Better fared it with him in other parts. One of the most valiant officers of Gustavus was Arvid Vestgöte. This man was despatched, about the middle of May, to the provinces south of Stockholm, to enlist the peasantry in the Swedish cause. Collecting his forces along the way, he advanced from one town to another, plundering the estates of all who would not join him, and before the end of June reached Stegeborg, a strongly fortified castle on the Baltic coast. This he proceeded to besiege. In July, Norby, the most famous naval officer of Christiern, came to the rescue of the beleaguered castle with sixteen men-of-war. Landing his forces on the shore, he drew them up in battle-array, three hundred strong. The Swedes, however, rushed furiously upon them, and drove them to the sea. A few days later, after provisioning the castle, Norby sailed away to Denmark.[64]
All through this spring and summer Gustavus was busy passing from camp to camp, giving orders as to the disposition of his forces, and receiving the allegiance of the people. His practice, as far as possible, seems to have been to use persuasion, and only when that failed did he resort to force. This method proved successful in a marvellous degree. One after another the provinces recognized him as their leader; and on the 14th of July we find him issuing a proclamation as commander of five provinces, named in the order of their declaration of allegiance. His greatest difficulty at this time was in finding the means with which to pay his men. Possessing no authority to levy taxes, he was often forced to close the mouths of his clamoring soldiers by allowing them to plunder. The great body of his army was of course made up of Swedes. These were fighting for the welfare of their wives and children, and were content if he provided them only with the necessities of life. The mercenaries whom he employed were few. One of them, a tough old warrior named Rensel, has left us a chronicle of his life. He tells us he came over from Livonia in the winter of 1521, and was among the four thousand German veterans that counted on entering Stockholm in the spring. Gustavus sent him back to the Continent for more men and ammunition; and when he returned in July of that year, he brought back sixty mercenaries with him. In August Gustavus made an inspection of the camp at Stegeborg. While there, he learned that the Bishop of Linköping was more than half minded to join the patriot cause. This bishop, Hans Brask, was a man of rare shrewdness, excellent common-sense, and as time-serving as any man in Europe. He had strong convictions, but he always looked to see how the wind was blowing before he spoke them out. He had, among others, signed the decree for the demolition of Stäket, but had taken the precaution to place under his seal a slip of paper declaring that he affixed his signature perforce, and when his fellows were brought out to be beheaded, he removed the seal; by this little bit of Romanism he saved his head and the emoluments of his priestly office. To this man Gustavus wrote in August, asking for a conference. The aspect of the heavens was not such as to justify the wily bishop in refusing. The continued brutality of Didrik Slagheck had raised such a storm of indignation in the country, that his own followers had found it necessary, on June 16, to hurry him out of Sweden, and announce that they had thrown him into jail. Nearly all of Sweden, except the fortified castles, was in the patriots' hands. The forces of Gustavus were growing stronger day by day, and in the continued absence of Christiern the fortresses that still held out were likely soon to yield for want of food and ammunition. In this state of affairs Hans Brask made up his mind without delay. He granted the interview with Gustavus, and was very easily persuaded to join the Swedish cause. It now seemed best that the vague authority conferred upon Gustavus by the different provinces should be defined, so that he might as representative of the Swedish nation treat with foreign powers. He therefore announced that a general diet would be held at Vadstena on August 24, and all the chief men of different classes in the kingdom were summoned to attend. By whom the delegates were selected we are not told. Certainly they were not selected by Gustavus. At all events, they came together in vast numbers, and, if we are to believe the chronicle, urged Gustavus to accept the crown. This, however, he refused, but accepted the title of Commander of the Swedish Army, at the same time adding that after they had wholly freed themselves from Christiern, a general diet might then be held to discuss the propriety of choosing some man of their own nation king.[65]
While the patriots were occupied with their diet, the Danes in Stockholm sent a force by water to the relief of Vesterås. The patriots, still in possession of the town, sought by aid of their falconets to prevent a landing, but without avail. The relief-party made its way into the castle, replenished it with men and ammunition, and withdrew. Gustavus, knowing that the Danes on their return to Stockholm must pass through a narrow inlet some thirty yards in width, sent thither a force to throw up earthworks on both sides of the passage and await the coming of the enemy. The battle which ensued was fierce, and lasted two whole days; but finally, having inflicted as well as suffered heavy loss, the Danish fleet escaped. Shortly after, in September, Gustavus sent a force to Finland. This force received large reinforcements from the people in that province, and on the 24th of November, being furnished ammunition by the bishop of Åbo, laid siege to Åbo Castle. On December 18 the Castle of Stegeborg still besieged by Arvid Vestgöte, fell; and the commandant, Berent von Mehlen, after two months in prison swore fealty to Gustavus. Six days after the castle yielded, Norby, not having heard of the disaster, came sailing boldly into the harbor with food and men. The patriots soon informed him of his error by firing upon him from the castle walls, and in the conflict which took place it is reported that six hundred of his men were lost. Most of Vestgöte's forces, after the fall of Stegeborg, were transferred to the vicinity of Stockholm, to which Gustavus early in the autumn had again laid siege. The summer's experience had made manifest that it would be useless to assault the capital. Gustavus therefore held his forces several miles away from the city, and with a view to cut off supplies divided them into three camps,—one on the north, another on the south, and the third on an island to the west. On Christmas eve the garrison, finding that no assault was likely to be made, embarked some fifteen hundred men on yawls and coasting-vessels, and proceeded against the island-camp. The Swedish leader watched the preparations from a hill; and when he saw that the enemy were coming against himself, divided his men into squads of fourteen and sixteen, and placed these squads at intervals through the woods with orders to sound