Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  In 1439 the Danish Rigstag removed Eric as king and replaced him with his nephew, Christopher of Bavaria. This was an unusual move by Denmark where the hereditary right of kings was honored, unlike Sweden where kings were elected. Sweden followed Denmark’s lead and in 1442 Norway did the same. Long live King Christopher.

  But he did not live all that long, dying in 1448. The joint kingship was thrown into confusion once more. Karl Knudson, dots, administrator of Finland and one of the architects of the last rebellion, quickly raised an army and marched on Stockholm. He was elected king of Sweden and was accepted by Norway also. But Denmark chose Christian of Oldenburg as king. The union was at least temporarily split. Eric, the deposed union king, conspired with the nobility of Norway to obtain Karl’s removal in that country and have himself reinstated. Intermittent wars broke out between the three kings and Karl was forced to raise taxes in Sweden to pay for the armies.

  The situation under Karl was turning out to be as bad as that under Eric. Rebellion broke out in Sweden once again. This time the revolt was led by Jöns Bengtsson, the archbishop of Sweden and a member of the powerful Oxenstierna family. Karl was defeated and fled to Danzig. Jöns appealed to the other two countries to find a solution to the constant warfare that had resulted from having three independent kings. A new Kalmar Agreement was reached in which Christian would be king of the union, but all three countries would maintain a certain autonomy. Before long Christian was scheming to consolidate his hold over the three countries and taxes were raised to pay for troops. Jöns again rebelled and this time he was joined by Kettil Karlsson, a bishop from the Vasa family. Together they raised an army and attacked the royal troops stationed in Sweden. Christian’s forces were defeated and driven out of the country. Karl was invited back to rule as king. He returned old, tired and sickly. In 1465 he withdrew to Finland. Although he kept the title of king, Jöns and Kittel effectively ruled Sweden.

  The two aristocratic families ruling Sweden were challenged by a third, the Axelsson family. Originally Danish, they had established large land holdings throughout Sweden and Finland. They built a political organization among the nobility. Supported by enough of the nobility and well organized, they took over key government offices, displacing the Oxenstiernas and Vasas until they controlled the government. They recalled Karl Knutsson as a figurehead and ruled in his stead.

  In 1470 Karl died and Axelsson’s cover evaporated. King Christian quickly took advantage of the confusion to reinsert himself into Sweden. He built up his military while at the same time he sent feelers out for support in Sweden. Meanwhile, a new leader of the growing Swedish nationalism emerged. Sten Sture was Karl Knudson’s nephew, executor and guardian of his young son. He was married to an Axelsson. Thus, he inherited support from the nationalistic movement Karl had been part of and from the powerful Axelsson family with connections in both Sweden and Denmark. Sten himself was a man of means, having inherited family holdings in southern and central Sweden. In operating these estates and associated businesses, he had gained experience in farming, commerce and politics.

  Sweden was now clearly divided into two parties. Among the unionists, supporting King Christian I, were the Uppland peasants and much of the nobility including the Vasas and Oxenstiernas. The nationalists (though they would not have called themselves such), led by Sten Sture, were backed by the Axelsson, Trolle and Posse aristocracy, the provinces of Västergötland, Östergötland, Småland and the miners from Dalarna. The Bergslag (the mining area) followed Nils Sture (not a close relation of Sten’s) and was in the Sture camp. A notable exception to the Vasa allegiance to the Danish king was Johan Vasa, grandfather of Gustav Eriksson (Gustav I of Sweden).

  Christian raised a new army of Danish knights supported by German and Scottish mercenaries. He ferried his force to Stockholm where he was joined by the Upplanders and troops of some of the Swedish nobility. The Danish king laid siege to the city. Sten Sture had gathered an army among the nationalists, mainly from southern and central Sweden. He advanced on Stockholm to engage the Danish army. One of the bloodiest battles in Swedish history took place at Brunkeberg outside Stockholm (now part of the city). On the morning of October 10, 1471, Christian took up a good defensive position on Brunkeberg Ridge outside the city walls. Sten Sture drew up his Swedish army in front of the ridge. Christian had about 5000 men, mostly professional soldiers well armed and armored. Against this formidable force, Sten had a mostly peasant militia with little armor and only the essentials in arms. The one effective weapon they carried was the crossbow. Where the weapon of the English infantry was the longbow, in Sweden it was the crossbow. Every farmhouse had at least one, used for hunting and home defense. So Sten’s footmen were expert with this device and could make it devastatingly effective.

