inexperienced Charles, in which he begged, as a gift from him, "a little
town on the German side of his dominions, called Luebeck, so that when
sometimes he passed over to Germany he might possess a place of his own
in which to rest." Charles, enlightened by the burgomaster of Cologne to
the effect that Luebeck was no "little town," but one of the four
imperial cities, and a chief centre of the Hanseatic League, refused his
brother-in-law's petition in decisive terms. Nor did Christian fare
better with his other demands; Charles had been warned against him, and
had been taught to see in him a possible heretic. It is even related
that in his anger Christian tore from his neck the Order of the Golden
Fleece, given to him by the emperor, and trod it under foot in disdain.
Christian returned home to find fresh difficulties awaiting him, for in
his absence Gustavus Vasa had not been idle. This restless patriot had
lingered but eight months in the hospitable German city. Young, full of
enthusiasm and fire, he longed to be actively at work to aid his
oppressed compatriots; and one morning, in the spring of 1520, after
confessing his obligations and his gratitude to the Luebeckers, he stole
over to the Swedish coast in a little fishing-smack, and landed in
territory that was groaning under Christian's oppressions.
At first, Gustavus, who at once assumed the _role_ of leader of revolt,
could not make himself heard among the peasants. They replied to his
instigations in their apathy of oppression with, "Salt and herrings will
not fail us as long as we obey the king, but if we rise we are sure of
ruin." But Gustavus was undaunted, though he knew a price was put upon
his head. For months he scoured the country, travelling by by-paths,
sleeping one night in the woods, another in the open fields; assuming
now this, now that disguise. Gradually he gathered a following around
him, which grew in importance day by day. His influence increased above
all after the tidings of the "Bloodbath," for so the terrible massacre
came to be called, perpetrated by Christian upon the nobles of
Stockholm, on the occasion when he offered them a banquet, apparently of
peace, but which proved to them a feast of death.
Chief among Gustavus's allies were the people of Dalecarlia, among whom
he went on his mission of revolt dressed in their native dress. This
land of valleys is inhabited by a people who have many points of
resemblance with the Scotch Highlanders; thinking themselves, as these
do, of a superior caste and adhering even to this day to an exaggerated
and antiquated mode of dress. Like the Highlanders, too, they are
frugal; they are accustomed to drink only water, and often in case of
necessity eat bread made of the inner rind of the birch tree, which
grows so freely in their woods. It is said that one of the Danish
commanders, learning this, exclaimed "A people who can live upon wood
and drink water the devil himself could not conquer, much less any
other. Let us go hence."
When the Danes heard of the army of peasants that was rising against
them, they at first treated the news with great contempt. "If the skies
rained peasants," they said, "we would fight them all." But they were
soon to see that these peasants were not to be lightly despised. It was
before Upsala that Gustavus's army, aided by troops sent to him from
Luebeck made its first attack on the Danes. There was a heavy snowfall
during the battle, in consequence of which the Danish cavalry and
artillery proved of no avail, while the peasants with their irregular
mode of warfare were less impeded by the elements. The victory was
theirs, and the Danes had to confess that their boast was foolish, "For
when God withdraws his hand from a warrior a poor peasant is as good as
he."
From this moment success followed success and the prospects of the cause
of Gustavus grew steadily brighter. His instructions to his followers
were that "they must teach the tyrant that Swedes must be ruled by love,
not ground down by cruelty."
In August, 1521, Gustavus was elected administrator of Sweden, and was
virtually ruler of the land, though the whole was not yet in his
possession. The time of shifts, disguises, and humiliations was now
over. The scenes of these, however, the barns where Gustavus threshed,
the different spots where he was in the greatest peril--are still
pointed out with veneration by the descendants of those peasants who
succoured him in his adversity, and boasted that they were the first to
help him to a crown.
In this juncture Christian saw himself obliged to send out yet more
ships and men against Gustavus. To meet the re-enforced enemy, Vasa
turned to Luebeck in 1522 and begged of "his fathers, brothers, friends,
and dear neighbours of that town," under promise of eternal gratitude,
to help him against "the tyrant," saying he would in his turn and time
"accord to them milder privileges and everything that could be to their
profit." The burghers decided to accede to this request; ten strong
ships were armed to aid Gustavus Vasa and sent out to meet the Danish
fleet.
Meanwhile they did not neglect to use the weapons of diplomacy; weapons
so often successfully employed by them during their career. They
remembered that Duke Frederick of Schleswig Holstein was uncle to
Christian II., and that the two had ever been at feud. It occurred to
them that it would be well to gain the duke as their ally, promising him
the Danish throne in event of their victory; of course in return for
important privileges; the Hansa would have been untrue to themselves and
their traditional policy had they for one moment left out of sight their
own advantages.
This proposal met with assent, and the consequence was that a powerful
enemy was thus raised up in the centre of the king's dominions.
