received a friendly answer to the request which their accredited
messengers had preferred on that occasion, and that their neighbors the
Helsingers had promised to stand by them as one man, "whatever evils
might befall them from the oppression of foreign or native masters."
When Gustavus had begun the siege of Stockholm, every third man of the
Helsingers in fact marched thither to strengthen his army. Yet at first
they hesitated to embrace the cause, although Gustavus himself went
among them, and spoke to the assembled people from the barrow on the
royal domain of Norrala. Thence he proceeded to Gestricland, where
fugitives from Stockholm had already prepared men's minds. The burghers
of Gefle, and commissioners from several parishes, swore fidelity to him
in the name of the whole province. Here the rumor reached him that the
Dalecarlians had already suffered a defeat; he hastened back, and soon
received an account of the first victory of his followers.
Letters of the magistracy of Stockholm, which were sent over the whole
kingdom, warned the people to avoid all participation in the revolt.
Relief was supplicated from the King; additions were made to the
fortifications of the capital, sloops and barks were equipped, in order,
as it was said, to deprive "Gustavus Ericson and his company of
malefactors of all opportunity of quitting the country," but really to
keep the approaches on the side of the sea open, which were obstructed
by the fishers and peasants of the islets, who had begun to take arms
for Gustavus. Special admonitory letters were despatched to Helsingland
and Dalecarlia, signed by Gustavus Trolle, his father Eric Trolle, and
Canute Bennetson (Sparre) of Engsoe, styling themselves the council of
the realm of Sweden, by which, however, say the chronicles, the royal
cause was rather damaged than strengthened. "For when the Dalesmen and
miners heard the letter, they said it was manifest to them that the
council at this time was but small and thin, since it consisted of only
three men, and these of little weight." Gustavus Trolle, the Danish
bishops, Canute Bennetson, above named, and Henry of Mellen, the King's
lieutenant at Westeras--where they had recently been assembled with
commissioners from the magistracy of Stockholm by Bishop Otho--now
marched with six thousand men of horse and foot toward the Dal River,
and encamped at the ferry of Brunback. On the other side the
Dalecarlians guarded this frontier of their country, under the command
of Peter Swenson of Viderboda, a powerful miner, whom Gustavus had
appointed their captain in his absence. When those in the Danish camp
observed how the Dalesmen shot their arrows across the stream, Bishop
Beldenacke is said to have inquired of the Swedish lords present--to use
the words of the chronicles--"how great a force the tract above the Long
Wood (the forest on the boundary between Westmanland and Dalecarlia)
could furnish at the utmost?" Answer was made to him, full twenty
thousand men. Yet further he asked where so many mouths might obtain
sustenance? To this it was replied that the people were not used to
dainty meats; they drunk for the most part nothing but water, and, if
need were, could be satisfied with bark-bread. Then Beldenacke declared:
"Men who eat wood and drink water the devil himself could not overcome,
much less anyone else. Brethren, let us leave this place!" The story
makes the Danes hereupon prepare for breaking up their encampment.
However this may be, it is certain that Peter Swenson, with the
Dalesmen, crossed the Dal secretly, by a circuit, at Utsund's Ferry,
surprised the camp, and put the foe to rout.
Gustavus had himself dealt with the inhabitants of Helsingland and
Gestricland, in order to insure himself against leaving foes in the
rear, and, after his return to the Dales, he prepared for an expedition
into the lower country. He assembled his troops at Hedemora, and sought
to inure them to habits of order and obedience by military exercises.
The dale peasant had no fire-arms and knew little of discipline; his
weapons were the axe, the bow, the pike, and the sling, the latter
sometimes throwing pieces of red-hot iron. Gustavus instructed his men
to fashion their arrows in a more effective shape, and increased the
length of the spear by four or five feet, with a view to repel the
attacks of cavalry. He caused monetary tokens to be struck--an expedient
which seems to have been not uncommon in Sweden, since, from a remote
period, even leather money is mentioned. The coins now struck at
Hedemora were of copper, with a small admixture of silver, similar to
those introduced by the King, and called "Christian's klippings;" on one
side was the impress of an armed man; on the other, arrows laid
crosswise, with three crowns.
