the peasants refused to listen to the first public appeal which he made to them at the Mora Stone, they did not betray him; and when, soon after he had left the district by their request, the particulars of the Blood Bath were related to them by a noble of Upland, named Jon Michelsson, they repented of their conduct, and wished Gustaf Eriksson were amongst them again. By Michelsson's advice they sent swift "Skid"runners or skaters to seek Gustaf by night and by day, and soon these men traced him to a mountain pass between Sweden and Norway, just as he was about to cross the frontier, and brought him back to Mora, where at the King's Stone peasants from all the neighbouring districts assembled and elected him to be their "chief man in the kingdom." The superstitious country people regarded it as a favourable omen that whenever Gustaf had addressed them the wind had blown from the north, which had always been looked upon in Sweden as a proof that "God would give the matter a good ending." Sixteen powerful men were then chosen for his body-guard, and soon a few hundreds more Dalesmen offered him their services as foot-followers. From this small beginning of power the Swedish chroniclers date the commencement of his reign, although the Danes and their adherents in Stockholm continued long after these events to reckon Gustaf Eriksson and his followers as a company of lawless rebels. In the spring of 1521 he suddenly made his appearance at the Royal Copper Mines above Rättwik, where he seized upon the money belonging to the crown and on the wares of the Danish traders settled there, and carried off the royal baiiiff, Christopher Olsson, whom he entrusted to the safe-keeping of one of his faithful Dalesmen. He then divided the money and goods among his followers, who made their first flag out of a piece of silk taken from the Danes; and presenting himself before the miners while they were attending mass, he made them a long address, in which he told them of all the evil that the Danes were working in the land, and obtained a promise of support from them, as well as from the Dalesmen of Dalekarlia.

The Danes finally driven out.—In the meantime the authority of the Danish king was maintained at Stockholm, where Didrik Slaghoek ruled under the name of Regent of Sweden, and

was supported by the influence of the archbishop, Gustaf Trolle, and some of the Swedish nobles and chief citizens. As soon as they learnt what had been going on among the Dalesmen, they sent an army of 8,000 Germans to attack Gustaf's followers, whom they found assembled on the banks of the Dal, near the Brunnbäk's Ferry. When the Danish commander, Bishop Beldenak, saw the Dalesmen pouring a shower of arrows with a strong and steady aim across the little stream, he inquired where all these men had come from, and where they could get food in such a desolate region ? On hearing that they were so hardy that they drank water only, and if necessary could make shift to live on bark-bread, he is reported by the chroniclers to have said: "If this be so, my comrades, let us retreat while we may, for the devil himself, let alone ordinary mortals, could never subdue a people who can live on wood and water!" The victory at the Brunnbäk, while it dispirited the Danes, gave the turning-point to Gustaf's fortunes; and by encouraging the peasantry to declare themselves for him, actually placed the whole of Northern Sweden in his power; and soon 20,000 men were gathered round his standard at Vesteraas, where the Dalesmen with their long pikes killed a large number of the horses and men of the enemy. But the moral effect of their success was even greater than the havoc which they wrought in the Danish ranks, for the news of the defeat which the Danes met with in trying to defend the town depressed the king's troops and brought fresh support to Gustaf's cause. One castle after another was taken by force or stratagem, and soon there was no Danish leader left in Sweden to fear but Christian's able commander, Severin or Sören Norby, who by his gallant defence of Stockholm gave a temporary check to Gustaf's arms. The feeling against the Danes in Sweden had, however, risen so high that nothing could any longer resist the determination of the people to free themselves. Christian II. had never paused in his course of cruel persecution; and when the news reached Sweden in 1522 that many of the widows and children of the victims in the Blood Bath had died in the horrible dungeons in which the king had thrown them when he carried them to Denmark, the fury of the Swedes knew no bounds. Gutsaf Eriksson's mother

and his two sisters had been among the first who sank under the cruel treatment to which they were subjected; and in the letter which he addressed to the Pope, the Emperor, and all Christian princes, in 1522, in explanation of the reasons that had induced him and his followers to rise against the power of the King of Denmark, Gustaf openly accused the king of having poisoned the unhappy Swedish ladies who had died in the Danish prisons. When Christian learnt the purport of Gustaf's appeal, he sent orders to Norby to murder every Swedish noble whom he could seize upon, but the Danish commander let his prisoners escape whenever he could, saying it was "better that men should have a chance of getting a knock on the head in battle than to wring their necks as if they were chickens."