  Sten led his troops up the slopes of the ridge into a withering barrage of arrows, bolts, bullets and shells. They advanced up the hillside taking heavy losses. Finally, the bowmen, crossbows, arquebuses and field guns were too much and the surge ebbed and then receded. The Swedes tried again, but were once more repulsed by the determined Danes. Sten next led an attack on positions around Klara Monastery at one end of the ridge where the ground was more even. Christian, seeing the heavy hand-to-hand combat, took reinforcements into the melee. It was a close pitched battle with the outcome in some doubt. But then a force of Stockholm militia commanded by Knut Posse broke through the siege lines around the city and attacked the Danish flank. At the same time Nils Sture with his Dalesmen, having swung around the other flank, attacked the Danes from the rear. Christian was surrounded and fighting on three sides. The Danish lines begin to collapse and the unionists were forced to cut their way out. The retreat turned into a rout as Christian’s troops headed for the port and their ships. A bridge was sabotaged by the Stockholm citizens and collapsed as troops fled over it. A number of men drowned or were captured including the Danish commander. Uppland troops who made it to the ships were forced overboard by the mercenaries and many drowned. Some 500 Danish knights perished in the battle. Perhaps as many as 2000 Swedes fighting with Sten Sture died, but the battle was a total Swedish victory. The Danish occupier was driven from Swedish soil.

  Trading on his popularity after the Battle of Brunkeberg, Sten Sture gathered in the reigns of authority in Sweden. He was named national administrator and effectively ruled the country for the remainder of Christian I’s monarchy. However, with Christian’s death in 1481, the question of Swedish rule was raised anew. A three way struggle ensued between the new Danish king, Hans, the Swedish National Council and Sten Sture. At the same time a new and ominous threat was developing in the east; a nation once dominated by Swedes was reconstituting itself and would soon loom large on the Swedish frontier.

  The old Viking era empire centered at Novgorod and Kiev had become the Empire of the Eastern Slavs separated from the rest of Europe by a Lithuanian kingdom stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Eastern Slavic Empire had close ties to Byzantium, but had lost contact with Western Europe.

  This empire was smashed by the tidal wave of the Mongol invasion in the 12th and 13th centuries. Kiev, along with the rest of the Eastern Slavs, was crushed and reduced to a near slave state. Novgorod, however, escaped the Asian inundation, providing a buffer between the Mongol invaders and Sweden’s possessions in Finland, as well as the Hansa cities, Teutonic knights and Brothers of the Sword domains along the eastern Baltic.

  In the late 13th century the Mongol tide began to recede, giving local Russian principalities the opportunity to reassert themselves. By 1300 Moscow, beginning as a city-state, was able to establish its independence, although it still paid a tribute to the Tartar khanate further east. It grew to the status of a duchy (1400) by subjugating its neighbors and by 1465 had extended its territory to Lake Onega in the north, to the Don in the South and to the Volga in the east, resembling the Russia of modern times.

  By 1488 Russia had absorbed Novgorod completely, placing itself in direct competition with Sw
eden for territories in Finland and along the eastern Baltic. Sweden suddenly had a new, aggressive and very powerful neighbor.

  In 1493 Denmark formed an alliance with Russia and Tsar Ivan III attacked the Swedish stronghold of Viborg on the Finnish frontier. He was repulsed, but the ensuing war provided the opportunity Hans had been waiting for.

  With Sweden distracted in the east, King Hans sent Danish armies north from Skåne into Småland and the Götlands. He loaded another army onto his fleet and sailed north, dropping anchor in Stockholm Harbor. Sten was forced from office by a combination of Danish military might and a jealous nobility acting through the National Council (Råd). Hans gained control over Sweden and the Kalmar Union was restored in 1497. But by 1501 Sten Sture had made a comeback, inducing the Råd to renounce Hans as Swedish king and reinstate him as national administrator. And so the power struggle continued with first one side gaining the upper hand, then the other.