Gustavus broke from his quarters, and marched across the Long Wood into
Westmanland. His course lay through districts which bore traces yet
fresh of the enemy's passage. The peasantry rose as he advanced. On St.
George's Day, April 23d, he mustered his army at the church of
Romfertuna. The number is stated by the chronicles at from fifteen to
twenty thousand men, yet on the correctness of this little reliance can
be placed, even if we did not absolutely class this account with those
which compare the multitude of Dalesmen in the fight of Brunneback to
the sands of the sea-shore and the leaves of the forest, and their
arrows to the hail of the storm-cloud. The liberation of Sweden by
Gustavus Vasa is a history written by the people, and they counted
neither themselves nor their foes. The army was now divided under two
generals, Lawrence Olaveson and Lawrence Ericson, both practised
warriors. Gustavus next issued his declaration of war against Christian,
and marched to Westeras. He expected here to be met by the peasants of
the western mining district from Lindesberg and Nora, who had already
taken the oath of fidelity to him through his deputies; but instead of
this he was informed that Peter Ugla, one of those intrusted with the
performance of this duty, had allowed himself to be surprised at Koping,
and cut to pieces with his whole force. On the other hand, tidings
arrived that the peasants on Wermd Isle had revolted, slain a band of
Christian's men in the church itself, and made themselves masters of two
of his ships. The letters conveying the news, and magnifying the
advantages gained, Gustavus caused to be read aloud to his followers.
Theodore Slagheck, exercising power with barbarous cruelty and outrage,
had himself taken the command of the castle of Westeras. He caused all
the fences of the neighborhood to be broken down, in order to be able to
use his cavalry without impediment against the insurgent peasants, who,
on April 29th, approached the town. Both horsemen and foot, with
field-pieces, marched against them; and Gustavus, who had interdicted
his men from engaging in a contest with the enemy, intending to defer
the attack till the following day, was still at Balundsas, half a mile
from the town, when news reached him that his young soldiers were
already at blows with their adversaries, and he hastened to their
assistance. The Dalecarlians opposed their long pikes to the onset of
the cavalry with such effect that, more than four hundred horses having
perished in the assault, they were driven back on the infantry, who were
posted in their rear, and compelled to flee along with them, while
Lawrence Ericson pushed into the town by a circuitous road and possessed
himself of the enemy's artillery in the market-place. When the garrison
of the castle observed this, they set fire to the houses by shooting
their combustibles, and burned the greatest part of the town. The miners
and peasants dispersed to extinguish the flames or to plunder, bartered
with one another the goods of the traders in the booths, possessed
themselves of the stock of wine in the cathedral and the council-house,
seated themselves round the vats, drank and sang. The Danes, reenforced
from the castle, rallied anew, and the victory would undoubtedly have
been changed into an overthrow had not Gustavus sent Lawrence Olaveson,
with the followers he had kept about him, again into the town, where,
after a renewal of the conflict, the foe was put to an utter rout. Many
cast away their arms, and threw themselves, between fire and sword, into
the waters. Gustavus caused all the stores of spirituous liquors to be
destroyed, and beat in the wine casks with his own hand.
The fight of Westeras, from its influence on public opinion, acquired
greater importance than of itself it would have possessed. Little was
gained by the conquest of the town, so long as the castle held out; and
how unserviceable a force of peasants was for a siege, Gustavus was
often subsequently to experience. Wherever the tidings of his victory
came, the people revolted, and he was already enabled to divide his
power, and to invest the castles of several provinces. Siege was
accordingly laid to Stegborg, Nykoping, and Orebro. A division of the
Vermelanders, with the peasants of Rekarne, in Sudermania, was employed
in beleaguering the castle of Westeras; of whose exploits, however,
nothing else is told than that they shot the councillor Canute Bennetson
(Sparre), to whom Slagheck transferred the command, so that he tumbled
in his wolfskin coat from the wall into the stream. Howbeit, another
detachment reduced Horningsholm in Sudermania; Christian's governors in
Vermeland and Dalsland were slain; the people of the former province,
under the command of their justiciary, prepared for an attack upon the
councillor Thure Jonson, the King's lieutenant in West-Gothland, and,
crossing Lake Vener, entered that district.