Christian, following the counsel of Sigbrit, planned another wholesale
massacre of the nobles whom he believed favourable to Frederick's cause.
The matter got known, and in consequence a council was held by them in
which they drew up a deed, renouncing their allegiance to Christian and
choosing Frederick in his place to fill the Danish throne.
A question arose as to who should convey the perilous document to the
king. A certain monk of Jutland offered to bear the ill tidings. He met
the king as he was proceeding to one of his castles. Assuming an open
and cheerful countenance he managed to get himself asked to dinner by
the king, and continued to amuse him and divert all suspicions till the
king retired to rest. Then, placing the despatch in one of his gloves,
he left it on the table, went quietly out and escaped by a boat which he
had ordered to be in readiness. A page who found the despatch next
morning carried it to the king.
Christian, who till then had blustered and disbelieved in real danger,
grew alarmed when he read this unexpected paper. He wrote to those who
subscribed it saying "that he submitted himself to the emperor and other
disinterested princes as his judges. As to the massacre at Stockholm, he
would atone for it; he would fill the country with churches and
monasteries, and undergo any penance which the Pope might impose. The
Council and States should have from him fresh securities, if only they
would retract their step and turn from him this dishonour they had
meditated." The nobles replied that they acknowledged no tribunal
superior to their own; that the king had perjured himself so often that
they could not trust him; that he had confessed himself guilty, that the
deeds by which he had freed them from their allegiance were known to all
the world, and that they had chosen the Duke of Holstein as his
successor.
And indeed Frederick, Duke of Holstein, was proclaimed king of Denmark
in January, 1523. The Hansa fleet by sea, the support of the clergy and
nobles by land--that clergy and those nobles whom Christian had
oppressed--conduced to this result.
A manifesto put forth by Luebeck made known to the Emperor of Germany and
the Empire how "the city after long patience and repeated prayers, in
consideration of her oaths and duties towards the Holy Roman Empire and
remembering the inevitable damage done to body, honour, and goods, had
taken up arms to prosecute the wanton insurer and aggressor of the Holy
Roman Empire."
This manifesto was one of the little farces the Hanseatic League loved
to play with their supposed liege lord and sovereign, the Emperor of
Germany, each time they took independent action and showed by deeds how
little they heeded his authority or wishes.
In vain Christian, after his deposition, tried to rally his subjects
around him. Fearing probably that revenge would be taken upon his person
for his cruel massacres in Sweden, he decided that discretion was the
better part of valour. Choosing twenty of his best and fastest ships,
he placed on board of them all the State papers, all the gold and silver
that had been hoarded in the public buildings, and the State jewels. On
April 13, 1523, he, his wife and three children together with Sigbrit,
"the last packed away in a chest with the treasures," quaintly writes a
contemporary chronicler, went on board the largest of the vessels,
whereupon they all set sail for the Netherlands. It was nothing more or
less than flight, and an acknowledgment that Gustavus Vasa and his ally
the Hansa, through its representative Luebeck had conquered; that the
League, though declining in might, was still able, as in the most
glorious times of its history, to play with kings like dice, deposing
and installing them.
Two years later the same city of Luebeck was called upon to arbitrate in
a conflict between the two kings, which it thus had made, Frederick of
Denmark and Gustavus of Sweden. As the price of its intervention and of
the sacrifices it had made on their behalf, the city, in the name of the
League, of course, asked great favours, favours which were accorded by
treaty, and which were to be the last smiles of Fortune, about to become
fickle to the union she had favoured so long.
Meanwhile, in June, 1523, Gustavus Vasa had been, by unanimous consent,
elected King of Sweden. It is amusing to read that Stockholm, the last
city to surrender to its new ruler, the last faithful to Christian,
refused, even after it had capitulated, to deliver up the keys of the
gates to Gustavus. The governor handed them over to two Luebeck
councillors, present on the occasion, with the words, "We present to
the imperial city of Luebeck the kingdom and the city, and not to that
rogue, Gustavus Erikson, who stands there."
It must not be supposed, however, that Christian so quietly and easily
abandoned his Danish crown to his uncle and rival. He made many attempts
to enlist the various courts in his favour. Especially did he try to
gain the help of his brother-in-law, the emperor, but the League was too
clever and too strong for him. He did get together an army of
mercenaries, but his means of paying them soon ran out, though to attain
that end he pawned or sold all his treasures and the queen's jewels. At
last, he had to fly in terror from his own soldiers who were enraged at
his inability either to pay them their wages, or at least lead them to
some town they could plunder.
Nevertheless, Christian was not daunted. He was a man not easily
dismayed. He intrigued on every hand to regain his kingdom, and at last,
fancying that the Lutheran doctrines he had embraced prejudiced the
emperor against him, he formally renounced Protestantism and returned
into the bosom of the Romish Church.
