gious teaching nor consent to any lessening of the rights and revenues of the Church; and concluded by saying that if in this respect any evil-minded men had taught heretical doctrines or given bad advice they must be put to silence and punished."

When the bishop had ended his speech, Gustaf demanded whether the Council of State and the nobles considered this

a proper reply to his demands ? On hearing from Ture Jönsson, who was chosen to speak for them, that they knew of nothing better to say, he sprang to his feet, exclaiming— "Then I will no longer be your king. If such are your thoughts I do not wonder at the treason and discontent of the common people, who blame me if they do not get rain or sunshine when they want either. Your aim, as I see, is to be my masters, and to set monks, priests, and other creatures of the Pope over my head. Who would be your king on such terms, think you? not the worst soul out of hell! So see to it ; give me back what I have spent of my own fortune, and I will go away from you all, and never return to my ungrateful country." At the end of this angry speech Gustaf paused, and bursting into tears, rushed from the hall.

Effect of Gustaf's threat.-There was great confusion in the district when it was known that King Gustaf threatened to leave Sweden, and the peasants, collecting in large numbers, cried out that "if the lords could not make up their minds what ought to be done, the Bondar would find a way to help themselves." The bishops were the first to give in, and on the third day Magnus Sommar, Bishop of Strängnäs, came forward and said that "the servants of the Church had no wish to be protected at the risk of destroying the peace of the kingdom." The nobles under Ture Jönsson held out till the Bondar threatened to go to the king, and propose to him that they should all be sent back to their own castles; and then they too came in a deputation to the palace with promises of submission. But Gustaf returned only hard answers to the messages sent to him, and it was not until all his proposals had been agreed to by each order of the diet that he yielded. The bishops, who from that time forth were never again admitted into the Council of State in Sweden, where they had before taken the highest places, drew up a protest against these

attacks on the rights of the Church, in a meeting held with locked doors in the church of St. Ægidius, and concealed the writing under the stone floor of the chancel, where it was accidentally found many years afterwards. At the same time they all signed publicly a memorial in which they said "they were content to be poor or rich according to the king's good pleasure."

Conduct to the Clergy.-Gustaf carried out the Resolutions passed at Vesteraas with much severity, taking castles and lands from the prelates, and visiting harshly every act of hesitation on their part in giving them up. Reformed teachers were permitted to preach in Swedish to the people, "as long as they used the Scriptures only, and had nothing to do with false miracles and such-like fables." As soon as he had thus secured the disposal of church property, and received the submission of the nobles, Gustaf celebrated his coronation, and took active steps to put down the disturbances which had broken out amongst the Dalesmen, whose leaders he punished with death. The outbreak had in the first place been caused by the king having taken one bell from every church for the payment of the debt still due to the Lübeckers on account of their help against the Danes, but by degrees other causes of dissatisfaction were added; and for fifteen years his government was disturbed by opposition to the new faith, by attempts on the part of Christian II. and his friends to recover the northern crowns, which led more than once to friendly alliances between Gustaf of Sweden and Frederick I. of Denmark, and by the treachery and discontent of the nobles. But in 1542 the king

so thoroughly crushed the rebels in Smaaland that after the murder of their leader, the peasant, Nils Dacke, peace was never again disturbed during his reign. And so firmly was the power of the crown established, that in 1544 Gustaf found himself able to secure the passing of a law by which the throne was declared hereditary in his family.

Gustaf's restless activity. From that time till the end of his life he never ceased his labours for the improvement of his kingdom, and so untiring was his industry and his determination to be master in all things, that there was no subject, however trivial, that he did not consider, or even decide upon. He

put such order in the finances of the kingdom that he left at his death a rich treasury, with a standing army of 15,000 men, and a well-appointed fleet. He overlooked everything himself; writing with his own hands letters to the clergy in regard to the management of their houses and lands, and even rating them soundly for any proceeding in their parishes of which he did not approve. He corresponded with the overseers of the mines and forests in regard to their expenses and the best ways of controlling the works under their care; with the nobles in regard to the management of their estates; with the peasants as to the proper manner in which they should rule their houses and families, plough their land and tend their cattle; and with his own relations and personal attendants on the subject of their dress and domestic affairs. In regard to religious matters he had early shown himself very jealous of interference from anyone, whether Pope, bishop, or noble; but when he had crushed the clergy and the nobles he proved himself the hardest taskmaster the Church had ever yet known in Sweden. Thus, whenever the Reformed clergy showed any sign of independence, he threatened to deprive them of all rank and power in the State; and while he exacted the tithes to the utmost, he kept the parish priests well provided with useful directions for making the greatest profit out of the land which they were allowed to hold under the crown.

