the vicinity of his hiding-place, he unexpectedly met the faithful old
steward of his brother-in-law Joachim, who was so choked with grief on
seeing him that he found it impossible to speak and could answer the
young lord's question only with tears and gestures. Finally he succeeded
in telling the fearful tale of that bloody day at Stockholm, the death
under the executioner's sword of the father and brother-in-law of the
horror-stricken listener, the imprisonment of his mother and sisters, and
the fact that he would soon become a hunted fugitive, a high price having
been set upon his head.
Who can describe the bitter grief of the son and brother at these
terrible tidings, the hot wrath of the patriot, the indignation of a true
and honest heart! On that fatal day the young fugitive had lost all he
loved and cherished and was made a hunted, homeless, and almost penniless
outlaw. But his courage did not fail him, he could foresee the
indignation of the people at the dastardly act, and he determined to
venture liberty and life against the ruthless tyrant.
A series of striking adventures awaited him, which it needed his utmost
resolution to endure. He was then concealed at Räfsnäs, one of his
paternal estates, but felt it necessary at once to seek a safer refuge,
and collecting what gold and silver he could, he set out with a single
servant for Dalarna. They had not gone far before they reached the ferry
at Kolsund, which he crossed, leaving his man to follow. But the fellow,
who had no faith in his master's project, took the opportunity to mount
his horse and flee, taking with him the gold and jewels which had been
entrusted to his care.
Seeing the act of treachery, Gustavus in all haste recrossed the ferry,
and pursued the runaway so hotly that he leaped from his horse in alarm
and hid himself in the woods. Recovering the horse and its valuable
burden, the fugitive pursued his course, paying no further heed to the
treacherous servant.
It was late in November when Gustavus reached Dalarna. He was now
completely disguised, having exchanged his ordinary dress for that of a
peasant, cutting his hair round, wearing the round hat and short baize
jacket of the countrymen, and carrying an axe on his shoulder in the
fashion of peasant-lads seeking work. No one would have dreamed of his
being the sole heir of the great house of the Vasas.
His first service was with a rich miner named Anders Persson, in whose
barn he threshed grain for several days. But his fellow threshers soon
saw that he was not accustomed to the work and his general manner did not
seem that of a common farm-hand, while one of the women caught the
glimpse of a silk collar under his coarse jacket. These suspicious
circumstances were told to the miner, who sent for Gustavus and quickly
recognized him, for he had often seen him in former days at Upsala.
Anders received him hospitably, but when he heard from him of the
Stockholm massacre and his aid was requested in the liberation of the
country, he grew alarmed. Fearing to entertain so dangerous a guest, he
advised him to go farther north and to change his place of abode
frequently.
Accepting this advice, Gustavus set out for Ornäs, but on his way, while
crossing a newly frozen stream, the thin ice broke under him and he was
plunged into the chilling water. Light and active, he soon got out again,
drying his clothes and passing the night at the house of the ferryman.
Reaching Ornäs the next day, he went to the house of a former friend, but
who now, unknown to him, had become connected by marriage with the Danes
and was devoted to the interests of the new king. It was a critical
situation for the friendless fugitive. His treacherous host craftily
welcomed him and pretended to approve his purpose, in which he offered to
assist him and to seek adherents to his cause among his neighbors.
The guest was conducted to a garret at the top of the house and here,
weary from his wanderings and gratified at having found a sympathizing
friend, he lay confidingly down and was soon lost in slumber. Meanwhile
Arendt, the treacherous host, sought a neighbor, Mans Nilsson, whom he
told of the rich prize he had found and asked his aid in capturing him
and gaining the high reward offered for him by the king. He was mistaken
in his man. Mans hated treachery. But Arendt found others who were less
scrupulous and in the early morning returned to his home heading twenty
men, collected to aid him in the capture of his unsuspecting guest. To
his utter surprise and dismay, on entering the garret to which Gustavus
had been led he was nowhere to be found. He had unaccountably
disappeared, and search as they could no trace of the fugitive was
forthcoming.
