It was not the least of Gustavus’s many anxieties that he had constantly to be on the watch lest a formidable democratic rival should encroach on his prerogative. That rival was the Swedish peasantry. He succeeded indeed in putting down the four formidable rebellions which convulsed the realm from 1525 to 1542, but the consequent strain upon his resources was very damaging, and more than once he was on the point of abdicating and emigrating, out of sheer weariness. Moreover he was in constant fear of the Danes. Necessity compelled him indeed (1534-1536) to take part in Grevens fejde (Counts’ War) (see [Denmark], History), as the ally of Christian III., but his exaggerated distrust of the Danes was invincible. “We advise and exhort you,” he wrote to the governor of Kalmar, “to put no hope or trust in the Danes, or in their sweet scribbling, inasmuch as they mean nothing at all by it except how best they may deceive and betray us Swedes.” Such instructions were not calculated to promote confidence between Swedish and Danish negotiators. A fresh cause of dispute was generated in 1548, when Christian III.’s daughter was wedded to Duke Augustus of Saxony. On that occasion, apparently by way of protest against the decree of the diet of Vesterås (15th of January 1544), declaring the Swedish crown hereditary in Gustavus’s family, the Danish king caused to be quartered on his daughter’s shield not only the three Danish lions and the Norwegian lion with the axe of St Olaf, but also “the three crowns” of Sweden. Gustavus, naturally suspicious, was much perturbed by the innovation, and warned all his border officials to be watchful and prepare for the worst. In 1557 he even wrote to the Danish king protesting against the placing of “the three crowns” in the royal Danish seal beneath the arms of Denmark. Christian III. replied that “the three crowns” signified not Sweden in especial, but the three Scandinavian kingdoms, and that their insertion in the Danish shield was only a reminiscence of the union of Kalmar. But Gustavus was not satisfied, and this was the beginning of “the three crowns” dispute which did so much damage to both kingdoms.

The events which led to the rupture of Gustavus with the Holy See are set forth in the proper place (see [Sweden]: History). Here it need only be added that it was a purely political act, as Gustavus, personally, had no strong dogmatic leanings either way. He not unnaturally expressed his amazement when that very juvenile reformer Olavus Petri confidently informed him that the pope was antichrist. He consulted the older and graver Laurentius Andreae, who told him how “Doctor Martinus had clipped the wings of the pope, the cardinals and the big bishops,” which could not fail to be pleasing intelligence to a monarch who was never an admirer of episcopacy, while the rich revenues of the church, accumulated in the course of centuries, were a tempting object to the impecunious ruler of an impoverished people. Subsequently, when the Protestant hierarchy was forcibly established in Sweden, matters were much complicated by the absolutist tendencies of Gustavus. The incessant labour, the constant anxiety, which were the daily portion of Gustavus Vasa during the seven and thirty years of his reign, told at last even upon his magnificent constitution. In the spring of 1560, conscious of an ominous decline of his powers, Gustavus summoned his last diet, to give an account of his stewardship. On the 16th of June 1560 the assembly met at Stockholm. Ten days later, supported by his sons, Gustavus greeted the estates in the great hall of the palace, when he took a retrospect of his reign, reminding them of the misery of the kingdom during the union and its deliverance from “that unkind tyrant, King Christian.” Four days later the diet passed a resolution confirming the hereditary right of Gustavus’s son, Prince Eric, to the throne. The old king’s last anxieties were now over and he could die in peace. He expired on the 29th of September 1560.

Gustavus was thrice married. His first wife, Catherine, daughter of Magnus I., duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, bore him in 1533 his eldest son Eric. This union was neither long nor happy, but the blame for its infelicity is generally attributed to the lady, whose abnormal character was reflected and accentuated in her unhappy son. Much more fortunate was Gustavus’s second marriage, a year after the death of his first consort, with his own countrywoman, Margaret Lejonhufvud, who bore him five sons and five daughters, of whom three sons, John, Magnus and Charles, and one daughter, Cecilia, survived their childhood. Queen Margaret died in 1551; and a twelvemonth later Gustavus wedded her niece, Catharine Stenbock, a handsome girl of sixteen, who survived him more than sixty years.

