GUSTAVUS AND HIS KINGDOM.
We have now these two young men, Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstiern,
his chancellor, sitting down to play the game of war against all the
powers of northern Europe. The stake was the national existence of
Sweden.
Buckle thinks that, given the time, the man may be predicated. But the
times did not produce Jesus Christ. Nero was the natural product of that
period. Gustavus Adolphus, like Luther, was a special soul sent of God
to be the incarnation of spiritual force against the evil and awful
indifference of a corrupt age.
First, he enlarged the place of his generous cousin, Duke John, who
doubtless had foreseen the great period of war before them, and gladly
had placed the responsibility in the abler hands of Gustavus.
Then the young king pursued the war with Denmark until the King of
Denmark renounced his claim to the Swedish crown. It took him two years
to secure this concession. During these two years he enlarged the rights
of his people, stirred the patriotism of the peasantry, won the
affections of the nobility of Sweden, and unified his people into a
strong nationality. When Gustavus Vasa introduced the doctrines of the
Reformation into Sweden the inhabitants were a rude people, but fifty
years of instruction on the part of the clergy and independent thinking
on the part of the people had greatly changed this state of affairs.
The revival of learning and the Reformation which caused an active study
of theology and literature, had greatly pushed forward the intellectual
standing of Germany. Lutheranism has always been a scholarly faith; it
was born in universities, and never took on the severities or
iconoclasms of Calvinism.
Sweden now kept all that was brilliant, attractive and energizing in the
ideas of the Reformation, and gave to the Lutheran faith a new impetus,
so that in the time of Gustavus Adolphus the aristocracy of Sweden were
among the most cultivated people of all Europe.
As in Scotland the Reformation changed the very nature of the entire
nation, so now it did the same for Sweden, with this difference, that
the Scots followed the doctrines of Calvin, which stripped religion of
its æstheticism and made it severe and to some degree forbidding, while
the Lutheranism of the Swedes beautified their lives, stirred their
æsthetic taste and improved their intellects, so that from that day to
this Sweden has been regarded as a scholarly country, and has produced
its fair share of literary and scientific men and women, beside many
great inventors, and artists of world-wide renown.
The personality of Gustavus had much to do with his success. He had a
fine physique. In his youth he was of slender figure, pale, fair
complexioned, long-shaped face, fair hair, with a touch of red in it,
and a tawny, pointed beard. Every inch of his fine, tall body was
trained by the judicious use of athletics and out-door exercise. He
radiated health, which of itself made him magnetic.
His tinge of red showed the impetuosity of his nature, which often had
to be restrained by the great Chancellor Oxenstiern. "If my heat did not
put a little life into your coldness we should all freeze up," said the
king on one occasion. The chancellor replied, "If my coldness did not
assuage your majesty's heat, we should all burn up," whereat the king
laughed and acknowledged that his temper was rather quick and his
patience less than he would like.
No sketch of the great king and of his success would be complete without
understanding his two chief advisers. Queen Elizabeth once heard that a
courtier had said, "It is not the queen who is great, but her
counsellors." The queen replied, "Well, who made them counsellors?"
Gustavus had the quality of appreciating greatness in others, of
supplementing his own talents with theirs, and of not being jealous.
Axel Oxenstiern was born at Fano, in Upland, June 16th, 1583. His family
traced their lineage back to the thirteenth century, and had
intermarried with both the Danish and Swedish royal families. His father
died in 1597, and he was sent by his judicious mother to a German
university. This gave him Swedish and German as colloquial tongues, and
he became so proficient in Latin that he could use it equally well with
either.
Latin had for many centuries been the language of the learned, in which
people of different lands could converse intelligibly. The people of
Europe needed no Esperanto while they were proficient in Latin.
