The Aesthetics of Resistance Volume 2

by Peter Weiss

  The owner of the mine, a member of the merchants’ guild, Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, had been summoned to appear before the bailiff Jösse Eriksson. Why had he not come earlier, why had they had to bring him in, asked the Dane, sitting on an elevated chair dressed in a velvet robe adorned with ribbons covered in bells. The smallest motion provoked a jingling. Engelbrekt had also gotten dressed up for the visit, wearing a floor-length, wide-sleeved cloak, hemmed with fur and with slits on the sides, and a broad-brimmed hat. Almost in admiration, he grasped one of the dangling strips of fabric, shaking it. The latest fashion, he said with a laugh. The man from Jutland informed him in a nasal voice that they were supposed to call to mind the peals of the church bells after the burning of the heretic Joan of Arc. Then began to hold forth about this vixen, this goatherd from a village in Lorraine, who had run away from her parents and sown turmoil. That slip of a woman, who could only seem large when sitting on a horse, he said, looking down upon on the thickset, cloaked figure before him; and she was almost always sitting on a horse, until she was seized in the forest of Compiègne; a monster she was, and she was justly punished in Rouen for her hubris. Of course, the people in France say she acted heroically against the British, said Engelbrekt. Possessed, a witch she was, answered Eriksson, those who condemned her ought to have known, around a hundred of them sat above her in judgment, the most eminent clerics, theologians, and doctors of philosophy; then, accompanied by vigorous jingling, that he knows full well the reasons why the invited guest did not want to show up, that Engelbrekt was trying to withhold his foreign coins in silver and gold from the king, in violation of the stipulations of the law. Engelbrekt looked at him in bewilderment. You yourself exchanged my money, he said, for worthless currency, and even if I did still possess any of it, it could hardly contribute to a victory in our wars against the Hanseatic League, which will soon have endured for twenty years. Why doesn’t he give up his beloved Schleswig. Who are you talking about, asked the bailiff. His Royal Highness, said Engelbrekt. Have we perhaps become disloyal, asked Lord Eriksson. I have always served him faithfully, said Engelbrekt. Yet one notes a reluctant tone in your voice. Question: Do you wish to join the rebel camp. I was for the Union, said Engelbrekt, but under the conditions that currently prevail it can no longer be maintained, harmony must be established, work and trade must be promoted. Then, peasants and miners in tattered clothing descended upon the chamber in the castle of Västerås. The treadwheels of the mine stood still, the adits had collapsed, the fires in the smelting ovens and at the blacksmiths had gone out. Engelbrekt, his robe undone, a breastplate and sword underneath, was surrounded. No more complaints about torments, just explosive rage, the demand that the message, that the people’s patience has been exhausted, be delivered to the king in Denmark. Question to Engelbrekt of whether he, with his skills in conversation and negotiation, would be willing to travel to Copenhagen on behalf of the countryfolk to present their cause. Fall of fourteen thirty-two. The meeting of Engelbrekt, leader of the iron-producing regions, with his ruler. This scene, said Brecht, should have something of a canto from the circles of hell to it, but distorted by elements from Gothic novels and the colorful language of the sensationalist press. Eric, a decrepit-looking youth, his white-blonde hair in a pageboy cut, his lace shirt unbuttoned, one foot bare, the other in a satin slipper, surrounded by scantily clad concubines, a few courtiers scoffing food and guzzling booze, and a bishop in tattered vestments. The court jester juggling crown and scepter, the clergyman ranting and raving, drowned out by the screeching of parrots in cages. What will become of me now that they no longer want me in office in Iceland either and are threatening to drown me, Bishop Gerekesson, me, Johannes Gerechini. Be off with you, cried Eric. In response: you allowed them to dismiss me from my office as archbishop in Uppsala, you should have come to my aid, after all I’ve done for you, you’d have been lost without the riches that I brought in for you with our privateers. Go back to Skálholt, cried Eric, they should boil you in the spring waters. The king threw himself onto the cushions, sobbing, while the women caressed him and stroked his face with peacock feathers. My Philippa, he cried, why were you taken from me. Then Engelbrekt stepped