Gustavus’s outward appearance in the prime of life is thus described by a contemporary: “He was of the middle height, with a round head, light yellow hair, a fine long beard, sharp eyes, a ruddy countenance ... and a body as fitly and well proportioned as any painter could have painted it. He was of a sanguine-choleric temperament, and when untroubled and unvexed, a bright and cheerful gentleman, easy to get on with, and however many people happened to be in the same room with him, he was never at a loss for an answer to every one of them.” Learned he was not, but he had naturally bright and clear understanding, an unusually good memory, and a marvellous capacity for taking pains. He was also very devout, and his morals were irreproachable. On the other hand, Gustavus had his full share of the family failings of irritability and suspiciousness, the latter quality becoming almost morbid under the pressure of adverse circumstances. His energy too not infrequently degenerated into violence, and when crossed he was apt to be tyrannical.

See A. Alberg, Gustavus Vasa and his Times (London, 1882); R. N. Bain, Scandinavia, chaps. iii. and v. (Cambridge, 1905); P. B. Watson, The Swedish Revolution under Gustavus Vasa (London, 1889); O. Sjögren, Gustaf Vasa (Stockholm, 1896); C. M. Butler, The Reformation in Sweden (New York, 1883); Sveriges Historia (Stockholm, 1877-1881); J. Weidling, Schwedische Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Gotha, 1882).

(R. N. B.)

GUSTAVUS II. ADOLPHUS (1594-1632), king of Sweden, the eldest son of Charles IX. and of Christina, daughter of Adolphus, duke of Holstein-Gottorp, was born at Stockholm castle on the 9th of December 1594. From the first he was carefully nurtured to be the future prop of Protestantism by his austere parents. Gustavus was well grounded in the classics, and his linguistic accomplishments were extraordinary. He may be said to have grown up with two mother-tongues, Swedish and German; at twelve he had mastered Latin, Italian and Dutch; and he learnt subsequently to express himself in Spanish, Russian and Polish. But his practical father took care that he should grow up a prince, not a pedant. So early as his ninth year he was introduced to public life; at thirteen he received petitions and conversed officially with the foreign ministers; at fifteen he administered his duchy of Vestmanland and opened the Örebro diet with a speech from the throne; indeed from 1610 he may be regarded as his father’s co-regent. In all martial and chivalrous accomplishments he was already an adept; and when, a year later, he succeeded to supreme power, his superior ability was as uncontested as it was incontestable.

