that city, and raised the siege, made himself master of the Danish baggage, and took above 300 prisoners, being officers and persons of note; besides, the Danes were detained by contrary winds for three months, without water and victuals, which occasioned a great mortality. Christian II. sent to the administrator to propose a truce, which Steno generously granted, and sent several boats, loaded with provisions, for the king and his navy. The king of Denmark some time after proposed an interview on board the fleet, where he invited the administrator, in order to treat of a peace. The prince, who was naturally of a free and candid temper, was persuaded to it, but the senate opposed his resolution, and so he escaped that snare; for afterwards the ungrateful Christian got Gustavus, and six other Swedish lords in his hands, and set sail for Denmark, and soon after, sent Otho against Sweden. Steno marched against him, and fought gallantly for a long time, when he was killed by a cannon shot; and his troops being discouraged, Christian made himself master of Sweden.

GUSTAVUS I., surnamed Ericson Vasa, king of Sweden, born in 1490, was the son of Eric Vasa, duke of Gripsholm, allied to the royal family. He was distinguished among the Swedish nobility for learning, civility, and personal and mental accomplishments. He had a graceful form, a dignified air, and possessed a flow of nervous eloquence, and a captivating address. On the invasion of Sweden by Christian II., in 1518, Gustavus was one of the six noble hostages whom he took back with him to Denmark. Large promises had been made to reconcile him to Christian, and threats had been used for the same purpose, but all in vain. Banner, a Danish nobleman, prevailed on the king to put him into his hands, to try whether he could prevail upon him to change his sentiments. The king, however, told Banner, that he must pay six thousand crowns in case the prisoner should make his escape. Banner generously assented; and having brought the noble prisoner to his fortress of Calo in Jutland, soon allowed him all the liberty he could desire, and otherwise heaped favours upon him. All this, however, could not extinguish his remembrance of the cruelties of Christian, and the desire he had of being serviceable to his country. He therefore determined to make his escape. With much difficulty, and under various disguises, he effected his escape, which Banner was no sooner acquainted with, than he set out after him, and found him at Lubec. He reproached him as ungrateful and treacherous; but he was soon appeased by the arguments urged by Gustavus, and by the promises he made of indemnifying him for the loss of his ransom. Upon this Banner returned, giving out that he could not find his prisoner. Christian enraged at his escape, ordered Otho his general to do his utmost to arrest him. Gus

tavus applied to the regency for a ship to carry him to Sweden, but the captain steered a different course, and put him on shore near Calmar; a city hitherto garrisoned by the troops of Christina, widow of the regent. When Gustavus arrived, he made himself known to the governor and the principal officers of the garrison, who were mostly Germans, and his fellow soldiers in the late administrator's army. He flattered himself that his birth, his merits, and his connections, would immediately procure him the command. But they seeing him without troops and without attendants, threatened to kill him, if he did not instantly quit the city. Thus disappointed, Gustavus departed with great expedition; and his arrival being known, he was again forced to have recourse to disguise, to conceal himself from the Danish emissaries who were in search of him. In a waggon loaded with hay, he passed through the quarters of the Danish army, and at last repaired to an old family castle in Sudermania. From hence, he wrote to his friends, notifying his return to Sweden, and beseeching them to assemble all their forces to break through the enemy's army into Stockholm, at that time besieged; but they refused to embark in so hazardous and desperate an attempt. He next applied to the peasants; but they also refused to engage. At length, after several vain attempts to throw himself into Stockholm, and disappointed in all his hopes, he determined to apply to the Dalecarlians. Attended by a peasant, to whom he was known, he travelled in disguise through Sudermania, Nericia, and Westermania, and after a laborious and painful journey, he arrived in the mountains of Dalacarlia. Scarcely had he finished his journey, when he found himself deserted by his companion and guide, who carried off with him all the money he had provided for his subsistence. Thus forlorn, destitute, half starved, he entered among the miners, and wrought like a slave under ground; here he continued until he was discovered accidentally by a gentleman, his acquaintance in the neighbourhood, who afforded him an asylum in his house. This he joyfully accepted; but finding it impossible to make him take arms in his behalf, he fled to the house of one Peterson, with whom he had formerly served. This last proved a traitor to his friend, and Gustavus would have been delivered to the Danes, had he not received timely warning from the wife of his host. By her advice he took refuge with a clergyman, who shut him up in an apartment adjoining to the church, and counselled him to apply at once to the peasants at an approaching annual festival. They listened to him with enthusiasm, and he instantly led them against the governor's castle; which he took by assault, and put the governor to the sword. This inconsiderable enterprise was attended with the most happy consequences. Great num

