The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

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.

Thus ended the reign of Christian II, a king in whom one knows not which rivets the attention, the multiplied undertakings he commenced and abandoned in a career so often stained with blood, his audacity, his feebleness, or that misery of many years by which he was to expiate a short and ill-used tenure of power. There are men who, like the storm birds before the tempest, appear in history as foretokens of the approaching outburst of great convulsions. Of such a nature was Christian, who, tossed hither and thither between all the various currents of his time without central consistence, awakened alternately the fear or pity of the beholders.

Frederick I, who was chosen to succeed him in Denmark, wrote to the estates of Sweden, demanding that in accordance with the stipulations of the Union of Kalmar he might also be acknowledged king in Sweden. They replied "that they had elected Gustavus Ericson to be Sweden's king." That event came to pass at the Diet of Strengess, June 7, 1523. Thus was the union dissolved, after enduring one hundred twenty-six years. Norway wavered at this critical moment. The inhabitants of the southern portion declared, when the Swedes under Thure Jenson (Roos) and Lawrence Siggeson (Sparre) had penetrated into their country as far as Opslo, that they would unite with Sweden if they might rely upon its support. Bohusland was subdued, Bleking likewise on another side, and Gustavus sought, both by negotiation and arms, to enforce the old claims of Sweden to Scania and Halland. The town of Kalmar was taken on May 27th, and the castle on July 7th. Stockholm having surrendered on June 20th, on condition of the free departure of the garrison with their property and arms, and of every other person who adhered to the cause of Christian, Gustavus made his public entry on Midsummer's Eve; before the end of the year Finland also was reduced to obedience. The kingdom was freed from foreign enemies, but internal foes still remained; and Lubeck was an ally whose demands made it more troublesome than it would have been as an enemy.

A town wasted in the civil war had been the scene of the election of Gustavus Vasa to the throne. In the capital, when he made his public entry, one-half of the houses were empty, and of population scarcely a fourth part remained. To fill up the gap, he issued an invitation to the burghers in other towns to settle there, a summons which he was obliged twelve years afterward to renew, "seeing that Stockholm had not yet revived from the days of King Christian." The spectacle which here met his eyes was a type of the condition of the whole kingdom, and never was it said of any sovereign with more justice that the throne to which he had been elevated was more difficult to preserve than to win.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Translated by J. H. Turner, M.A.