great funeral pyre was erected and the bodies
were burned to ashes.
As for the tyrant himself, his bloody work seemed to excite him to a sort
of madness of fury. He ordered the body of Sten Sture the Younger to be
dug from its grave in Riddarholm Church, and it is said that in his fury
he bit at the half-consumed remains. The body of Sten's young son was
also disinterred, and the two were carried to the great funeral pile to
be burnt with the others. The quarter of the town where this took place
is still named Sture, in memory of the dead, and on the spot where the
great pyre was kindled stands St. Christopher's Church.
Such was the famous, or rather the infamous, "blood-bath of Stockholm,"
which still remains as a frightful memory to the land. It did not end
here. The dreadful work he had done seemed to fill the monster with an
insatiable lust for blood. His next act was to call Christina, the widow
of Sten Sture, to his presence. When, overwhelmed with grief and despair,
she appeared, he sneeringly asked her whether she would choose to be
burned, drowned, or buried alive. The noble lady fell fainting at his
feet. Her beauty and suffering and the entreaties of those present at
length softened the tyrant, but her mother was enclosed in a bag and
thrown into the stream, though she was permitted to be drawn out by the
people on their promise to the tyrant that he should have her great
wealth. But she, with her daughter Christina and many other women of
noble descent, were carried as hostages to Copenhagen and shut up in a
dreadful prison called the Blue Tower, where numbers of them died of
hunger, thirst and cold.
The massacre was not confined to Stockholm; from there the executions
spread throughout the country, and the old law of 1153 was revived that
no peasant should bear arms, Danish soldiers being sent through the
country to rob the people of their weapons. The story is told that some
of them, enraged by this act of tyranny, said:
"Swords shall not be wanting to punish the tyrant so long as we retain
our feet to pursue and our hands to revenge."
To this the reply was that "a hand and a foot might well be cut from the
Swedish peasant; for one hand and a wooden leg would be enough for him to
guide his plough."
This report, improbable as it was, spread widely and caused a general
panic, for so terrified were the people by the reports of Christian's
cruelty that nothing seemed too monstrous for him to undertake.
In December the tyrant prepared to return to Denmark, leaving Sweden
under chosen governors, with an army of Danes. But his outgoing from the
country was marked by the same sanguinary scenes. He caused even his own
favorite, Klas Hoist, to be hung, and two friends of Sten Sture being
betrayed to him, he had them quartered and exposed upon the wheel. Sir
Lindorm Ribbing was seized and beheaded, together with his servants. And,
most pitiable of all, Sir Lindorm's two little boys, six and eight years
of age, were ordered by the tyrant to be slain, lest they should grow up
to avenge their murdered father.
The scene, as related, is pathetic to the highest degree. The older boy
was beheaded, and when the younger saw the streaming blood and the red
stains on his brother's clothes, he said with childish innocence to the
executioner: "Dear man, don't stain my shirt like my brother's, for then
mamma will whip me."
At these words the executioner, his heart softened, threw down the sword,
crying:
"I would rather blood my own shirt than yours."
But the pathos of the scene had no effect on the heart of the tyrant, who
witnessed it unsoftened, and called for a more savage follower to
complete the work, ending it by striking off the head of the
compassionate executioner. With this and other deeds of blood Christian
left the land where he had sown deeply the seeds of hate, and the
terrible "blood-bath" ended.
_THE ADVENTURES OF GUSTAVUS VASA._
In the parish of Orkesta, in Upland, Sweden, there may be seen the
remains of an old tower, now a mere heap of stones, but once the centre
of the proud manor-seat of Lindholm. It was a noble and lordly castle,
built of red bricks and grey granite, seated on a high hill between two
lakes, and commanding a wide prospect over mountain, wood, and water.
Here, in the year 1490, was born Gustavus Vasa, the son of Sir Erik and
Lady Cecilia Vasa, and destined to win future fame as one of the greatest
heroes of Sweden and the liberator of his native land.
At the age of six the boy was sent to be educated at the court of Sten
Sture, then the administrator and virtual king of Sweden. Here he was not
spoiled by indulgence, his mode of life and his food were alike simple
and homely, and he grew up with a cheerful spirit and a strong body, his
chief pleasure being that of hunting among the rocks and forests with his
companions, all of whom grew to love and admire him.
King Hans, when monarch of Sweden in 1499, on a visit to Sten Sture
noticed the boy playing about the hall and was much pleased by his fine
and glowing countenance. Patting him on the head, he said:
"You will certainly be a man in your day, if you live to see it."
He afterwards, thinking of the high descent of the boy and that he might
grow to be a future foe of Denmark, asked Sten Sture to let him take the
lad to Copenhagen and bring him up in his court. The wise Lord Sten
quickly fathomed the king's thoughts and answered that the boy was too
young to be taken from his parents. He soon after sent him to his father,
then in command at Aland.
"The young wolf has slipped out of my net," said King Hans in later
years, when he was told of the splendid development of the boy as he grew
to manhood.
At the age of twenty-four he left the academy at Upsala, where he had
been educated in the arts and sciences, and repaired to the court of Sten
Sture the Younger, where he was soon a general favorite, loved for his
amiable character and admired for his wit and vivacity. At that time the
war by which Christian II. made himself master of Denmark was going on
and young Vasa aided by his courage in winning victory on more than one
hard-fought field.
In 1518, during a negotiation between Sten Sture and Christian, then in
sore straits in his fleet, the latter agreed to go ashore to confer with
the Swedish leader if six gentlemen were sent on board his fleet as
hostages. This was done, but before the conference took place a favorable
change of wind changed the treacherous king's intention and he sailed off
for Denmark with his hostages, all of whom were imprisoned and held to
secure the neutrality of their relatives in Sweden.