bers of the peasants flocked to his standard; some of the gentry openly espoused his cause, and others supplied him with money. Christian was soon made acquainted with what had passed; but despising such an inconsiderable enemy, he sent only a slender detachment, under the command of one Soren Norby, to assist his adherents in Dalecarlia. Gustavus advanced with about 5000 men, and defeated a body of Danes commanded by one Meleen; but he was strenuously opposed by the archbishop of Upsal, who raised numerous forces for king Christian. The fortune of Gustavus, however still prevailed, and the archbishop was defeated with great loss. Gustavus then laid siege to Stockholm; but his force being too inconsiderable for such an undertaking, he was forced to abandon it with loss. This check did not prove in any considerable degree detrimental to the affairs of Gustavus; the peasants from ll parts of the kingdom flocked to his camp, and he was joined by a reinforcement from Lubec. Christian, unable to stop the revolt, wreaked his vengeance on the mother and sisters of Gustavus, whom he put to death with the most excruciating torture. Several other Swedish ladies he caused to be thrown into the sea, after having imposed upon them the inhuman task of making the sacks in which they were to be inclosed. His barbarities served only to make his enemies more resolute. Gustavus having assembled the states of Wadstena, he was unanimously chosen regent, the diet taking an oath of fidelity to him, and promising to assist him to the utmost. Having thus obtained the sanction of legal authority, he pursued the advantages against the Danes. A body of troops appointed to throw succours into Stockholm, were totally cut in pieces; and the regent sending some troops into Finland, struck the Danes there with such terror, that the archbishop of Upsal, together with Slabargaud Baldenaker the Danish governor, fled to Denmark. He then sent express orders to all his governors and officers in Finland and Sweden, to massacre all the Swedish gentry without distinction. The Swedes made reprisals by massacreing all the Danes they could find; so that the whole country was filled with bloodshed and slaughter. In the mean time, Gustavus had laid siege to the towns of Calmar, Abo, and Stockholm; but Norby obliged him to raise all of them with loss. Gustavus, in revenge, laid siege to the capital a third time, and petitioned the regency of Lubec for a squadron of ships, and other succours for carrying on the siege. This was complied with, but upon very hard conditions, viz. that Gustavus should oblige himself, in the name of the states, to pay 60,000 marks of silver, as the expense. of the armament; that, until the kingdom should be in a condition to pay that sum, the Lubec merchants trading to Sweden, should be exempted from all duties on imports or exports; that all other

nations should be prohibited trading with Sweden, and that such traffic should be deemed illicit; that Gustavus should neither conclude a peace, nor even agree to a truce with Denmark, without the concurrence of the regency of Lubec; and that in case the republic should be attacked by Christian, he should enter Denmark at the head of 20,000 men. Upon these hard terms did Gustavus obtain assistance from the regency of Lubec, nor did his dear bought allies prove very faithful. They did not, indeed, go over to the enemy; but in a sea-fight, where the Danes were entirely in the power of their enemies, they suffered them to escape, when their whole force might have been entirely destroyed. This treachery had well nigh ruined the affairs of Gustavus; for Norby was now making preparations, effectually to relieve Stockholm; in which he would probably have succeeded, but at this critical period, news arrived that the Danes had unanimously revolted, and driven Christian from the throne; and that the king had retired into Germany in hopes of being restored by the arms of his brother-in-law, the emperor. On hearing this news, Norby retired with his whole fleet, to the island of Gothland, leaving but a slender garrison in Calmar. Gustavus did not fail to improve this opportunity to his own advantage, and quickly made himself master of Calmar. Meantime Stockholm continued closely invested; but Gustavus protracted the siege until he should get himself elected king. Having for this purpose called a general diet, the first step was to fill up the vacancy in the senate, occasioned by the massacres of Christian. Gustavus had the address to get such nominated as were in his interest; and of consequence, the assembly was no sooner met, than a speech was made, containing the highest encomiums on Gustavus, setting forth in the strongest light the many eminent services he had done for his country, and concluding, that the states would show themselves equally ungrateful and blind to their own interest, if they did not immediately elect him king. This proposal was acceded to by such tumultuous acclamation, that it was impossible to collect the votes; so that Gustavus himself acknowledged, that their affection exceeded his merits, and was more agreeable to him, than the effects of their gratitude.

Gustavus, on his election, was urged to have the ceremony of his coronation immediately performed; but the king, having some designs on the clergy, did not think proper to comply with their request, as he would have been obliged to take an oath to preserve them in their rights and privileges. Indeed, he had not been long seated on the throne before he incurred the displeasure of that body; for having large arrears due to the army, with other incumbrances, Gustavus found it necessary to raise large contributions on the clergy. On this, he was ac

cused of avarice and heresy before the pope's nuncio. Gustavus defended himself against these accusations; and soon after showed a great partiality for the doctrines of Luther, which by this time had been preached and received by many people in Sweden. This embroiled him more than ever with the clergy; and it soon appeared, that Gustavus must either resign his throne, or the clergy some part of the power they had assumed. Matters were driven to extremities, by the king's allowing the Scriptures to be translated into the Swedish tongue. In 1526, the king, finding them entering into a combination against the reformists, went to Upsal, and publicly declared his resolution of reducing the number of oppressive and idle monks and priests, who, under the pretence of religion, fattened on the spoils of industrious people. At last, taking advantage of the war between the pope, and Charles V. of Spain, he declared himself to be of the reformed religion, and established it throughout his dominions; and, at the same time, to humble the arrogance of the ecclesiastics, he gave the senators the precedency of them, and in many other respects, degraded them from the dignities they formerly enjoyed. For some time, the states hesitated at supporting the king in his work of reformation; insomuch, that he threatened to resign the kingdom, which, he said, was doomed to perpetual slavery, either to its temporal or spiritual tyrants. On this the states came into his measures, and retrenched the privileges of the ecclesiastics, in the manner he proposed. Several disturbances, however, ensued. An impostor, who pretended to be of the family of Sture, the former regent, having claimed the throne, the Dalecarlians revolted in his favour; but on the approach of a powerful army, sent by Gustavus, they submitted. Soon after Lutheran professors were established in every diocese ; upon which a new rebellion ensued. At the head of this, was Thure Johanson, who had married the king's sister. Several of the nobility joined him; and the king of Denmark acceded to their cause, thinking, by means of these disturbances, to reunite the three kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, as formerly. But Gustavus prevailed, and the rebels were obliged to take refuge in Denmark. A fresh accident, however, had like to have embroiled matters worse than before. The subsidy granted by the regency of Lubec, was still due; and for the payment of it, the states granted to the king all the useless bells of the churches and monasteries. The people were shocked at the sacrilege; and the Dalecarlians again betook themselves to arms. Intimidated, however, by the courage and vigorous conduct of the king, they again submitted, and were taken into favour. But tranquillity was not yet restored. Christian having established a powerful interest in Norway, once more made an attempt to recover his king