CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.
During the stormy scenes described in the preceding chapter, Gustavus
Adolphus was born. He was baptized on the 1st of January, 1595.
The child was brought up in an atmosphere of war. His father told him
the story of Sweden's wars and of his own campaigns, to which the boy
listened with enrapt attention.
In 1595 the Diet had closed the throne to every Catholic candidate.
Charles IX., as the king was now called, was generous enough to assure
the Estates that if any son of Sigismund should become a Protestant he
should inherit the throne. He also made this reservation in his will,
showing that he had the conscience of a Christian who desires to do
justice, while Sigismund, as king of Poland, never failed to act on the
principle that the end justifies the means.
The Finns, urged to rebellion by the king of Poland, proved to be
troublesome subjects to King Charles. They submitted to his rule only
after a bloody contest. The king took Gustavus, who was barely seven
years old, with him on an expedition against the Finns. The ship became
icebound and had to be abandoned. The child and his father continued
their way on foot in the midst of the severities of a Russian winter.
The exposure seems to have done them no harm.
On one occasion his father took him to visit the fleet at Calmar, and on
being asked by an officer which vessel he preferred, he answered, "The
'Black Knight,' because it has the most guns."
The generosity for which he was so noted in later years began to show
itself in his childhood. A peasant had brought him a handsome little
pony from the island of Oeland. The good man said, "I want you to accept
the pony as a gift; as a sign of my love and devotion to you." The young
prince replied, "I am glad to have the horse, but I will pay you for it,
as the gift would exceed your resources." The child gave the man all the
money in his purse. The peasant was amazed at the amount of the money
and at the child's great liberality.
His father, foreseeing that Gustavus would need to command people of
different nationalities, saw that he had instruction in many languages,
so that at the age of seventeen he spoke fluently the Swedish, Latin,
German, Dutch, French and Italian languages, and could make himself
understood in Russian and Polish. He afterward became proficient in
Greek.
Special attention was given to the development of a symmetrical
character, and everything possible was done to make him love the
Lutheran faith.
The tendencies of both father and son are well illustrated by a letter,
still extant, from King Charles to his son, as his farewell advice:
"Above all fear God, honor thy father and mother, show for thy brothers
and sisters a deep attachment; love the faithful servants of thy father
and reward each one according to his merits. Be humane towards thy
subjects, punish the wicked, love the good; trust everybody, though not
unreservedly; observe the law without respect to person; injure no one's
well-acquired privileges, if they are consistent with the law."
Character molded on such principles as these would certainly touch the
sublimities.
The mother of Gustavus Adolphus was a German princess of superior
education for the times. A haughty queen, a strict disciplinarian,
thereby developing in her son a quick and ready obedience to the laws of
the family. Who would command must first learn to obey.
She much preferred her second son, Charles Philip, and, had Gustavus
been less generous, or less noble, an unnatural jealousy might have
divided the brothers, but the young Duke of Finland, as Gustavus was
called, acted as though he thought his mother could do no wrong.
Gustavus had three teachers, each of whom left a strong impression upon
his character—John Skytte, a man who had spent ten years in travel, Von
Mörner, an accomplished, traveled man, and Count de la Gardie, a Swedish
noble of a French family, who instructed Gustavus in fencing and in
military tactics.
Gustavus had an attractive personality and won the abiding affection of
his cousin, Duke John, the only one of Sigismund's sons who took the
Swedish side of the religious and family quarrel. Duke John married the
only sister of Gustavus, Mary Elizabeth, and proved a brother, indeed,
after the death of King Charles. For the choice was left to the people
and to the Estates as to whether they preferred John or Gustavus. At the
sincere urgency of Duke John the young Duke of Finland, Gustavus, was
chosen.
King Charles IX. began early to train his son in public affairs. When
Gustavus was only ten years old his father kept him at his side at all
cabinet meetings and in great public assemblies. He encouraged him to
talk to officers from foreign countries in their own language. The king
permitted him to ask questions on war, special battles and methods of
governing, and the father was proud of the eager, precocious child, in
whom he recognized a mental and spiritual power far beyond his own.
At the age of fourteen he was sent, with his mother, through northern
Sweden, in order that he might become acquainted with the people of his
own country. The king said, "You are only a boy, but listen to everyone
who solicits your protection, help everyone according to your means, and
dismiss no one without a word of comfort."
The gracious boy made many friends in this early journey, men who
afterwards gladly gave life itself to forward his interests.
At the age of fifteen he was greatly disappointed because he was not
permitted to lead an army against the Russians, but for once his father
required him to remain at home to learn affairs concerning the internal
and external policy of the Swedish government. But in 1611, at the age
of seventeen, when Denmark had declared war against Sweden, he was
permitted to command a body of troops. He was sent to deliver the town
of Calmar which was besieged by the Danes. He was afterward joined by
troops under Duke John and the king himself. On August 16th, 1611, the
town and castle were surrendered by a commander who proved to be a
renegade Swede whom King Charles had offended.
The king left the war in order to return to Stockholm to preside at the
Diet. On his journey he was taken violently ill. When it was plain he
could not recover Gustavus was sent for. The king gave the sorrowing boy
his parting blessing, then laying his hand on the bowed young head, he
said, in a voice full of conviction, "Ille faciet"—"This one will do
it."