In Dalsland, fifteen hundred men took up arms; several thousand peasants
from Nerike marched across the Tiwed with the same object. Gustavus had
been obliged to grant a furlough to his Dalesmen about seed-time; and to
supply their place he caused the people of several districts of Upland
to be summoned to assemble in the forest of Rymningen, at
Oeresundsbro; from which point his two captains essayed an attack upon
the Archbishop of Upsala. It was St. Eric's Day (May 18th), and a great
confluence of people was present at the fair. An assault was expected;
for a deputation of four priests and two burgesses, sent from Upsala to
the forest, had received from the leaders the answer that it must be
Swedes, not outlandish men, who should bear the shrine of holy Eric, and
that they would come to take their part in the festival. Bennet Bjugg
(Barley), the Archbishop's bailiff, to show his contempt of such foes,
caused a banquet to be set out in the open space between the larger and
smaller episcopal manor houses of that day, where, before the eyes of
the people, he made himself and his fellows merry till late in the night
with drinking, dancing, and singing. Roused from a late sleep by an
assault on the gates of the fortified house, and finding it beset by the
enemy, they attempted to escape by a concealed passage, which then
connected the Bishop's house with the cathedral. But the peasants set
fire to this passage, which was of wood, and shot fire arrows at the
roof of the episcopal residence, in which the flames soon burst forth.
The building was laid in ashes, and next day the females of the
household, with some burghers of Upsala, crept out of its cellars, in
which they had taken refuge. Great part of the garrison perished. The
bailiff escaped with a wound from an arrow, of which he died after
rejoining his master at Stockholm.
This prelate, Archbishop Gustavus Trolle, had lately returned from a
journey to Helsingland, undertaken in order to retain this part of his
diocese in its allegiance to the King. Shortly afterward he received, by
a messenger from Gustavus, who had himself come to Upsala at
Whitsuntide, a letter exhorting him to embrace the cause of his country,
to which his chapter had been persuaded to annex a memorial to the same
effect. The Archbishop detained the messenger, saying that he would
carry the answer himself. He broke up immediately with five hundred
German horse and three thousand foot of the garrison of Stockholm, and
had come within half a mile of Upsala before Gustavus received
intelligence of his approach. This the latter did not at first credit,
but remained, expecting an answer to his overture of negotiation, until,
about six in the morning, being on horseback upon the sand-hill near
Upsala, the spot where he afterward built a royal castle, he saw the
Archbishop marching across the King's Mead (Kungsang) toward the town.
Gustavus had but two hundred of his so-called foot-goers and a small
number of horse with him, for the peasants had returned to their homes.
He made a hasty retreat, but was overtaken by Trolle's horsemen at the
Ford of Laby. Here a young Finnish noble, who was next to him, in the
confusion rode down his horse in the midst of the stream; and he would
have been lost had not the rest of his followers turned upon the enemy
with such effect as to make them desist from the pursuit.
Gustavus now betook himself to the forest of Rymningen, raised the
peasantry of the adjoining districts, and sent out young men under his
best captains to surprise the Archbishop on his return. The remains of
cattle slaughtered on the road betrayed the ambush to the prelate, who
drew off in another direction. He was nevertheless overtaken and
attacked, escaping the spear of Lawrence Olaveson only by bending
downward on his horse, so that the weapon pierced his neighbor; and he
brought back to Stockholm hardly a sixth part of his army. Gustavus
followed close after with his collected force, and encamped under the
Brunkeberg. Four gibbets on this eminence, stocked with corpses of
Swedish inhabitants, attested the character of the government in the
capital.
Thus began, at the midsummer of 1521, the siege of Stockholm, which was
to last full two years, amid difficulties little thought of nowadays,
after the lapse of ages; and the admiration which men so willingly
render to the exertions in the cause of freedom have deprived events of
their original colors. The path of Gustavus was not in general one of
glittering feats, although his life is in itself one grand achievement.
