Gustavus I (Vasa) addressing his last meeting of the Estates
Painting by L. Hersent
The most influential yeomen of all the parishes in the eastern and western dales elected Gustavus to be "lord and chieftain over them and the commons of the realm of Sweden." Some scholars who had arrived from Westeras brought with them new accounts of the tyranny of Christian. Gustavus placed them amid a ring of peasants to tell their story and answer the questions of the crowd. Old men represented it as a comfortable sign for the people, that as often as Gustavus discoursed to them the north wind always blew, "which was an old token to them that God would grant them good success." Sixteen active peasants were appointed to be his bodyguard; and two hundred more youths who joined him were called his foot-goers. The chronicles reckon his reign from this small beginning; while the Danes and their abettors in Stockholm long continued to speak of him and his party as a band of robbers in the woods.
Thus the Dalesmen swore fidelity to Gustavus—the inhabitants, namely, of the upper parishes on both arms of the Dal-elf, where a numerous people, living amid wild yet grand natural scenery and hardened by privations, is still known by that name. Gustavus came to the Kopparberg with several hundred men in the early part of February, 1521, there took prisoner his enemy Christopher Olson, the powerful warden of the mines, made himself master of the money collected for the crown dues, and of the wares of the Danish traders on the spot, distributed both the money and goods among his men—who made their first standard from the silk stuffs there taken—and then returned to the Dales. Not long afterward, on a Sunday, when the people of the Kopparberg were at church, Gustavus again appeared at the head of fifteen hundred Dalesmen. He spoke to the people after divine service, and now the miners likewise swore fidelity to his cause. Thereupon the commonalty of the mining districts and the Dalesmen wrote to the commons of Helsingland, requesting that the Helsingers might bear themselves like true Swedish men against the overbearing violence and tyranny of the Danes. Those cruelties which King Christian had already exercised on the best in the land, they said, would soon reach every man's door and fill all the houses of Sweden with the tears and shrieks of widows and orphans; if they would take up arms and show themselves to be stout-hearted men, there was now good hope for victory and triumph under a praiseworthy captain, the lord Gustavus Ericson, whom God had preserved "as a drop of the knightly blood of Sweden"; wherefore they begged them to give their help for the sake of the brotherly league by which, since early times, the commonalty of both countries had been united.
Ten years afterward, the Dalecarlians recall the fact that they had received a friendly answer to the request which their accredited messengers had preferred on that occasion, and that their neighbors the Helsingers had promised to stand by them as one man, "whatever evils might befall them from the oppression of foreign or native masters." When Gustavus had begun the siege of Stockholm, every third man of the Helsingers in fact marched thither to strengthen his army. Yet at first they hesitated to embrace the cause, although Gustavus himself went among them, and spoke to the assembled people from the barrow on the royal domain of Norrala. Thence he proceeded to Gestricland, where fugitives from Stockholm had already prepared men's minds. The burghers of Gefle, and commissioners from several parishes, swore fidelity to him in the name of the whole province. Here the rumor reached him that the Dalecarlians had already suffered a defeat; he hastened back, and soon received an account of the first victory of his followers.
Letters of the magistracy of Stockholm, which were sent over the whole kingdom, warned the people to avoid all participation in the revolt. Relief was supplicated from the King; additions were made to the fortifications of the capital, sloops and barks were equipped, in order, as it was said, to deprive "Gustavus Ericson and his company of malefactors of all opportunity of quitting the country," but really to keep the approaches on the side of the sea open, which were obstructed by the fishers and peasants of the islets, who had begun to take arms for Gustavus. Special admonitory letters were despatched to Helsingland and Dalecarlia, signed by Gustavus Trolle, his father Eric Trolle, and Canute Bennetson (Sparre) of Engsoe, styling themselves the council of the realm of Sweden, by which, however, say the chronicles, the royal cause was rather damaged than strengthened. "For when the Dalesmen and miners heard the letter, they said it was manifest to them that the council at this time was but small and thin, since it consisted of only three men, and these of little weight." Gustavus Trolle, the Danish bishops, Canute Bennetson, above named, and Henry of Mellen, the King's lieutenant at Westeras—where they had recently been assembled with commissioners from the magistracy of Stockholm by Bishop Otho—now marched with six thousand men of horse and foot toward the Dal River, and encamped at the ferry of Brunback. On the other side the Dalecarlians guarded this frontier of their country, under the command of Peter Swenson of Viderboda, a powerful miner, whom Gustavus had appointed their captain in his absence. When those in the Danish camp observed how the Dalesmen shot their arrows across the stream, Bishop Beldenacke is said to have inquired of the Swedish lords present—to use the words of the chronicles—"how great a force the tract above the Long Wood (the forest on the boundary between Westmanland and Dalecarlia) could furnish at the utmost?" Answer was made to him, full twenty thousand men. Yet further he asked where so many mouths might obtain sustenance? To this it was replied that the people were not used to dainty meats; they drunk for the most part nothing but water, and, if need were, could be satisfied with bark-bread. Then Beldenacke declared: "Men who eat wood and drink water the devil himself could not overcome, much less anyone else. Brethren, let us leave this place!" The story makes the Danes hereupon prepare for breaking up their encampment. However this may be, it is certain that Peter Swenson, with the Dalesmen, crossed the Dal secretly, by a circuit, at Utsund's Ferry, surprised the camp, and put the foe to rout.