  In 1504 Sten Sture died but was immediately replaced by a family member, Svante Nilsson. When he died (1512), he was replaced by Sten Sture the Younger. The next year King Hans died and was succeeded by his son Christian II, and the three-way struggle continued.

  Two new factors were introduced along with the Russians and the nationalist movement. First was the declining power of the Hanseatic League. The Scandinavian countries were beginning to recover a bit of their own commercial power and the Dutch were providing more and more direct competition to the league.

  The second factor was the increasing role the Catholic Church was playing in politics. The situation was brought to a head when Gustav Trolle, the Swedish archbishop, was given orders by the pope to create a four hundred man force to protect church properties.

  At issue was a castle north of Stockholm called Stäke which the church said it owned. Sten claimed it for the Swedish government with the argument that to have it held by anyone else was a threat to the capital. In 1517 Sten, backed by a council of representatives from all over Sweden (a primitive Riksdag), captured the castle and burned it to the ground. Then he deposed Gustav Trolle and selected his own archbishop of Sweden. These actions challenged church authority beyond anything tolerable; these were crimes calling for a punitive response.

  The church in Rome condemned the acts and encouraged the Danish king to punish the Swedes. Christian II assembled another force and sailed for Stockholm. He landed his army and was met by Sten and his Swedes. The Danes were repulsed at the Battle of Braenukyrka and a truce was arranged. As part of an agreement, Christian insisted on being given six hostages, persons of importance, before he left the country. One of these hostages was Gustav Eriksson of the old and great family of Vasa. Christian sent the prisoners to Denmark, then weighed anchor.

  Church officials decided a stronger response was required if it was to be effective. The Holy See excommunicated Sten Sture and placed the country under interdict. Christian could now mount a crusade with full church backing and the authority to not only punish Sweden, but also to conquer and completely crush the country. He raised a serious mercenary army and sent it into Sweden from Skåne. Sten Sture assembled his Swedish forces and moved south to meet the Danes. They collided at Åsenden on New Year’s Day 1520 at the Battle on the Ice. The Swedes were defeated and Sten Sture was wounded. He died a few days later. Danish forces swept north, meeting little resistance. Only the great castles held out. Christina Gyllenstierna commanded the stronghold at Stockholm and Ann Bielke held Kalmar Castle, the two strongest fortresses in the country. Christian now crossed over from Denmark and marched north from Skåne with additional forces smashing any remaining resistance. He left troops at Kalmar to invest the castle, then marched on to Stockholm to lay siege to the capital.

  Christina held out until September with the help of commoners who had come to her aid, but in the end Christian’s Danish troops and German mercenaries were too much for the unskilled defenders and the castle surrendered. On November 4, Christian II was crowned king of Sweden not by election (the Swedish law), but by heredity. The traditional three day banquet followed. Archbishop Gustav Trolle was reinstated and immediately charged the Sture supporters with heresy for acts of violence against the church and its representatives. Christian seems to have been only too willing to carry out the prescribed sentences.

  On the night of November 7, the coronation festivities were halted, and Christian summoned his captains to his quarters in the palace. They were given orders to arrest a number of patriots: clergymen, nobles and burghers (men and women) on a list compiled by Gustav Trolle. The next day a council headed by Trolle pronounced the death sentence on two bishops and fourteen men of the Swedish nobility. The infamous Stockholm Blood Bath or Stockholm Massacre began on November 8, 1520. The coffin of Sten Sture (the Younger) was dug up and his body burned along with many of those executed. Messengers were sent to Finland and leaders there connected with the Sture party were also executed. Other nobles, burghers, and citizens on Trolle’s list were imprisoned and several women of the aristocracy were sent to prison in Denmark. Christian II must have thought he had stamped out Sweden’s nationalism for some time to come. The leaders were dead, the commoners thoroughly cowed and the remaining nobles were on his side with fear to keep them there. The Danish occupation of Sweden was secure and the Kalmar Union resurrected under Christian II’s rule.