Christian had not erred in his calculations. This step induced Charles
to be more favourable to him, and for a while he lent him his
countenance, soon, however, to withdraw it. Still the brief favour
sufficed to enable him to get together a strong army to attack Denmark.
Frederick, alarmed, turned to Luebeck for aid, and did not turn in vain.
Indeed, his ambassadors admitted that "Luebeckers had shown themselves
in this time of need, not like mere neighbours, but like fathers to
Denmark."
After many vicissitudes of fortune, Christian at last abandoned the idea
of regaining his old rights by force of arms. He craved an interview
with his uncle and a free passage to Copenhagen. This safe passage was
accorded to him and its terms were couched in the most sacred and solemn
words. The Hanseatic representatives enforced the promise on their own
account. Not suspecting treachery, unwarned, Christian stepped on board
the vessel that was to convey him to the Danish capital, and arrived in
Copenhagen with the fond hope that Frederick would receive him like the
prodigal son. Instead of allowing him to land at once, however, he was
detained in the harbour for five days, under the pretext that Frederick
was absent, and at last when permitted to set foot on dry land, he was
invited to meet the king at Flensburg, and was told that the fleet had
orders to carry him thither.
Then, and only then, the unfortunate man suspected that he had been
betrayed. And so it was. Frederick and his councillors pronounced the
safe conduct null and void; Christian was taken prisoner, and amid
fierce ejaculations of rage and despair, was locked up in the "Blue
Tower" of the Castle of Sonderburg. Here for fifteen years in company
with his favourite dwarf, Christian had to suffer painful confinement
that only ended with his death. His confinement was unjust, no doubt,
but it was richly merited.
Unmourned by his relations, or the aristocracy he had oppressed,
Christian's memory lived among the peasants and lower classes, of whom
he had been the supposed friend, a friendship that no doubt had no
higher aim than his own ends, but which never had occasion to show its
true character. His name, consequently, became a watchword among the
people, and inspired those who soon after were to be the leaders in
great convulsions in the Scandinavian provinces. But this is outside the
course of my history.
II.
KING FREDERICK AND KING GUSTAVUS VASA.
In speaking of Christian's continued aggressions and his death, we have
somewhat anticipated the course of our story. We left our League in the
proud consciousness of having made two kings and expelled a third. It
was but natural that they should now look for some reward in the
gratitude of Frederick and Gustavus. They thought that the moment had
come to regain their ascendency in the Scandinavian north. But they were
to learn the old, old lesson once again: "Put not thy trust in princes."
Frederick was the first to show his colours. It was true that he had
sworn to the Hansa not only restitution, but extension of all their
ancient rights and privileges, but when they demanded as a first pledge
of friendly feeling, that the Baltic should be absolutely closed to the
Netherlanders, and that indeed no one might trade in that sea but
themselves, Frederick met them with an inexorable refusal. We should be
wrong if we regarded this refusal as a mere display of ingratitude on
the king's part. He saw that the claim was detrimental to the interests
of his own subjects, whom, after all, he was bound to consider first.
But he went much further. He dissolved the German Society that traded
at Copenhagen and insisted that all Hanseatics should be subjected to
the same laws as his own subjects. Further, he took under his protection
the inhabitants of Bornholm, which island was under the rule of Luebeck,
having been given up to that city by reason of forfeiture. For the
natives groaned under the Hansa's rule, and declared "they would rather
be under the Turks, than under the German, Christian, imperial city."
In vain did Luebeck protest to Frederick; in vain did she remind him of
his promises, point to his treaties, and recall his written and spoken
words. She had to ask herself bitterly what she had gained in return for
the great sacrifices she had made to change the ruler of Denmark. The
uncle had become the nephew, that was all, and worse than the nephew,
because less impetuous and passionate, and, therefore, more determined
and dangerous. Added to this, they fell out about religious matters.
Frederick encouraged the new faith, while the Queen of Hansa, stubbornly
conservative in all matters, remained until the spring of 1531 an
adherent of the old religion.
In 1553 Frederick died. An interregnum of more than a year followed,
during which the hopes of Luebeck to re-establish her authority in the
north revived; and were fed and fanned by the Burgomaster Juergen
Wullenweber. It was to prove the last flickering of the Hansa's glory.
But before we speak of the agitated period of Wullenweber's ambitious
plans, let us see how, on his part, Gustavus Vasa showed his gratitude
to the town to which he owed so much.
Gustavus Vasa had even less consideration than Frederick. During his
residence in Luebeck he had learned to appreciate the material results
that sprang from trade, and was secretly resolved that his own subjects
and not these strangers should benefit by the country's resources. At
first he, like Frederick, accorded the Hansa munificent charters.