There was a woman concerned in this strange escape, which had happened
thus. Barbara, Arendt's wife, though Danish in her sympathies, had a
warm, romantic interest in Gustavus Vasa, and when she saw her husband,
on his return from his visit to Mans Nilsson, drive past the house and in
the direction of the house of the Danish steward, she suspected him of
treachery and determined to save their too-confiding guest.
Ordering Jacob, one of her men, to harness a sledge with all haste and
secrecy and keep it in waiting behind the building, she sought the
garret, woke Gustavus, and told him of his peril and of her desire to
save him. Not venturing to bring him down into the house, she opened the
window, and though it was eighteen feet from the ground, she aided him in
his descent with a long towel, such as were then in common use. Gustavus
then sprang into the sledge and was driven briskly off.
Arendt, when he learned of how his expected victim had fled, was
furiously angry with his wife, and, as we are told, never forgave her and
refused ever to set eyes on her again.
This was the most extreme danger that the fugitive patriot ever passed
through, and at that interval his hope of freeing his country from the
yoke of the foreigner seemed the sheerest madness. But other perils lay
before him and only vigilance and good fortune saved him more than once
from death or capture. Surrounded by foes and with scarce a friend who
dared aid him in the whole district, his final escape seemed impossible.
The friendly Barbara had advised him to seek Herr Jon, the priest of
Svärdsjö, and his driver took the road over the frozen Lake Runn, they
ascending its banks in the smoke coming down from the Fahun copper mines,
and about sunrise reaching a village on the northeast end of the lake.
Jacob was unacquainted with the country beyond this point and Gustavus
went to a house to inquire the way. As he was on the point of entering
he saw within a miner, Nils Haussen, whom he knew to be a Danish partisan
and who would have recognized him at sight. Quickly and without being
seen, he turned behind the door and went towards another village beyond.
Here he met a friendly smelter who agreed to guide him on the way. When
they parted Gustavus gave him a silver dagger, saying gratefully:
"If God helps me, seek me, and I will richly repay you for your aid."
As night came on he sought quarters in a road-side cottage, and as he sat
before the fire in the evening the good-wife said to him:
"Young man, make me some pudding skewers, since you have nothing else to
do."
Gustavus laughingly replied that he would be glad to do so if he only
knew how. This adventure has an interesting resemblance to that of King
Alfred, when, hidden from the Danes in the swine-herd's hut, he let the
good woman's cakes burn on the fire.
Reaching the parsonage of Herr Jon on the following day, he first went to
the barn and helped the laborers to thresh, at the same time asking them
what side their master took. Learning that he was no friend of the Danes,
he made himself known to him and was graciously received, staying with
him for three days.
But this place soon became unsafe. One day Herr Jon's housekeeper entered
a room where Gustavus was washing, the priest standing by, towel in
hand.
"Why are you holding the towel for this common fellow?" she asked.
"That is none of your affairs," said the priest.
But fearing that the woman would talk, he thought it best for his guest
to seek a safer retreat, and sent him to Swen Elfsson, gamekeeper for the
crown, who lived not far away.
Meanwhile the Danish steward, who had been told by the treacherous Arendt
of the character of his guest, had his agents out in search of the
fugitive and some of them entered the cottage of the gamekeeper. At that
moment the good-wife was about putting her bread in the fire, and
Gustavus was standing by the hearth in his peasant's dress, warming
himself. The men who entered inquired for the fugitive, but before
answering the woman raised her bread shovel and struck Gustavus hastily
on the back, exclaiming:
"What are you doing here gaping at strangers? Have you never seen a man
before? Pack yourself off to the barn and go on with your threshing."
Never dreaming that the man who had been so angrily treated by a
peasant's wife could be the young lord they sought, the steward's
messengers left the house to continue their search elsewhere.
But the incident warned the gamekeeper that his guest was not safe
anywhere in that vicinity, and to get him away unobserved he hid him in a
large load of hay and drove off towards the forest. On the way some of
the Danish scouts were met, and these, having some suspicion of Swen,
began poking their lances through the hay. One of these wounded Gustavus
in the leg, but he lay silent and motionless and the scouts soon went
their way.