  An independent and powerful Sweden was a dim memory of her distant Viking past. The country had traded foreign German overlords for a Danish tyrant. The Sture party’s dream of a Sweden that could stand on its own among the European nations appeared to be finally and irrecoverably crushed. The Swedish-Finish territory seemed destined to be a satrapy in the Danish Empire along with Iceland and Norway.

  3. Gustav Vasa’s Rise to Power and Swedish Independence

  In late May 1520, a merchant ship owned by Henrik Möller of Lübeck quietly slipped into the port of Kalmar on the coast of Småland in southern Sweden. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this German carrack except that in addition to its cargo, the vessel carried one singularly noteworthy passenger. Stepping onto Swedish soil for the first time in almost two years was Gustav Eriksson Vasa, just 23 years old, the son of Swedish noblemen, soldier, hostage, and most recently, escaped prisoner. After sojourns in Danish captivity and as a refugee in Germany, the young aristocrat was finally home.

  Shouldering his way along the crowded wharf, Gustav would have picked up the voices of foreign merchants, Kalmar burghers, farmers and stockmen from Småland speaking his native Swedish. The familiar language, dress and customs must have been comforting and reassuring. He might have encountered a Danish customs official or one of the king’s bailiffs. These the young Vasa would have avoided for he had come to loath his country’s oppressors; the yearning for freedom and independence swelled within him and the fire of rebellion burned in his soul. Surely there were still others of his countrymen who shared his vision of a Sweden free of Danish domination. These were the people he was looking for, the men and women he had to find.

  But the Sweden he was returning to was far different from the country he had been forcibly removed from in 1518. With the defeat of the Swedes at Åsunden and the death of Sten Sture, organized resistance against the Danes had collapsed. Christian II’s forces had swept through the country establishing Danish rule in all the provinces. For Sweden, the Kalmar Union had become a Danish occupation, and Christian II was projecting his power into every corner of the realm.

  The Swedish people had not succumbed entirely, however. Guerrilla bands still operated in forests and remote areas. Many of the castles had not yet fallen, two of the strongest being commanded by a couple of remarkable women. Kristina Gyllenstierna, Sten Sture’s widow and Gustav’s aunt, held Stockholm with a garrison of Swedish commoners. Anna Bielke, backed by mostly Germans, commanded at Kalmar Castle, the key to Sweden and its strongest fortress. The spark of nationalism had not been completely extinguished; if Gustav could rally the countryside as the Stures had been able to do,
independence might yet be achieved. But the refugee, mingling with his own countrymen for the first time in months, was an unknown quantity. At twenty-three, Gustav Eriksson might be just another aristocratic ne’er-do-well. Even if he possessed purposeful determination, did he have the energy, talent, even genius the struggle for independence would require? His young life to this point had shown no particular promise.

  Born May 12 in either 1496 or 1497, Gustav was the oldest boy in a large family of the Swedish nobility. The family estate, Rydboholm, was located in Uppland where his father, Erik Johansson, was a knight and councilor of state.

  Erik was a hard and violent man. Records show he killed a Stockholm man for cutting trees on Rydboholm and fishing in its waters. He is also supposed to have looted the Frösunda rectory near his estate and later plundered a church on one of the Mälar islands. For these crimes he seems to have gone unpunished. Perhaps family connections provided protection.

  Both Gustav’s mother, Cecilia, and father were related to noble families in Sweden and Denmark. The Vasa family was one of less than a couple of dozen families in all Sweden that would have been considered true European nobility, the great magnates of Sweden. These families had extensive land holdings scattered throughout the country to protect against agricultural disasters in any one area ruining them. Gustav’s grandfather had married the sister of Sten Sture the Elder so the family had direct connections to the capital. As a child Gustav was sent to the court of Sten Sture the Elder for formal education. At thirteen he attended the University of Uppsala where he learned Latin, some German, and became expert in both written and spoken Swedish. After four years he left school. His departure spawned the first of many stories about this semi-legendary figure. At least two versions of his exodus are told. According to one, Gustav just got tired of a particularly boring instructor, marched up to him and stabbed a knife into a schoolbook, then announced that the teacher and his school could go to the devil. Another version has it that Gustav was struck by his professor who was Danish. Gustav stormed from the class in a rage, implying the young Vasa developed a hatred for Danes early in life.