The first act of the young king was to terminate the fratricidal struggle with Denmark by the peace of Knäred (28th of January 1613). Simultaneously, another war, also an heritage from Charles IX., had been proceeding in the far distant regions round lakes Ilmen, Peipus and Ladoga, with Great Novgorod as its centre. It was not, however, like the Danish War, a national danger, but a political speculation meant to be remunerative and compensatory, and was concluded very advantageously for Sweden by the peace of Stolbova on the 27th of February 1617 (see [Sweden]: History). By this peace Gustavus succeeded in excluding Muscovy from the Baltic. “I hope to God,” he declared to the Stockholm diet in 1617, when he announced the conclusion of peace, “that the Russians will feel it a bit difficult to skip over that little brook.” The war with Poland which Gustavus resumed in 1621 was a much more difficult affair. It began with an attack upon Riga as the first step towards conquering Livonia. Riga was invested on the 13th of August and surrendered on the 15th of September; on the 3rd of October Mitau was occupied; but so great were the ravages of sickness during the campaign that the Swedish army had to be reinforced by no fewer than 10,000 men. A truce was thereupon concluded and hostilities were suspended till the summer of 1625, in the course of which Gustavus took Kokenhusen and invaded Lithuania. In January 1626 he attacked the Poles at Walhof and scattered the whole of their army after slaying a fifth part of it. This victory, remarkable besides as Gustavus’s first pitched battle, completed the conquest of Livonia. As, however, it became every year more difficult to support an army in the Dvina district, Gustavus now resolved to transfer the war to the Prussian provinces of Poland with a view to securing the control of the Vistula, as he had already secured the control of the Dvina. At the end of 1626, the Swedish fleet, with 14,000 men on board, anchored in front of the chain of sand-dunes which separates the Frische-Haff from the Baltic. Pillau, the only Baltic port then accessible to ships of war, was at once occupied, and Königsberg shortly afterwards was scared into an unconditional neutrality. July was passed in conquering the bishopric of Ermeland. The surrender of Elbing and Marienburg placed Gustavus in possession of the fertile and easily defensible delta of the Vistula, which he treated as a permanent conquest, making Axel Oxenstjerna its first governor-general. Communications between Danzig and the sea were cut off by the erection of the first of Gustavus’s famous entrenched camps at Dirschau. From the end of August 1626 the city was blockaded, and in the meantime Polish irregulars, under the capable Stanislaus Koniecpolski, began to harass the Swedes. But the object of the campaign, a convenient basis of operations, was won; and in October the king departed to Sweden to get reinforcements. He returned in May 1627 with 7000 men, which raised his forces to 14,000, against which Koniecpolski could only oppose 9000. But his superior strategy frustrated all the efforts of the Swedish king, who in the course of the year was twice dangerously wounded and so disabled that he could never wear armour again. Gustavus had made extensive preparations for the ensuing campaign and took the field with 32,000 men. But once again, though far outnumbered, and unsupported by his own government, the Polish grand-hetman proved more than a match for Gustavus, who, on the 10th of September, broke up his camp and returned to Prussia; the whole autumn campaign had proved a failure and cost him 5000 men. During the ensuing campaign of 1629 Gustavus had to contend against the combined forces of Koniecpolski and 10,000 of Wallenstein’s mercenaries. The Polish commander now showed the Swedes what he could do with adequate forces. At Stuhm, on the 29th of June, he defeated Gustavus, who lost most of his artillery and narrowly escaped capture. The result of the campaign was the conclusion of the six years’ truce of Altmark, which was very advantageous to Sweden.

And now Gustavus turned his attention to Germany. The motives which induced the Swedish king to intervene directly in the Thirty Years’ War are told us by himself in his correspondence with Oxenstjerna. Here he says plainly that it was the fear lest the emperor should acquire the Baltic ports and proceed to build up a sea-power dangerous to Scandinavia. For the same reason, the king rejected the chancellor’s alternative of waging a simply defensive war against the emperor by means of the fleet, with Stralsund as his base. He was convinced by the experience of Christian IV. of Denmark that the enemies’ harbours could be wrested from them only by a successful offensive war on land; and, while quite alive to the risks of such an enterprise in the face of two large armies, Tilly’s and Wallenstein’s, each of them larger than his own, he argued that the vast extent of territory and the numerous garrisons which the enemy was obliged to maintain, more than neutralized his numerical superiority. Merely to blockade all the German ports with the Swedish fleet was equally impossible. The Swedish fleet was too weak for that; it would be safer to take and fortify the pick of them. In Germany itself, if he once got the upper hand, he would not find himself without resources. It is no enthusiastic crusader, but an anxious and farseeing if somewhat speculative statesman who thus opens his mind to us. No doubt religious considerations largely influenced Gustavus. He had the deepest sympathy for his fellow-Protestants in Germany; he regarded them as God’s peculiar people, himself as their divinely appointed deliverer. But his first duty was to Sweden; and, naturally and rightly, he viewed the whole business from a predominantly Swedish point of view. Lutherans and Calvinists were to be delivered from a “soul-crushing tyranny”; but they were to be delivered by a foreign if friendly power; and that power claimed as her reward the hegemony of Protestant Europe and all the political privileges belonging to that exalted position.