But the cut on the concealed man's leg bled so freely that blood soon
began to run from the cart and tinge the snow. Seeing this, Swen, fearing
that the trail of blood might betray him, opened his knife and thrust it
into the leg of his horse, so that if any one should perceive the blood
stains he could assign this as their cause.
He finally delivered his charge to the care of some loyal gamekeepers on
the edge of the forest; but these, not considering their houses safe as
hiding-places, took him into the forest, where he lay hidden for three
days under a great fallen fir tree, they bringing him food and drink.
Finding even this place insecure, he went deeper into the woods and
sought shelter under a lofty fir tree which stood on a hill in the midst
of a marsh. The place has ever since been called "The King's Height."
Finally the effort of the Danish agents to find him relaxed and his
faithful friends conducted him through the vast forests to Rättwik's
Church, at the eastern end of the great Lake Silja.
His perils were yet by no means at an end. He spoke of his purpose at
this place to an assembly of the peasants and was pleased to find that
they listened to him with willing ears. Having thus sown his first seed
in favorable soil, he proceeded to Mora on the northern end of the lake,
where the priest received him in a friendly manner. But he was being
sought by the Danes in that district and the priest did not dare to hide
him in his own house, but committed him to the care of a peasant named
Tomte Mattes. As the search was becoming active he was concealed in a
vaulted cellar, reached by a trap-door in the floor.
He had not been long there when the Danish scouts, who were searching the
whole district, reached the peasant's house, where they found his wife in
the midst of her brewing of Christmas ale. As they entered, the shrewd
woman turned a great tub over the trap-door, so that they did not
perceive it, and thus for the third time the future king of Sweden owed
his liberty and life to a woman's wit.
Shortly after that, at one of the Christmas festivals, as the men of Mora
were leaving the church, Gustavus called them to him where he stood on a
low mound beside the churchyard and addressed them in earnest tones,
while they gazed with deep sympathy on the manly form of the young noble
of whose sufferings and those of his family they were well aware.
He spoke of the risk to his life that he ran in venturing to speak to
them at all, but said that his unhappy country was dearer to him than
life. He pointed out the persecution which Sweden had formerly endured
from Danish kings, and of how they had robbed the country of its wealth.
"The same times and the same misfortunes have now returned," he said.
"Our land swims, so to say, in our own blood. Many hundred Swedish men
have been made to suffer a disgraceful and unmerited death. Our bishops
and senators have been cruelly murdered. I myself have lost father and
brother-in-law," he continued, his eyes streaming with tears, "and the
blood of all these martyrs cries for redress and retribution on the
tyrant."
The men of Dalarna, he said, had long been noted for their courage when
their land was in danger. They were renowned for this in history, and all
Sweden looked upon them as the firmest defenders of its liberties.
"I will willingly join with you for our land's deliverance," he
concluded, "and spare neither my blood nor my sword, for these are all
the tyrant has left me to use in your cause."
Many of the Dalmen heard him with cries of vengeance, but the most of
them stood in doubt. They did not know Gustavus personally and had heard
that Christian was cruel only to the great, but was kind and generous to
the peasantry. They could not yet make up their minds what to do, and
begged him to seek safer quarters for himself, since he was being
everywhere diligently sought by his pursuers.
In fact, his peril continued extreme and for some days he was forced to
lie hidden under Morkarlely Bridge, near Mora Church, though it was in
the dead of a Swedish winter. He was able at length to resume his
journey, but it was with an almost despairing heart, for he could see no
hope either for himself or for his country. His led way over mountains
and through desolate valleys, his nights being spent in wayside sheds
which had been built for the shelter of travellers. On he went, through
forests filled with snow and along the side of mountain torrents, and
finally came within view of the lofty mountains beyond which lay the
sister kingdom of Norway.