Among these captives was young Gustavus Vasa, who, thus perfidiously
taken, was cruelly confined. Finally, at the request of Herr Erik Baner,
a distant relative of the Vasas, the young man was set free, Baner
binding himself to pay a heavy penalty in money if he permitted him to
escape. Thus it was that Vasa found a new home at Kallö Castle, in
Jutland, where his deliverer lived, and where he was well treated and
given much freedom.
"I shall not cause you to be strictly guarded nor put you in
confinement," said good old Baner. "You shall eat at my table and go
where you please, if you faithfully promise not to make your escape or
journey anywhere without letting me know."
To this the young man bound himself verbally and by writing, and was
given liberty by his generous warder to go where he pleased within six
miles of Kallö. At first he was always accompanied by an attendant, but
as he won the old man's love and confidence he was suffered to go alone.
But he could not forget the perfidy by which he had been made prisoner,
and in 1519, when King Christian was preparing a great expedition against
Sweden, the boasts of the young Danish nobles of what they proposed to do
chafed his proud soul. Day and night his bitterness of spirit grew, and
finally, as the time came for the expedition to set sail, he could bear
it no longer but resolved to break his parole and escape to his native
land.
It was in the summer of 1579 that he set out, having dressed himself in
peasant clothing. Starting in the early morning and avoiding the open
roads, he made his way by by-paths, and at noon of the following day
reached the town of Flensburg, where he fortunately met some Saxon
traders driving a herd of cattle from Jutland to Germany. He joined
these, and on September 30 reached the free town of Lübeck. Here the
authorities gave him permission to remain, with a warrant for his
personal safety while in the town.
Meanwhile Sir Erik Baner had been wrathfully seeking him, and appeared in
Lübeck shortly after he reached there, complaining of his ingratitude for
the good treatment given him, and threatening the senate of Lübeck with
Christian's enmity if they should protect one of his foes.
Gustavus boldly answered that he was no lawful prisoner, but a man seized
by breaking a solemn compact, and therefore that he had the right to set
himself free. As for the six thousand riks-thalers, which Sir Erik had
bound himself to pay, he would return them with interest and gratitude
when he got home.
"I trust to this," he concluded, "that I am in a free town, on whose
word, when once given, I should be able to depend."
This appeal won his case with the senate, and Sir Erik was obliged to
return without his ward.
But to make his way to Sweden, then torn and distracted by war, and the
seas held by hostile craft, was no easy matter and he was forced to
remain eight months in Lübeck while his country was being rapidly subdued
by its invaders. They were not idle months, for Gustavus learned much
while there of political and industrial economy and the commerce and
institutions of the Hanseatic League and its free towns, knowledge which
became of much service to him in later years. In the end he succeeded in
making his way to Sweden in a small trading vessel, and on the 31st of
May, 1520, landed secretly on its shores, with nothing but his sword and
his courage to sustain him against an enemy who had, step by step,
subjugated nearly the whole land.
[Illustration: From stereograph, copyright by Underwood and Underwood,
N.Y. THE FAMOUS XVI. CENTURY CASTLE AT UPSALA, SWEDEN.]
Of the cities, only Stockholm and Calmar remained in the hands of the
Swedes, and the latter, in which he had landed, seemed full of cowards
and traitors. The place was not safe for a declared patriot, and he left
it, making his way up the country. Here he learned with indignation how
envy, avarice, and private feuds had induced many Swedes to betray one
another to the enemy, and his efforts to exhort the people to unity and
resistance proved vain. Most of them were weary of the war, and Christian
had won over many of the peasants.
"He is a gracious master to us," they said, "and as long as we obey the
king neither salt nor herring will fail us."
When Gustavus sought to win them over to more patriotic views they became
angry and threatening, and in the end they assailed him with arrows and
lances, so that he was obliged to make his escape. His position, indeed,
became so critical that he was forced to disguise himself and proceed
through forests and unsettled lands. Finally he reached the manor-house
in which resided his sister Margaret and her husband, Sir Joachim Brahe.
They received him with the highest demonstrations of joy, as they had
feared that they would never set eyes on him again; but their delight in
his presence was turned into consternation when they learned that he was
there with the purpose of seeking to foment an insurrection against
Christian, who had then made himself complete master of Sweden and was on
the point of being crowned king.
Joachim Brahe and his wife were at that time preparing to attend
Christian's coronation at Stockholm, and were deeply disturbed by what
seemed to them the mad purpose of the young patriot. Joachim offered to
do his utmost to reconcile Gustavus to the king, and Margaret threw
herself in tears and distress on his neck, beseeching him to desist from
an undertaking which she felt sure would bring death to him and ruin to
his whole family.
But Gustavus was not to be persuaded, and on the other hand he warned
Joachim against trusting himself in Christian's hands, speaking of him as
a base wretch whom no one could trust. Joachim proved equally hard to
move, and the three soon parted, Joachim and his wife for
Stockholm--where death awaited him at the hands of the traitor king--and
Gustavus for a place of concealment where he could foment his plans.
During this interval he met the old archbishop, Jacob Ulfsson, who
earnestly advised him to go to Stockholm and warmly promised to plead his
cause with the king. But the fugitive knew Christian far better than the
aged churchman and had no idea of putting his head within the wolfs jaws.
Little did the good archbishop dream of the terrible tragedy that was
even then taking place in Stockholm.