Oxenstiern studied theology as thoroughly as if he expected to enter the
ministry. Religion was the absorbing thought of good people during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was recalled to Sweden by
Charles IX., who recognized his great ability, and sent him on several
diplomatic missions. At the age of twenty-six he was made house guardian
of the royal children, and the head of the regency, which, in case of
the king's death, might cause him to be called to govern the realm
during the minority of the heir-apparent.
Among the first acts of the young king was to appoint Oxenstiern
chancellor. From this time during the entire life of the king, this
great man became one of the chief factors in ruling Sweden. He was a
true friend, never failing to restrain or reprove the impetuous,
strong-minded, strong-natured boy-king. Oxenstiern was a man of action,
and was as little given to "lying around among the shavings" as Gustavus
himself.
But the king had another counsellor of a totally different type, and
that was John Skytte, a fine scholar and a great traveler, who had acted
first as the tutor of Gustavus; and later became a counsellor. The king
made him a senator, and in 1629 made him governor-general of Livonia.
It is very amusing to read some of the letters which passed between the
governor and his king at this time. The governor apologizes for certain
things not being accomplished, Gustavus calls him a man of theories, and
declares, "I expect results and not explanations."
Returning now to the direct history of Gustavus Adolphus, in July, 1621,
Sigismund having denied even the title of king to Gustavus, and having
sent strenuous threats of punishment to the Elector of Brandenburg for
permitting his sister to marry him, Gustavus sailed from Elfsnabb Harbor
with one hundred and fifty sail, manned by fourteen thousand soldiers,
for the purpose of conquering Livonia. At Pernau he was joined by
General de la Gardia with five thousand Finns.
In August, Riga was surrounded, and on September 15th, it surrendered to
the Swedish forces. In October, Mittau, the capital of Courtland, was
entered, and the season being too far advanced, the army went into
winter quarters. After an eight years' bloody campaign Gustavus, with
his brave army and his experienced generals, conquered Sigismund, the
unrelenting enemy of the Swedish Vasas.
The war between the two branches of the house of Vasa extends from 1600
to 1660. Gustavus felt that in his war with Poland, from 1621 to 1629,
he was not fighting for his crown alone, but that he was facing the
great struggle of Protestantism against the Catholic reaction. This war
really should be regarded as part of the Thirty Years' War.
Queen Eleanor, as the wife of Gustavus was now called, suffered much
during this war, for she felt that Sigismund's attitude to the Elector
of Brandenburg for permitting her marriage to her greatly-beloved
husband had much to do with the awful sorrows of the time. The queen
went several times to see the king while he was absent, always carrying
with her money, food and reinforcements. On one occasion she came
suddenly upon him, clasping him in her arms, exclaiming: "Now, Gustavus
the Great, thou art my prisoner."
Gustavus took pains to assure her that the war was now far beyond the
question of their marriage, or even his title to the throne. He made
plain to her that Sigismund, a Roman Catholic prince, who had the Pope
for master, the Hapsburgs for allies, the Jesuits for advisers, should
not and could not be permitted, even though it cost much in blood and
money, to set up any claim to the throne of a Lutheran country.
In our own land it was the small Indian wars which trained our ancestors
to be the nation of warriors who successfully fought England in the
Revolution. So Gustavus Adolphus, his great generals and his brave
troops, had training in small wars for that part of the Thirty Years'
War which was to make him the most prominent figure of his century.
Besides the wars with Denmark and with Poland, he also had a short
campaign (in which he took several Prussian towns) with Brandenburg, the
vassal and ally of Poland, although, like Sweden, a Lutheran country, so
he had really the practical experience of three wars before entering
that which gives him and his country their place in history.
The life of Gustavus was now even more precious to his subjects than at
his coronation, because his brother, Duke Charles Philip, had died
childless, January 25th, 1622.
He was a youth of great promise and of lovely spirit. On one occasion,
when he was ill, he wrote home: "My brother is so attentive and takes so
much pains to entertain me that I almost forget my 'illness.'" The death
of this prince was a severe stroke to the Dowager Queen Christina, who
had always loved him more than she had loved her gifted elder son.