During a residence at Bergen, in Norway, of which kingdom he had been viceroy, Christian had made the acquaintance of a young and beautiful Dutchwoman, named Dyveke, whose mother Sigbrit kept a hostelry. The prince conceived a violent passion for the girl, and thenceforth lived with her. She died in 1517; but her mother, a proud, tyrannical, and angry woman, who had a great mastery over other minds and who was competent even to give prudent counsel in affairs of state, retained the favor of the prince after her daughter’s death. He had more consideration for her than for any one else; and when the king was at her house the greatest lords and most esteemed ministers were compelled to wait before her door, exposed to rain or snow, till the time came for them to be admitted. The cold policy of which she made avowal, led this fierce prince into grave errors and terrible deeds.[[223]]
A commissioner of the pope, named Arcimbold, having, in 1517, obtained from the king by dint of much flattery a license for the sale of indulgences to the peoples of the North, had set out his wares in front of the principal churches. ‘By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ said he, ‘and of our holy father the pope, I absolve you from all the sins which you have committed, however enormous they may be; and I restore you to the purity and the innocence which you possessed at the time of your baptism, in order that at your death the gates of heaven may be opened to you.’[[224]] The papal commissioner, not satisfied with laying hold of the money of the king’s subjects, was anxious also to gain the favor of the king. He managed the matter so craftily that he succeeded. Christian disclosed to him his projects and the most hidden secrets of his government, in the hope that either the legate or the pope himself would favor his designs.
The king, indeed, soon found himself in grave difficulties. Sweden violated the union of Calmar and declared itself independent of Denmark; and Troll, the archbishop of Upsala, for endeavoring to uphold the Danish suzerainty, was imprisoned by the Swedes. The pope was angry and came to the help of Christian by laying the country under an interdict. At the same time the king defeated the Swedes. It is not our business to enter into the details of this struggle; we must limit ourselves to the narration of the frightful crime by which this prince sealed his triumph.
In November, 1520, Christian II., the conqueror of his subjects, was to be crowned at Stockholm. The insurrection in Sweden had greatly irritated him; his pride had been exasperated by it, and the violent excitement of his temper had not been allayed. He was bent on a signal and cruel act of vengeance, but he dissembled his wrath and let no one know his scheme. The prelates, nobles, councillors, and other notables of Sweden, on being invited to the ceremony, perceived that the coronation would be performed with very remarkable solemnity. The creatures of the king said that it was to be terrible.
Murder Of The Swedish Nobles.
Christian had for his adviser and confessor a kinsman of Sigbrit, a fellow who had been a barber; and this man, knowing his master well, was always suggesting to him that if he meant to be really king of Sweden he must get rid of all the Swedish leading men. The prince, leaning on the pope’s bull which had thundered the interdict over the whole kingdom and all its inhabitants, undertook to be the arm of the Roman pontiff, and resolved to indulge without restraint his barbarous passions. He invited to the castle about a hundred nobles, prelates, and councillors, received them with gracious smiles, embraced them, deluded them with vain promises and false hopes, and desired that three days should be dedicated to all kinds of amusement. Brooding all the time on frightful schemes, he chatted, laughed, and jested with his guests; and these were charmed with the amiability of a prince whose malice they had been taught to dread. Suddenly, on November 7, all was changed. The fêtes ceased, the musicians and the buffoons disappeared, and their places were taken by archers. A tribunal was set up. Archbishop Troll, as had been arranged with the king, came forward boldly as accuser of the lords and other Swedes who had driven him from his archiepiscopal see. The king immediately constituted a court of justice, of which he took care that none should be members but enemies of the accused. The judges, who hardly knew what crime they had to punish, got over the business by declaring heretics the sacrilegious men who had dared to imprison a bishop. Now heresy was a capital crime. The next day, November 8, in the morning, the gates of the town and the doors of all the houses were closed. The streets were filled with soldiers and cannon; and, at noon, the prisoners, surrounded with guards, slowly and sadly descended from the castle. The report rapidly ran through the whole town that the bishops, the nobles, and the councillors who had been guests of the king and had been so magnificently entertained, were being taken to the great square and were going to be put to death there. In a little while the square was strewn with the dead bodies of the most distinguished nobles and prelates of Sweden.[[225]]
There seemed to be little chance of such a king ever being a favorer of the Reformation. Nevertheless, the enterprise undertaken by Luther, and the changes in states which resulted from it, struck him and excited his interest. He thought that a religious reform would restrict the power of the bishops, that the senate would be weakened by their exclusion from it, and that the crown demesnes would be the richer. At the same time his powerful understanding was impressed with the errors of Rome and the imposing truth of the Gospel.
Nephew by the mother’s side of the elector Frederick of Saxony, the king took an interest in a religious movement which had the sanction of that illustrious prince. This strange man imagined that without separating from Rome he could introduce into his own country the evangelical doctrines. He determined to trust to the pope to rid him of the most powerful of his subjects, and to Luther to instruct the rest. He therefore wrote to his uncle and begged him to send some teacher competent to purify religion, which was corrupted by the gross indolence of the priests.[[226]] The elector forwarded this request to the theologians of Wittenberg, who nominated Martin Reinhard, a master of arts, from the diocese of Wurzburg, on the recommendation, as it appears, of Carlstadt.
Burlesque Of Reinhard.
Reinhard, who seems to have somewhat resembled Carlstadt in his unsteady and restless temper, arrived at Copenhagen in December, 1520.[[227]] The king assigned him the church of St. Nicholas to preach in. The inhabitants of Copenhagen, eager to become acquainted with the new doctrine, flocked in crowds to the church. But the orator spoke German, and his hearers knew nothing but Danish. He appealed therefore to Professor Eliæ, who agreed to translate his discourses. Master Martin, vexed at finding that he was not understood, tried to make up for what was wanting by loudness of voice and frequent and violent gestures.[[228]] The astonished hearers understood nothing, but wonderingly followed with their eyes those hurried movements of the arms, the hands, the head, and the whole body. The priests who were casting about for some means of damaging the foreigner, caught at this circumstance, began to mock this ridiculous gesticulation, and stirred up the people against the German orator. Consequently, when he entered the church, he was received with sarcasm, with grimaces, and almost with hootings.[[229]] The clergy resolved to do even more. There was at Copenhagen a fellow notorious for his cleverness in mimicking in an amusing way any body’s air and actions and speech. The canons of St. Mary prevailed on him by a large reward, and engaged him regularly to attend the preaching of Martin Reinhard, to study his gestures, the expression of his features, and the intonations of his voice. In a short time this fellow succeeded in imitating the accent, the voice, the gestures of Reinhard. Henceforth the burlesque mimic became an indispensable guest at all banquets. He used to appear on these occasions in a costume like that of the doctor; grave salutations were made to him, and he was called Master Martin. He delivered the most high-flown speeches on the most profane topics, and accompanied them with gestures so successful that, on seeing and hearing the caricature, you seemed to see and hear the master of arts himself.[[230]] He threw out his arms right and left, upward and downward, and filled the air with the piercing or prolonged tones of the orator. At table, they gorged him with meats and wine, in order to make him more extravagant still. He was taken from quarter to quarter, and from street to street, and repeated everywhere his comic representations. It was the time of the Carnival, when nothing was cared for but buffoonery, and the people responded to the declamations of the mimic by great bursts of laughter. ‘This was done,’ adds the chronicle, ‘for the purpose of extinguishing the light of the Gospel which God himself had kindled.’