Swedish trade owed its origin to him, and when he found that the people living in the sea-ports did not take an active part in the American and Indian trade which he desired to encourage, he sent them harsh reproofs, and threatened to come himself and see what they were doing. No kind of business or trade escaped his notice, and he enjoined upon the master-workmen, on penalty of a fine, to engage apprentices and to teach them with care and patience. He drew up regulations for the maintenance of greater cleanliness in the towns, and ordered roads to be made from north to south through the kingdom. He took pains to see that schools were maintained in the several parishes, and gave a new character to the university teaching at Upsala. And he even caused a new rhyming chronicle to be drawn up, for the sake, as he himself said, of "giving a true account of the events recorded by the Danish chroniclers,

and to keep up in the minds of his people the remembrance of the conduct of the Danes during their rule in Sweden."

Family Troubles.-This good and great king, to whom his family owed its reputation, and Sweden the place which it afterwards acquired among the other nations, was troubled in his later years by the quarrels and evil conduct of his sons, and the frequent insurrections of his subjects. He had been three times married, and Erik, the eldest and only son of his first queen, Katherine of Saxe Lauenburg, had by his halfinsane and excitable acts caused him the greatest anxiety. Knowing the violence and caprice of Erik's nature, Gustaf determined to make his younger sons independent of him, and by his will he left, as hereditary duchies, Finland to Johan the next in age, Ostgothland to Magnus, and Sodermanland and Værmland to his youngest son Karl, who was then a child. Soon after the king had received the sanction of his council and the diet for this subdivision of the kingdom, he died, at the age of sixty-four, worn out with care; and, in accordance with the wishes which he had expressed, he was buried within the chancel of the cathedral church of Upsala.

PART III.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SUITOR.

Erik, 1560-1568.-At the time of Gustaf's death, his eldest son and heir, Erik, was about to start on a voyage to England to make a formal suit to our Queen Elizabeth. He had caused a large fleet and a number of men-at-arms to be given to him, in order, as he said, that he might make a gallant appearance at the English Court, but many persons thought that Erik had only wanted an excuse for securing a powerful force with which he might attempt to seize upon the crown of Sweden without waiting till it came to him by heritage. The news of his father's sudden death reached him while he was reviewing his ships and men at Elfsborg, and, disbanding the troops, he hurried back to Stockholm and caused himself to be proclaimed king. Erik was at that time twenty-seven years of

age, handsome, graceful, eloquent, accomplished in manly exercises, a good linguist, able to write well in Latin as well as Swedish, a poet, musician, and painter, and skilled in astrology and the mathematical sciences of his times. But all these advantages were marred by a strangely capricious disposition, and by sudden and violent outbursts of temper, which at times amounted to insanity.

Erik soon began to quarrel with his brother Johan, who had married Katerina Jagellonica, sister of King Sigismund II. of Poland. In consequence of these disputes Johan retired to Poland and took part with that country in a war against Sweden, during which he was made a prisoner and carried back to his own country, where King Erik caused him and his wife to be shut up in the castle of Gripsholm, where they were kept for four years under close, although not harsh, constraint.

During the first few years of his reign Erik wasted all the money that his father had left in the treasury in preparations for his coronation, and in his various absurd missions in search of a wife. Besides the new regalia which he ordered from London and Antwerp, and chests of jewels and ornaments of all kinds, he caused a number of strange animals, which had never before been seen in Sweden, to be brought into the country for the public games with which he intended to amuse the people. We learn from the lists given of these animals that rabbits were at that time unknown, or still uncommon in Sweden, for they are included with lions and camels among the rare and curious creatures to be exhibited.

Erik's Wooing.-As soon as his coronation was over, Erik resumed his preparations for gaining the hand of Queen Elizabeth, to whom he sent ambassadors with costly gifts, amongst which we hear of eighteen piebald horses, and several chests of uncoined bars of gold and silver, strings of oriental pearls, and many valuable furs. Besides making these presents he gave money to his envoy, Gyllenstjerna, with orders to bribe the English Councillors of State, and to "have the queen's favourite, Earl Leicester, put out of the way, even if it should cost 10,000 dollars." During the preceding year his intentions towards the earl had been more honourable, for he then