Indeed, he could not do less than assent to all their demands; he was
deeply their debtor for money advanced during his wars, for material as
well as moral assistance. He had no gold or silver to offer them, but he
could accord them the exclusive use of those gold mines, the Baltic and
the Sound. The Hansa should have the trading monopoly "for ever and
ever," so ran the words of the charter.
But as soon as Gustavus felt the crown firmly planted on his head, and
had in part paid off his debt, he applied himself to securing the
commercial independence of his country and to making the League
understand the meaning of the words "for ever," when they occur in a
promise. He resolutely set his face against the Hanseatic claims for
monopoly. "Gustavus was an angel at first," piteously writes the Luebeck
official chronicler; "Alas, that he should so soon have become a devil."
In open assembly, 1526, the king did not hesitate to speak the following
words of unmistakable clearness: "We must," he said, "withdraw from the
strangers their unrestricted liberty; we must open the Swedish harbours
to all ships." Next year even more definite words were spoken in the
assembly. It was decided "to curtail the Hanseatic privileges without
further delay, as seriously prejudicial to the kingdom."
There was one way by which Luebeck could retain in leading strings the
"vassals," as she proudly called them, who had grown over her head. This
was by means of their still unpaid debts. But Gustavus worked
unremittingly towards attaining this end. His country, which was poor,
had been yet further impoverished by wars, but still he succeeded, by
means of heavy taxation, in raising supplies. He taxed everything that
he could think of. It is said even hazel-nuts were subjected to this
burden. Nay he even persuaded various towns and communes to melt down
their church bells in order to expunge the national debt. By these
trenchant means he succeeded in reducing it to a small amount by the
year 1532, and then threatened the Hansa with yet more repressive
measures, if they ventured to persist in claiming their ancient
privileges.
No wonder that the ill-humour of the Luebeckers grew from day to day, and
that they used to say to each other, "This is our thanks for having made
an ox driver a king."
But Gustavus never swerved from his fixed resolve to make an end of
Hanseatic privileges and monopolies as far as concerned his kingdom. By
the time of his death in 1560 the power of the League was broken in
Sweden beyond all hope or possibility of revival.
III.
WULLENWEBER.
Among the various disintegrating influences at work upon the League we
have already named the Reformation. The new doctrines were destined at
first to bring little blessing to the land in which they took their
birth, and more especially to the Hansa was the purer creed to prove a
source of dissension, resulting in eventual dissolution. Among other
causes this was due to the fact that the cities did not all or at the
same time embrace Protestantism. Thus a schism arose in their very
midst: the Protestant cities eyeing the Catholic with distrust, and
_vice versa_. Moreover, these changes of view and system led to great
disunion in the various towns themselves, often temporarily weakening
the authority of the municipality and causing the city to be too much
pre-occupied to attend to the common affairs and the welfare of the
entire League. The movement also took different forms in different
centres. In some it came about quite easily, and found the ground all
ready prepared; in others, it entered with strife and bloodshed, or with
fanatical excesses and absurdities, as for example in Bremen, and
Muenster, where the over-excited sect of the Anabaptists held sway.
It was especially in the North, that the trade in indulgences,
consequent on a Papal need for ready money, found the most rigid
opponents. The clear-headed burghers resented this demand as an insolent
defiance of their common sense, and many who had already been half
unconsciously influenced by the stream of tendency towards a reformed
faith, manifested in the persons of Wickliffe and Huss, felt that this
outrageous and unblushing traffic was too much for their credulity. The
travelling merchants bought Luther's pamphlets, and carried them to
their various homes. The wandering apprentices learnt the stirring
psalms of the "Wittenberg nightingale." A new spiritual day was dawning,
above all for the lower classes, who, ignorant of Latin, the language of
the Catholic creed, were unable to follow or comprehend the services of
the church they attended.
It was in consequence of this awakening, and the wider and nobler mode
of thinking, and the educating force which it implied, that hand-in-hand
with the religious movement there became manifest also a political
stirring. The character of this was democratic, and it is not hard to
understand why it was so. The people who had groaned under the
oppression of the clergy and of the aristocracy, who almost invariably
were their allies, began to assert their rights. They could now read the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and thence could learn that the blind
submission demanded by the priests was by no means an integral part of
Christianity. They remembered how the cities had been founded on
democratic principles; they drew to light old privileges and charters;
and by their memory and their ardour they made things far from
comfortable for the burgomasters and patricians who held the government
of the towns. Especially was their power felt by the arrogant and
dissolute clergy, whose property they confiscated and devoted to public
purposes, and whose churches and monasteries they converted into
almshouses and schools.
It is necessary to realize the absolute moral corruption of the priests,
monks, and nuns, in order to comprehend the anger of the populace, and
to excuse the excesses into which they were led by their righteous zeal.
Nor must it be forgotten that the people had groaned under the Vehmic
Tribunal, which persecuted heretics, and that they had beheld Christians
burn their fellow-Christians for the glory of God.