[Illustration:
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II.
]
HISTORY OF THE
LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II.
THE HERO-GENERAL OF
THE REFORMATION.
BY HARRIET EARHART MONROE,
AUTHOR OF "THE ART OF CONVERSATION," "HEROINE
OF THE MINING CAMP," "HISTORICAL LUTHERANISM,"
"WASHINGTON—ITS SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS."
PHILADELPHIA:
THE LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY.
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
THE LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY.
PREFACE.
In giving this sketch of the life of Gustavus Adolphus, no attempt has
been made to present a complete life of the great king.
It is a history difficult for young people to understand, and for that
reason only the leading events of a most eventful life have been
presented.
It was first written for a lecture and entertainment, after the manner
of my other entertainments on Church epochs, to be illustrated by
stereopticon views, with three dramatic interludes—the first
representing the joy of the Swedish people on Gustavus coming to the
throne; the second showing Gustavus taking leave of his Parliament and
friends as he is about to embark on the Thirty Years' War; the third, an
act called "The Women who Loved Him." The evening was to open and close
with church processionals in the native peasant costumes of Sweden and
other Protestant countries of Europe.
It has been deemed best to present the story in book form, which will
differ somewhat from the original lecture and dramatic representations,
for the reason that pictures do away with the necessity for many words.
With the earnest prayer that this history may stir other heroic souls to
stand for God in life's difficult places this sketch is submitted.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Family of Gustavus Vasa 7
CHAPTER II.
Childhood and Youth of Gustavus Adolphus 12
CHAPTER III.
Gustavus as a Man 17
CHAPTER IV.
Gustavus and His Kingdom 21
CHAPTER V.
The Character of the King and His Times 28
CHAPTER VI.
The Thirty Years' War 36
CHAPTER VII.
The Thirty Years' War—Continued 44
CHAPTER VIII.
Conditions in Sweden 53
CHAPTER IX.
Gustavus in Germany 61
CHAPTER X.
Gustavus in Germany—Continued 84
CHAPTER XI.
Gustavus in Germany—Concluded 98
CHAPTER XII.
End of a Valuable Life 115
CHAPTER XIII.
Later History of the Thirty Years' War 132
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS II.
CHAPTER I.
FAMILY.
Gustavus Adolphus, the hero general of the Reformation, was born at the
royal palace at Stockholm, Sweden, December 9th, 1594, a little more
than one hundred years after the birth of Luther, nearly fifty years
after his death, and five years before the birth of Cromwell.
Washington and Lincoln, as to date of birth, were only seventy-seven
years apart; had Washington lived but nine years more, they would have
been contemporary.
Washington may, in a sense, be said to have made this country, and
Lincoln to have preserved it a united people. Just so Luther brought
about the movement known as Protestantism, but it was given to this
great king of Sweden, known as the Lion of the North, to preserve
Protestantism from extinction on the continent of Europe, even as a
little later it was given Cromwell to stop that curious movement toward
Romanism which is even yet the puzzle of the historian.
Gustavus II. was the son of Charles, Duke of Sudermania, youngest son of
Gustavus Vasa, who may be considered the founder of the Vasa family.
During the entire sixteenth century Sweden was torn by external wars and
internal dissensions. Sweden, by the contract of Calmar, in 1397, had
become a dependency of Denmark. A trade among rulers had made a brave
people the reluctant subjects of an alien power. Gustavus Vasa conceived
the project of freeing his country from Denmark. He made one ineffectual
attempt, and after severe defeat, pursued by the oppressors, he fled to
Delecarlia, whose citizens rallied about him, and, with the help of
these sturdy and valiant mountaineers, the Danes were expelled from
Sweden and his country was restored to liberty.
His grateful countrymen elected him king. Gustavus Vasa saw the moral
degradation of his land, and brought disciples of Luther to the country
to instruct in both religious and secular learning. Among the most
distinguished of these was Olaüs Petri. Of course, the hierarchy of Rome
and priests of Sweden made great opposition to any change.