Gustavus had himself dealt with the inhabitants of Helsingland and Gestricland, in order to insure himself against leaving foes in the rear, and, after his return to the Dales, he prepared for an expedition into the lower country. He assembled his troops at Hedemora, and sought to inure them to habits of order and obedience by military exercises. The dale peasant had no fire-arms and knew little of discipline; his weapons were the axe, the bow, the pike, and the sling, the latter sometimes throwing pieces of red-hot iron. Gustavus instructed his men to fashion their arrows in a more effective shape, and increased the length of the spear by four or five feet, with a view to repel the attacks of cavalry. He caused monetary tokens to be struck—an expedient which seems to have been not uncommon in Sweden, since, from a remote period, even leather money is mentioned. The coins now struck at Hedemora were of copper, with a small admixture of silver, similar to those introduced by the King, and called "Christian's klippings;" on one side was the impress of an armed man; on the other, arrows laid crosswise, with three crowns.
Gustavus broke from his quarters, and marched across the Long Wood into Westmanland. His course lay through districts which bore traces yet fresh of the enemy's passage. The peasantry rose as he advanced. On St. George's Day, April 23d, he mustered his army at the church of Romfertuna. The number is stated by the chronicles at from fifteen to twenty thousand men, yet on the correctness of this little reliance can be placed, even if we did not absolutely class this account with those which compare the multitude of Dalesmen in the fight of Brunneback to the sands of the sea-shore and the leaves of the forest, and their arrows to the hail of the storm-cloud. The liberation of Sweden by Gustavus Vasa is a history written by the people, and they counted neither themselves nor their foes. The army was now divided under two generals, Lawrence Olaveson and Lawrence Ericson, both practised warriors. Gustavus next issued his declaration of war against Christian, and marched to Westeras. He expected here to be met by the peasants of the western mining district from Lindesberg and Nora, who had already taken the oath of fidelity to him through his deputies; but instead of this he was informed that Peter Ugla, one of those intrusted with the performance of this duty, had allowed himself to be surprised at Koping, and cut to pieces with his whole force. On the other hand, tidings arrived that the peasants on Wermd Isle had revolted, slain a band of Christian's men in the church itself, and made themselves masters of two of his ships. The letters conveying the news, and magnifying the advantages gained, Gustavus caused to be read aloud to his followers.
Theodore Slagheck, exercising power with barbarous cruelty and outrage, had himself taken the command of the castle of Westeras. He caused all the fences of the neighborhood to be broken down, in order to be able to use his cavalry without impediment against the insurgent peasants, who, on April 29th, approached the town. Both horsemen and foot, with field-pieces, marched against them; and Gustavus, who had interdicted his men from engaging in a contest with the enemy, intending to defer the attack till the following day, was still at Balundsas, half a mile from the town, when news reached him that his young soldiers were already at blows with their adversaries, and he hastened to their assistance. The Dalecarlians opposed their long pikes to the onset of the cavalry with such effect that, more than four hundred horses having perished in the assault, they were driven back on the infantry, who were posted in their rear, and compelled to flee along with them, while Lawrence Ericson pushed into the town by a circuitous road and possessed himself of the enemy's artillery in the market-place. When the garrison of the castle observed this, they set fire to the houses by shooting their combustibles, and burned the greatest part of the town. The miners and peasants dispersed to extinguish the flames or to plunder, bartered with one another the goods of the traders in the booths, possessed themselves of the stock of wine in the cathedral and the council-house, seated themselves round the vats, drank and sang. The Danes, reënforced from the castle, rallied anew, and the victory would undoubtedly have been changed into an overthrow had not Gustavus sent Lawrence Olaveson, with the followers he had kept about him, again into the town, where, after a renewal of the conflict, the foe was put to an utter rout. Many cast away their arms, and threw themselves, between fire and sword, into the waters. Gustavus caused all the stores of spirituous liquors to be destroyed, and beat in the wine casks with his own hand.