What he accomplished was the effect of strong endurance and great
sagacity; and though he wanted not for intrepidity, it was of a kind
before which the mere warrior must vail his crest. All the remaining
movements of the war of liberation consist in sieges of the various
castles and fortresses of the country, undertaken as opportunity
offered, with levies of the peasantry, whose detachments relieved each
other, though sometimes neglecting this duty when pressed by the cares
or necessities of their own families. Hence the object of these
investments, which was to deprive the besieged of provisions, could only
be imperfectly attained, and there were many fortified mansions of which
the proprietors adhered to the Danish party, as that of Wik in Upland,
which remained blockaded throughout the whole year. These difficulties
were the most formidable where, as at Stockholm, access was open by the
sea, of which Severin Norby, with the Danish squadron, was master. The
scantiness of the means of attack may be discovered from the
circumstance that sixty German spearmen, whom Clement Rensel, a burgher
of Stockholm, himself a narrator of these events, brought from Dantzic
in July for the service of Gustavus, were regarded as a reenforcement of
the highest importance. "At this time," says the chronicle, "Lord
Gustave enjoyed not much repose or many pleasant days, when he kept his
people in so many campaigns and investments, since he bore for them all
great anxiety, fear, and peril, how he might lend them help in their
need, so that they might not be surprised through heedlessness and
laches. So likewise his pain was not small when he had but little in his
money chest, and it was grievous to give this answer when the folk cried
for stipend. Therefore he stayed not many days in the same place, but
travelled day and night between the camps."
In the month of August he arrived at Stegeborg, which was now besieged
by his general, Arwid the West-Goth, who had recently repulsed with
great bravery Severin Norby's attempt to relieve the castle, and had
even begun to take homage for Gustavus from the people of his province,
although in this he experienced difficulties. The East-Goths declared
that they had been so chastised for their attack on the Bishop's castle
at Linkoping the preceding year that they no longer dared to provoke
either King Christian or Bishop Hans Brask. The personal presence of
Gustavus decided the waverers, and even the Bishop received him as a
friend, because he would otherwise have stood in danger of a hostile
visitation. Gustavus now convoked a diet of barons at Vadstena, which
was attended by seventy Swedish gentlemen of noble family and by many
other persons of all classes in Gothland. These made him a tender of the
crown, which he refused to accept. On August 24th, therefore, they swore
fealty and obedience to him as administrator of the kingdom--"in like
manner," add the chronicles, "as had formerly been done in Upland";
whence they seem to have assumed that he had already been acknowledged
as such in Upper Sweden, here called Upland, as we often find it in the
chronicles of the Middle Age. This was the first public declaration of
the nobility in favor of Gustavus and his cause; although the greatest
barons in this division of the kingdom, such as Nils Boson (Grip),
Holger Carlson (Gere), and Thure Jenson (Roos) in West-Gothland, all
three councillors of state, were still in arms for Christian. That the
first-named nobleman joined the party of Gustavus before the end of the
year we know from his letter of thanks for a fief of which he received
the investure. Both the latter were proclaimed in 1523 to be enemies of
the realm, as also was the archbishop Gustavus Trolle. He had repaired
to Denmark two years before, in order to obtain, by his personal
instances with the King, the often-promised relief for the besieged
garrison of Stockholm, but was received with coldness and reproaches.
After the baronial diet of Vadstena, the Gothlanders acknowledged the
authority of the administrator, and, the Danes having been driven out
West-Gothland and Smaland, the seat of the war was removed to Finland.
By the commencement of the next year the principal castles of the
interior had fallen into the hands of Gustavus, and some, as those of
Westeras and Orebo, were razed to the ground by the now exasperated
peasantry. Stockholm and Kalmar, as well as Abo in Finland, yet stood
out, and by help of reenforcement which they received at the beginning
of 1522, through the Danish admiral Severin Norby, the enemy were again
able to resume the offensive. By sallies from the beleaguered capital on
April 7th, 8th, and 13th, the camp of Gustavus was set on fire and
destroyed, and for a whole month afterward no Swedish force was seen
before the walls of Stockholm. The besiegers of Abo were likewise driven
off, and the chief adherents of Gustavus, being obliged to flee from
Finland, Arvid, Bishop of Abo, with many noble persons of both sexes,
perished at sea.