Óther Danes had not such scruples, and the Junker Thomas, commandant of Abo, obeyed his king's orders so exactly that he was able to send a report to Denmark of the success with which he had celebrated another Blood Bath. This officer, however, met his own death in the following year, when in making an attempt to relieve Stockholm he and all his ships fell into the hands of Gustaf, and he was hanged on a tree in sight of his own men. The news of King Christian's deposition and flight from Denmark in April 1523 was followed in Sweden by a meeting of the diet at Strängnäs, where on the 23rd June in that year Gustaf Eriksson was proclaimed king of Sweden, and the union with Denmark, which had existed for one hundred and twenty-six years, for ever dissolved. During that short interval between the deposition of Christian and the proclamation of Gustaf, one town after the other had been relieved of its Danish garrison, Calmar and Stockholm were taken, and the provinces of Skaania, Blekingen, and Halland included by force of arms and through the help of treaties in the kingdom of Sweden, of which they formed an integral part, both by their geographical position and the national character of the people. Before the close of the year Finland had declared its willingness to receive Gustaf as its king, and thus all the Swedish dominions were brought under the power of the one man who centred in himself the wishes and hopes of the entire nation.

PART II.

GUSTAF RULES WITH A STRONG HAND.

Gustaf Vasa crowned.-When Gustaf made his entry into Stockholm in the midsummer of 1523, he found a ruined and desolate capital in which half the houses were destroyed, and where the people were broken down by the miseries of the past siege and the effects of foreign rule. There was no money to carry on the expenses of government, while the nobles and prelates, who were the only classes able to help, had made themselves free of all taxation and service to the crown except in cases of foreign invasion. The Hanse leaguers, who had also secured to themselves entire freedom of trade in return for the services which they had rendered the Swedes against Denmark, pressed their claims for payment on account of the arms and provisions which they had given Gustaf during his siege of Stockholm, and whichever way he looked, money difficulties seemed to oppose his efforts to put order into the affairs of the kingdom. Then it was that he determined at one blow to crush the power of the higher clergy -who had made themselves hateful to the people by their wish to uphold the union with Denmark-and to relieve his own wants and those of the State at the expense of the Church.

Gustaf had early acquainted himself with the nature of the new doctrines preached by Luther, and when the brothers Olaus and Laurentius Petri, who had studied at Wittenberg, returned to Sweden in 1519, and began teaching the people the Reformed faith, he had given them his support as far as he was able. When he became king he appointed Olaus to a church at Stockholm, and made the younger brother professor at Upsala, and soon afterwards chose for his chancellor the provost Laurentius Andreæ, who had renounced Catholicism and translated the New Testament into Swedish. He also caused a public disputation to be held between the supporters of the old and the new dogmas, and paid no attention to the Papal letter presented to him by Bishop Brask, in which Adrian II. ordered

a court of inquisition to be opened in every bishopric of Sweden for the punishment of heretics and the condemnation of Luther's works. Gustaf's attempt to exact the payment of taxes for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the late war, led to disturbances, and he had several times to quell considerable revolts which had arisen out of his determination to put down the power of the Church. Two Anabaptists, called Knipperdolling and Rink, had caused great disorders in Stockholm, where they had led their followers on to destroy the images in the churches and ill-treat the clergy, but Gustaf ordered them to be driven out of Sweden; and when the people declared that they wished to keep to the faith of their fathers, he assured them that he had no desire to set up new doctrines, and that all he wanted was to do away with abuses. He nevertheless completely crushed the power of the Romish clergy at the diet held at Vesteraas in 1527, when in the opening address, read by the chancellor, Laurentius Andreæ, he laid before them a statement of the necessities of the kingdom, and inade the members clearly understand that unless money was freely given by the nobles and the rich prelates, he would at once resign the regal title and retire into private life. "It was impossible," the king said in this speech," to govern a people who threatened to come out against him with battle-axe and bent bow whenever he began to inquire into any act of treason, and who sent the bound and scorched staff from house to house to summon men to take up arms, as had been the custom of their forefathers in Sweden in bygone times, whenever their kings had done anything that displeased them. After pointing out all that the people owed to Gustaf, and setting before the assembly the disorders of the kingdom, the chancellor inquired of the prelates what they had to say in reply. Then Bishop Brask on behalf of the clergy answered that he and all his brethren knew the duty that they owed the king, but they could not forget that they were bound in all spiritual matters to obey the Pope, without whose express command they could allow of no changes in regard to reli

It had been customary in olden times to call together all the ablebodied fighting men of a district by sending from house to house a charred branch, to which was hung a loop of cord for fastening it to the house-door.