their horns as soon as the neighboring squad had sounded theirs. He then waited till the enemy were all on shore, when he gave the signal, and in a moment it was re-echoed all along the line. The effect was marvellous. The enemy, horrified by the apparent number of the Swedes, turned and fled. The Swedes, who had but about four hundred and fifty men in all, pursued them to their boats and cut down two hundred of them on the shore. After this the garrison from time to time made raids upon the northern and southern camps, and generally got the better of the Swedes, though nothing of marked importance was accomplished by either side. On the 30th of January the Castle of Vesterås, hard pressed for food and cut off from supplies, surrendered. Later in the winter, seemingly in March, Norby came from Denmark with a large force to Stockholm, and replenished the garrison with fresh men. About the same time the Swedish camp on the north was moved nearer; and the Danes, thus reinforced by Norby, came out against them April 17, and routed them with heavy loss. The day following, a like sally was made on the southern camp with like result. Having thus raised the siege of Stockholm, Norby set sail for Finland, and routed the Swedish forces still besieging Åbo. The bishop of Åbo, finding his own land too hot for him, embarked for Sweden; but his vessel foundered, and all on board were drowned. In April Gustavus recruited a strong force in Dalarne and the other northern provinces, and pitched his camps once more to the north and south of Stockholm.[66]
The war had now been raging over a year, and Gustavus had experienced the utmost difficulty in obtaining money with which to pay his men. In the absence of any authority to levy taxes, he had resorted to the practice of coining money, and had established mints in several places through the realm. His coins, which were known as "klippings," consisted of copper with a very slight admixture of silver, and twenty-four of them were issued for a mark. As a matter of fact their actual value fell far below what they purported to be worth. For such a practice it is difficult to find excuse, except that it was a practice universal at the time. Why a monarch should be justified any more than an individual in giving a penny where he owed a pound, is difficult to comprehend. Yet this had been for centuries the custom, and each successive monarch had pared a little from the standard, so that in the eight hundred years preceding Gustavus Vasa the various monetary units all over Europe had declined to little more than an eighteenth part of their original value. In Denmark the debasement of the currency had been more rapid than in almost any other land, and the "klippings" of Christiern II. fell farther below their nominal value than any coin in Europe—till the "klippings" were issued by Gustavus, which were a trifle worse than those of Christiern. Of course, as the standard of currency is lowered, its buying-power gradually declines, so that ultimately, under whatever name a particular coin may go, it will buy no more than could be had for the actual bullion which it contains. A mark in the sixteenth century would have bought, provided the relative supply of bullion and merchandise remained the same, only an eighteenth part of what it bought originally. The aim of monarchs was, therefore, to get rid of their debased coins at more than the real value, and after they had depreciated, to get them back at the depreciated value, melt them down, and lower the standard further. Precisely how much Gustavus made by tampering with the currency is impossible to say, for there is no means of determining how many of his "klippings" he threw upon the market. It is clear, however, that the scheme was from a financial point of view successful, and that a vast number of the "klippings" were absorbed before the public detected their inferiority.[67]
Unquestionably the marvellous progress made by Gustavus in this first year of the revolution was owing in great measure to the critical state of things in Denmark. Christiern had by this time made enemies all over Europe. Lubeck, always a latent enemy, was particularly imbittered by Christiern's favoritism of the market towns of the Netherlands and his avowed intention of making Copenhagen the staple market for his kingdom; France hated him because he was the brother-in-law of her enemy, Charles V.; Fredrik, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, opposed him because he had laid claim to those dominions; and his own clergy opposed him because of his rumored leaning towards Lutheranism and his efforts to check their power. All these things prevented his return to Sweden, and conspired against his credit so that he was unable to raise an army of any strength. Didrik Slagheck, too, whom he had placed at the head of affairs in Sweden, had fallen into disgrace, and, to appease the public clamor, had been beheaded. Even Gustavus Trolle, after several attempts to exert his papal authority in Sweden, had found the land too hot for him, and for the present had withdrawn to Denmark.[68]
Norby was at this time the most valuable officer that Christiern had. He infested the shores of the Baltic with his fleet, making frequent incursions on the land to plunder; and at length became so obnoxious that Gustavus sent to Lubeck for a fleet. On the 7th of June it came, ten ships of war, laden with all sorts of merchandise, and fully equipped with powder, shot, and men. For this aid Gustavus is said to have paid an enormous figure, giving his promissory note for the amount. Picking out a battalion of five hundred men, he sent them down to Kalmar, to which castle Vestgöte had just laid siege. The rest of the reinforcements he despatched to Stockholm, quartering them in his different camps, and then discharged all of the Swedish peasants except the young unmarried men. Shortly after this change the commandant of Åbo Castle crossed the Baltic with a powerful fleet, and sought to break the siege of Stockholm. But the Swedish fleet met him outside the harbor, captured or burnt his vessels, and took him prisoner. In October, seeing that the garrison was losing strength, Gustavus advanced his camps nearer to the town. His southern camp he moved to Södermalm, from which he built a pontoon bridge to connect it with the west camp now on an island some three or four hundred yards from Stockholm. Another bridge he threw across the channel east of the city, and built upon it a turret which he armed with heavy guns. The city was thus hemmed in on every side, and a contemporary writes, "We cannot find in any of the old chronicles that Stockholm ever was so hard besieged before." Unless relief came it was merely a question of time when the garrison would have to yield. Once, in November, Norby came sailing into the harbor with five ships-of-war; but the Swedish fleet, consisting of fifteen vessels, drove him off, and, were it not for the half-heartedness of the German mercenaries, would very likely have destroyed his fleet.[69]