Never had patriot more reason to be disheartened than the unhappy and
hunted fugitive, never had the hope of liberating an oppressed country
seemed darker, and the fugitive would have been justified in abandoning
his native land and seeking a refuge in the bleak hills of Norway. Yet
the adage has often held good that it is the darkest hour before the dawn
of day, and so it was to prove in his case. While he waited in that
desolate quarter to which he had been driven, events were shaping
themselves in his favor and the first rising took place against the
Danes.
The stirring speech of the young noble at Mora Church had not been made
in vain. Many of those who heard it had been strongly taken by his
manliness and his powerful language, and, strangely, the most deeply
impressed of all was Rasmas Jute, a Dane who had served the Stures and
was now settled in Dalarna.
Hearing that a Danish steward had come to that quarter to seek the
fugitive and was now at the house of the sergeant of Mora parish, he
armed himself and his servants and fell on the steward unawares, the
first to take arms for Gustavus being thus a man of Danish birth. Soon
afterwards a troop of Danish horsemen, a full hundred in number, was
seen marching over the frozen surface of Lake Silja. So numerous a body
of soldiers was unusual in those parts, and suspecting that they were in
search of Gustavus, and might do something to their own injury, the
peasants began ringing the church bells, the usual summons to arms.
The wind carried the sound far to the northward, and on hearing the
warning peal the peasantry seized their arms and bodies of them were soon
visible hasting down the hills towards Mora. The Danish troopers, on
seeing this multitude of armed men, shut themselves in the priest's
house. Here they were attacked by the furious Dalmen, who broke open the
doors and rushed in. The terrified Danes now fled to the church and took
refuge in its steeple, whither they were quickly followed. Only by
dejected appeals and a promise not to injure Gustavus Vasa did they
succeed in escaping from the tower, and the Dalmen, thinking that some of
them might remain concealed in the narrow spire, shot their arrows at it
from every side. For more than a hundred years after some of these arrows
remained sticking in the old wooden spire.
Dalarna being looked upon as a centre of Swedish patriotism, a number of
the persecuted noblemen took refuge there, and those confirmed all that
Gustavus had told the people. And when Lars Olssen, an old warrior well
known to them, arrived and told them of the gallows which Christian had
erected, of the new taxes he had laid on the peasantry, and of the report
that he had threatened to cut a hand and a foot off each peasant, with
other tales true and false, they were deeply stirred. When Lars learned
that Gustavus had been there and what had passed, he reproached them for
their folly in not supporting him.
"Good men," he said, "I know that gentleman well, and tell you that if
yourselves and all the people of the country are not to be oppressed and
even exterminated Gustavus Vasa is the only one who has sense and
knowledge enough to lead us and lay hand to so great a work."
While they were talking another fugitive came from the forest, who
confirmed all that Lars had said and gave them a full account of the
blood-bath at Stockholm and of how the body of Sten Sture, their beloved
leader, had been torn from the grave and dishonored.
These stories filled their hearers with horror, terror, and fury; war and
bloody retribution was their only cry; their hearts were filled with
remorse that they had let Gustavus, their country's chief hope, depart
unaided. Two of them, the fleetest snow-skaters of the region, were
chosen to follow him and bring him back, and off they went through the
forests, following his track, and at length finding him at Sälen, the
last village in that section, and immediately at the foot of the lofty
Norwegian mountains. A few words sufficed to tell him of the great change
of feeling that had taken place, and with heart-felt joy Gustavus
accompanied them back, to begin at length the great work of freeing his
native land.
_THE FALL OF CHRISTIAN II. THE TYRANT._
It was in November, 1520, that Christian II. of Denmark was crowned king
of Sweden. Norway was his as well and he was monarch of the whole
Scandinavian world. He had reached the highest point in his career, but
so great had been his cruelty and treachery that all men feared and no
man trusted him and he was on the brink of a sudden and complete
overthrow. The man who had worn the crowns of three kingdoms was to spend
years within the narrow walls of a dungeon, with none to pity him in his
misery, but all to think that he deserved it all and more. Barely has
tyranny met with such retribution on earth, and the "Fall of the Tyrant"
will serve as a fitting title to an impressive tale.