Christian himself by new cruelties added to the detestation with which
he was regarded in Sweden. The wives and children, of the most
distinguished among the barons beheaded in Stockholm, had been conveyed
to Denmark, and among them the mother and two sisters of Gustavus, whom
the King, in spite of the entreaties of his consort, threw into a
dungeon. Here they died, either by violence, as Gustavus himself
complains in a letter of 1522 concerning the cruel oppression of King
Christian, directed to the Pope, the Emperor, and all Christian princes,
or, as others assert, of the plague. An order had also been recently
issued by the King to commanders in Sweden to put to death all the
Swedes of distinction who had fallen into their hands. The chronicles
say that Severin Norby had received this order so early as the summer of
1521, but, instead of complying with it, permitted the escape of many
noblemen, who afterward did homage to Gustavus at Vadstena, in order, as
he expressed it, that they might rather guard their necks like warriors
than be slaughtered like chickens. But in Abo a new massacre was
perpetrated at the beginning of the next year by Lord Thomas, the
royalist commander there, who afterward, in an attempt to relieve
Stockholm, fell, with all his ships, into the hands of Gustavus, and was
hanged upon an oak in Tynnels Island.
After Severin Norby had relieved the capital, the secretary, master
Gotschalk Ericson, wrote thence to Christian that there were but eighty
of the burghers, for the most part Germans, who could be counted on for
the King's service, but of footmen and gunners in the castle there were
now eight hundred fifty men, well furnished with all; the peasants were,
indeed, weary of the war, but were still more fearful of the King's
vengeance, and put faith in no assurances, whence the country could only
be reduced to obedience by violent methods; if a sufficient force were
sent, East-Gothland, Sodermanland, and Upland would submit to the King,
and his grace could then punish the Dalecarlians and Helsingers, who
first stirred up these troubles.
The governor of the castle of Stockholm informs the King, in a report on
military occurrences of the winter, "that his men had compelled him to
consent to an increase of pay on account of the successes they had
gained; that he had expelled from the town, or imprisoned, the suspected
Swedish burghers; that the peasants would rather be hanged on their own
hearths than longer endure the burden of war; that Gustavus, who had in
vain tempted his fidelity, had already sent his plate and the chief part
of his own movable property to a priest in Helsingland; he (the
governor) also transmitted an inventory of the goods of the decapitated
nobles."
But by the end of one month Gustavus, who in this letter is styled "a
forest thief and robber," had again filled three camps around Stockholm
with Dalesmen and Norrlanders; and when, pursuant to a convention with
Lubeck, he received thence in the month of June an auxiliary force of
ten ships, a number that was afterward augmented, he was enabled to
dispense with the greatest portion of his peasants, and retained about
him only those who were young and unmarried. The assistance of the
Lubeckers, it was true, was given only by halves, and from selfish
motives; they did not forget their profit on the arms, purchased Swedish
iron and copper for klippings, with which worthless coins they came
well provided, and exacted a dear price for their men, ships, and
military stores, refusing even, it is said, to supply Gustavus with two
pieces of cannon at a decisive moment, although upon the proffered
security of two of the royal castles.
This occurred on occasion of a second, and this time unsuccessful,
attempt made by Norby to relieve Stockholm; in which he was only saved
from ruin by the refusal of the admiral of Lubeck to attack. Meanwhile
Gustavus, despite the losses which he sustained by sallies, pushed his
three camps by degrees close to the town, then covering little more than
the island still contains, the town properly so called. At length, after
Kingsholm, Langholm, Sodermalm, Waldemar's Island, now the Zoological
Gardens, had been connected by block-houses and chains, the place was
invested on all sides. Yet it held out through the winter, until the
news of Christian's fate, joined to the pangs of hunger, deprived the
garrison of all spirit for further resistance.
He did not dare to trust either his subjects or his soldiers, collected
twenty ships, in which he embarked the public records, with the treasure
and crown jewels, his consort and child, and his adviser Sigbert, who
was concealed in his chest. Deserting his kingdom, he sailed away in the
face of the whole population of Copenhagen, April 20, 1523.