Now, was not that a clear statement for a youth brought up a Catholic, whose thought heretofore had seemed only of war?
As in England, politics had a hand in expelling the old form of religion and bringing in the new, so it had an influence in Sweden.
Geijer, the great church historian of Sweden, says that the Roman Church at that time possessed two-thirds of the soil, and that the wickedness of the church was as great as its possessions. Like Henry VIII. of England, Gustavus Vasa needed the lands to enrich the crown and to secure the friendship of the nobles. He deeply hated priests because they were unionists, that is, they desired to keep the three Scandinavian countries under one crown, which would have left Gustavus crownless.
When dying, this great king wrote as his last message: "Rather die a hundred times than abandon the gospel." He pointed the way to glory for Sweden for generations yet unborn.
Eric, the son and successor of Gustavus I., seems to have inherited the barbarous nature of some far-back ancestor. He indulged in dangerous and murderous folly. He proposed at the same time for the hand of Elizabeth, Queen of England, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Princess Renee, of Loraine, and Christina, of Hessen, and after all that, married a peasant woman.
At last he was declared incapable and was imprisoned. This shortened his life. His children were excluded by law from the succession, and his brother John ascended the throne.
John had married Catherine Jagellon, daughter of Sigismund, king of Poland. She influenced her husband to admit the Jesuits to Sweden, and he made an effort to restore the Romish Church.
When the Swedes were converted to the Protestant faith it seems to have been a deep work of grace. They did not fluctuate in their faith. So now they withdrew their love and friendship from their king, whom they considered false to the faith he had promised to sustain.
At the death of John the states determined that their rights should not be invaded, so they forced from his son, Sigismund, a decree prohibiting any religion in Sweden except the Lutheran. Sigismund (who had become a Catholic to secure the throne of Poland) signed this decree with great bitterness of heart.
In spite of this decree, which he had evidently signed with mental reservations, he ordered a Catholic church to be built in each town in his kingdom. He further enraged his subjects by refusing to be crowned by a Protestant prelate, and accepted coronation at the hands of the Pope's nuncio. He surrounded himself by the nobles of Poland and the priests of Rome. These foreigners could scarcely appear on the streets without causing quarrels and bloody encounters.