So sudden and successful was the rebellion of the Swedes under Gustavus
Vasa, that in the summer of the year after the massacre in the Great
Square of Stockholm the Danes held only that city and a few other
strongholds in Sweden. One after another these fell, Calmar and Stockholm
in 1523, and in June of that year Gustavus was chosen king of the land
which his hand had freed. A young man still, he was at the beginning of a
great and glorious reign.
Before he became king, Christian, his great enemy, had ceased to reign.
He had shown the same inhuman spirit in Denmark and Norway as in Sweden
and had sown his whole dominion thick with enemies.
This is the way his fall was brought about. In 1522 he issued a code of
laws for Denmark of a wise and progressive character, especially in
freeing the peasantry from the slavish condition in which they had been
held, they before being open to purchase and sale like so many brute
animals. Christian declared that every man should be his own master and
took steps to limit the power and wealth of the clergy and to improve the
commerce of the kingdom.
These changes, while wise and important, were difficult to introduce
against the opposition of the lords and the clergy and needed the hand of
a prudent and judicious administrator. Such Christian was not. He
undertook them rashly and endeavored to enforce them by violence. Even
the people, whom the new laws so favored, were incensed by a great
increase in their taxes. No one trusted him; every one hated and feared
him. Even the monarchs of other countries detested him and would not aid
him in his extremity.
The details of the blood-bath in Stockholm had reached the ears of the
Pope and he sent a legate to inquire into the atrocities committed under
the implied sanction of the Church. As they were not to be concealed,
Christian attempted to excuse them, and, driven to extremity, accused one
of his chief favorites, Didrik Slaghök, as the originator of the
massacre.
Slaghök had just been named archbishop of Lund, but was brought to
Copenhagen, examined under torture, condemned to death, and carried to
the gallows and thence to a funeral pile on which he was burned alive,
Christian leaving the town that he might not witness the cruel death of
his late favorite.
This cowardly sacrifice of his devoted friend and servant, instead of
winning the favor of the people, redoubled their abhorrence of the
bloodthirsty tyrant. Shortly afterwards the Lübeckers invaded the
kingdom, and Christian, not trusting his people, called in foreign
soldiers to repel them. Needing money for their pay, he called a diet to
meet on December 10, 1522. Few attended it, and in anger he called a new
meeting for the following January.
Before the date arrived rumors were set afloat that he intended to
butcher the Danish nobles as he had done those of Sweden, that chains
were being provided to secure them, and that he would have disguised
executioners among his guards; also that new and heavier taxes were to be
laid on the peasants.
These rumors, widely circulated, incensed and frightened the nobility and
a meeting was held by the nobles of Jutland in which they determined to
renounce their allegiance to Christian and offer the crown to his uncle,
Frederick, duke of Holstein.
Magnus Munk, one of these lords, was chosen to deliver their decision to
Christian and sought him for this purpose. But it was far from safe to
offer King Christian such a document openly, and Munk pretended to be
making a friendly visit, conversing and drinking with the king until a
late hour of the night. On rising to retire, he thrust into Christian's
glove, which had been left on the table, the letter of renouncement of
the Jutland nobles.
Instead of going to bed, Munk hastened to the vessel in which he had come
and sailed to Holstein, where he made to Frederick the offer of the
crown. As may be imagined, there was little hesitation in accepting it.
The next morning a page of the palace found the king's glove on the table
and took it to him. On reading the letter which he found in it the tyrant
was filled with fear and fury. He sent guards to seize Munk, but when
told that he was not to be found, his terror grew intense. He knew not
where to turn nor what to do. He might have gathered an army of the
peasants, to whom he had just given freedom, to fight the nobles, but
instead he wrote to the lords, abjectly acknowledging his faults and
promising to act differently in the future.
They were not to be won, no one trusting him. Then the terrified tyrant
hurried to Copenhagen and rode round the streets, imploring the citizens
with tears to aid him, confessing his errors and vowing to change his
ways. Many of the people, unused to see a king in tears, were moved by
his petitions, but no wise man trusted him, few came to his assistance,
and the sedition rapidly gained strength.