After her death Sweden was rent by civil war; she alternately shook off and submitted to the Danish yoke, and was ruled by kings and ministers alternately. In about 1520 she passed through a period of cruel oppression at the hands of two tyrants: one was Christian II, King of Denmark, a monarch with all the vices, and no one redeeming feature; the other, Archbishop of Upsala, and Primate of the kingdom, was as cruel as the former. One day these two, acting in concert, had the consuls, the magistrates of Stockholm and ninety-four senators seized and massacred by the executioners, on the ground that they had been excommunicated by the Pope for having defended the State against the Archbishop. Whilst these two men, united in oppression, but opposed when it was a question of dividing the spoil, were exercising the utmost tyranny and the cruelest vengeance, a new event changed the whole aspect of affairs in the North.
Gustavus Vasa, a youth descended from the old line of kings, issued from the depths of the forest of Delecarlia, where he had been in hiding, and appeared as the deliverer of Sweden. He was one of those rare products of Nature, a great genius with all the qualities of a commander of men. His noble stature and an air of distinction brought him adherents the moment he appeared. His eloquence, reinforced by his good looks, was all the more persuasive because it was unassumed. His genius led to the conception of great undertakings, which ordinary people deemed foolhardy, but which, in the eyes of the great, were simply brave. His never-failing courage carried him through all difficulties. He combined valour with discretion, was essentially gentle in an age of savagery, and had a reputation for uprightness, as far as that is possible for a party leader.
Gustavus Vasa had been a hostage of Christian, and kept prisoner contrary to the laws of nations. Having escaped from prison he had wandered, disguised as a peasant, in the mountains and woods of Delecarlia; there, to provide himself both with a livelihood and with a hiding-place, he found himself forced to work in the copper-mines. While buried in these vaults he dared to form the project of dethroning the tyrant. He revealed himself to the peasants, and impressed them as a man of extraordinary gifts, whom ordinary men instinctively obey. In a short time he turned these barbarians into veterans. He attacked Christian and the Archbishop, gained several victories over them, and drove them both from Sweden. Then the States duly elected him King of the country which he had liberated.
Scarcely was he firmly seated on the throne before he embarked on an enterprise of greater difficulty than his conquests. The real tyrants of the State were the bishops, who, possessing nearly all the wealth of Sweden, employed it to oppress the people and to make war on the kings. This power was all the more terrible because, in their ignorance, the people regarded it as sacred. Gustavus punished the Catholic Church for the crimes of her priests. In less than two years he introduced Lutheranism into Sweden, using as a means diplomacy rather than force. Having thus, as he put it, wrested the kingdom from the Danes and the clergy, he reigned in prosperity and absolutism, and died at the age of seventy, leaving his dynasty securely seated on the throne, and his form of faith firmly established.
One of his descendants was that Gustavus Adolphus who is called the Great. This king conquered Livonia, Ingria, Bremen, Verden, Vismar, Pomerania, besides more than a hundred towns in Germany, given up by Sweden after his death. He shook the throne of Ferdinand II, and protected the Lutherans in Germany, his efforts in that direction being furthered by the intrigues of Rome herself, who stood more in awe of the power of the Emperor than of heresy itself. He it was who, by his victories, contributed to the downfall of the House of Austria, an undertaking accredited to Cardinal Richelieu, who was past master in the art of gaining a reputation for himself, while Gustavus contented himself with great deeds. He was on the point of carrying war across the Danube, with the possibility of dethroning the Emperor, when, at the age of thirty-seven, he was killed in the battle of Lutzen, where he defeated Valstein. He carried with him to the grave the title of “Great,” the regrets of the North, and the esteem of his enemies.
His daughter Christine, an extremely gifted woman, preferred disputations with savants to the government of a people whose knowledge was confined to the art of war.
She won as great a reputation for resigning the throne as her ancestors had gained in winning and securing it. The Protestants have defamed her, as if Lutherans have the monopoly of all the virtues; and the Papists exulted too much in the conversion of a woman who was a mere philosopher. She retired to Rome, where she passed the rest of her life surrounded by the arts which she loved, and for the sake of which she had renounced an empire at the age of twenty-seven. After her abdication she induced the States of Sweden to elect as her successor her cousin Charles Gustavus, the tenth of that name, son of the Count Palatinate, Duke of Deux Ponts. This king added new conquests to those of Gustavus Adolphus. First he invaded Poland, where he gained the celebrated three days’ battle of Warsaw; for some time he waged war successfully against the Danes, besieged their capital, re-united Scania to Sweden, and secured the tenure of Sleswick to the Duke of Holstein. Then, having met with reverses, and made peace with his enemies, his ambition turned against his own subjects.
He conceived the idea of establishing absolutism in Sweden, but, like Gustavus the Great, died at the age of thirty-seven, before having achieved the establishment of that despotism which his son, Charles XI, completed. The latter, a warrior, like all his ancestors, was more absolute than them all. He abolished the authority of the Senate, which was declared to be a royal and not a national assembly. He was economical, vigilant, and hard-working—in fact, such a king as would have been popular had not fear dominated all other sentiments in the hearts of his subjects. He married, in 1680, Ulrica Eleanora, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Denmark, a virtuous princess worthy of more confidence than her husband gave her; the offspring of this marriage was Charles XII, perhaps the most extraordinary man ever born—a hero who summed up in his personality all the great qualities of his ancestors, and whose only fault and only misfortune was that he carried them all to excess. It is of him, and all that is related of his actions and person, that we now purpose writing.
The first book they gave him to read was Samuel Puffendorf, in order that he might become early acquainted with his own and neighbouring States. He then learned German, which he henceforward spoke as fluently as his mother tongue. At seven years old he could manage a horse. Violent exercise, in which he delighted and which revealed his martial inclinations, early laid the foundation of a strong constitution equal to the privations to which his disposition prompted him.
Though gentle enough in early childhood he was unconquerably obstinate; the only way to manage him was to appeal to his honour—he could be induced to do anything in the name of honour. He had an aversion to Latin, but when he was told that the Kings of Poland and Denmark understood it, he learned it quickly, and for the rest of his days remembered enough to speak it. Recourse was had to the same means to induce him to learn French, but he was so obstinately determined against it that he could not be prevailed upon to use it even with French ambassadors who knew no other language. As soon as he had some knowledge of Latin they made him translate Quintus Curtius; he took a liking to the book rather for the subject than the style. The tutor who explained this author to him asked him what he thought of Alexander. “I think,” said the Prince, “that I would like to be like him.” “But,” was the answer, “he only lived thirty-two years.” “Ah!” replied the Prince, “and is not that long enough when one has subdued kingdoms?” These answers were reported to the King his father, who exclaimed, “That child will excel me and he will even excel Gustavus the Great.”