Gustavus Vasa reduced the gospel to this simple message, which a child
could understand, viz.: "To serve God according to His law; to love God
above all; to believe in Jesus Christ as our only Saviour; to study and
to teach earnestly the word of God; to love our neighbor as ourselves;
to observe the ten commandments." He distinctly said that the Scriptures
speak neither of tapers, nor palms, nor of masses for the dead, nor of
the worship of saints, but that the Word of God, in many places,
prohibited these things. He added, "The sacrament of the Lord's Supper
has been given to us as a token of the forgiveness of sin, and not to be
carried around in a gold or silver frame to cemeteries and other
places."
Now, was not that a clear statement for a youth brought up a Catholic,
whose thought heretofore had seemed only of war?
As in England, politics had a hand in expelling the old form of religion
and bringing in the new, so it had an influence in Sweden.
Geijer, the great church historian of Sweden, says that the Roman Church
at that time possessed two-thirds of the soil, and that the wickedness
of the church was as great as its possessions. Like Henry VIII. of
England, Gustavus Vasa needed the lands to enrich the crown and to
secure the friendship of the nobles. He deeply hated priests because
they were unionists, that is, they desired to keep the three
Scandinavian countries under one crown, which would have left Gustavus
crownless.
When dying, this great king wrote as his last message: "Rather die a
hundred times than abandon the gospel." He pointed the way to glory for
Sweden for generations yet unborn.
Eric, the son and successor of Gustavus I., seems to have inherited the
barbarous nature of some far-back ancestor. He indulged in dangerous and
murderous folly. He proposed at the same time for the hand of Elizabeth,
Queen of England, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Princess Renee, of
Loraine, and Christina, of Hessen, and after all that, married a peasant
woman.
At last he was declared incapable and was imprisoned. This shortened his
life. His children were excluded by law from the succession, and his
brother John ascended the throne.
John had married Catherine Jagellon, daughter of Sigismund, king of
Poland. She influenced her husband to admit the Jesuits to Sweden, and
he made an effort to restore the Romish Church.
When the Swedes were converted to the Protestant faith it seems to have
been a deep work of grace. They did not fluctuate in their faith. So now
they withdrew their love and friendship from their king, whom they
considered false to the faith he had promised to sustain.
At the death of John the states determined that their rights should not
be invaded, so they forced from his son, Sigismund, a decree prohibiting
any religion in Sweden except the Lutheran. Sigismund (who had become a
Catholic to secure the throne of Poland) signed this decree with great
bitterness of heart.
In spite of this decree, which he had evidently signed with mental
reservations, he ordered a Catholic church to be built in each town in
his kingdom. He further enraged his subjects by refusing to be crowned
by a Protestant prelate, and accepted coronation at the hands of the
Pope's nuncio. He surrounded himself by the nobles of Poland and the
priests of Rome. These foreigners could scarcely appear on the streets
without causing quarrels and bloody encounters.
In the midst of these disturbances he was recalled to Poland, of which
he was also king, his father having secured his election by bribery, and
he left Sweden never to return as a welcome king.
Duke Charles, youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, and uncle to Sigismund, was
the only son of Gustavus Vasa who showed himself worthy of the noble
inheritance to which he had been born. The troubles of the time, the
dangers to Protestantism, caused him to listen to the loud call of the
Estates to act as regent, or ruling king to this much distressed land.
The Augsburg Confession was again proclaimed, and all the Swedes present
cried: "Our persons and our property, and all that we have in this world
will be sacrificed, if it is necessary, rather than abandon the gospel."
Diet after Diet approved of the administration of Duke Charles.
Four years after the departure of Sigismund he returned with five
thousand troops of Poland to reclaim his crown. He was defeated, but the
Swedes agreed to take him (because by heredity he had a just claim to
the crown) as king if he would send away his foreign troops and properly
administer the Lutheran form of religion.
But in a year he proved so unfaithful that he was deposed and sent back
to Poland. His claim to the throne led to long-continued hostility
between Poland and Sweden. On account of the claim of the Swedish Vasas
and the Polish Vasas, brave men were to die, homes were to be desolated,
and both lands were to have weeping widows and fatherless children for
half a century.
In 1604 Charles was crowned king, the crown entailed to the eldest son,
being Protestant, under a law that declared that any ruler who deviated
from the Augsburg Confession should by that act lose his crown.
The heirs of Sigismund were by law forever excluded from the throne, and
it was decreed that the king should forever make his home in Sweden.