in with his entourage. Travel clothes, spurs on his clay-smeared boots. Said he came as the emissary of the people of Dalarna to most humbly beg him to see to an investigation into the ills in the country entrusted to his care. The king: but do you not see that I am suffering; and, once more: Philippa, how could I ever have hit you. It pains him, the jester whispered to Engelbrekt, that he beat his wife to death, and the king again: oh the pain, the pain. Countless are feeling pain where I’ve come from, said Engelbrekt. They want relief, action. You could never compete with my suffering, countered the king, yet I wish to display my grace with an order to the Council of the Realm to kindly investigate the matter. He wrote a few words on a sheet of parchment, had it sealed, handed it to Engelbrekt, waved him away with a trembling hand, and lay straight back down whimpering on the soft bed of skin. And now, said Brecht, we had to depict the period leading up to the summer of thirty-four, perhaps in a call and response arrangement, or in scraps of conversation, incorporating the discussions deep down below concerning conditions at the top. The councillors had probably arrived on their horses, accompanied by the bailiff Jösse Eriksson, infuriated that their horses couldn’t carry them all the way up through the rugged terrain, strutting about among the starving, holding their noses at the stench from the smelters, bowing and shaking their heads and then scampering off again. Just as we, said Brecht, are following the moves in the games of chess to secure accords, treaties, alliances, nonaggression pacts, border defenses, border crossings, defensive measures and defensive wars, the peasants and miners in the muck, the prisoners in the straw, the poachers in the forests, also had to address the question of what would happen to them now. Wasn’t a peace supposed to have been agreed to, in Horsens; where’s Horsens; in Jutland, there, the peasants don’t have to front up for military service anymore, yet Danish squadrons were setting off once again to face the Wendish cities of the Hanseatic League; why, because Eric would sooner let Nordland fall than give up control over the Baltic Sea; but then there was a ceasefire after all, where they had gathered together in Svenborg, on Fyn, and come to an agreement; peace at last; no, Eric couldn’t take the fact that the Holsteiners wanted to keep South Jutland; new concentrations of masses of cavalry, new massacres, renewed tax gouging; but now, in Vordingborg, at the strait of Falster, a big conference, lofty speeches and solemn promises; so who was there, there were the emissaries from Lübeck, Wismar, Hamburg, Lüneburg, and Flensburg, there were the Danish and Swedish noblemen, the bishops Sigge of Skara and Thomas of Strängnäs; but why was Eric’s contingent so small; because most of his knights were still out in the countryside trying to scrounge better conditions for a peace treaty through their plundering. The chant, the round, entered an elevated tempo, Engelbrekt had traveled to Copenhagen once again, you can go to hell with your endless complaints, the king had cried, I never want to see you again; and the leader responded, I shall return once more. Because it was now a struggle for liberation, a civil war, said Brecht, the events had to be depicted palpably. No longer a view from a dispassionate height, no blind and august gaze, but setting to work, bundling lengths of timber together which were coated in pitch and wedged against the forts. Behind the protection of the palisades, carrying axes, hammers, pitchforks, iron bars, clubs, seized swords and lances, the army of peasants and workers approached the fortresses of the enemy. If earlier only the rulers had been visible, now, it was only the people who could be seen, no trace of the men of God, they had made tracks at the sight of the masses traversing the fields. They headed for Borganäs. Fire, the crumbling of the walls under the axes. It was Midsummer of fourteen thirty-four. Now, the bells were ringing in the people’s first victory. In the villages, the fiddlers were playing, the shawms were blaring for their side. On it went, into Västmanland, toward Köping and Västerås. They’d
been able to take Borganäs in a surprise strike, but the castle of Köping was more strongly fortified. But when the lord of the castle, Johan Vale, an Italian whose real name was Giovanni Franco—they might be able to get some material out of him, said Brecht—jumped onto his horse and fled to Stäkeborg without even having had time to put on his armor, Köpingshus was burned to the ground as well. The army marched at quick time to the harbor city of Västerås. At the gates, Engelbrekt was lifted onto the shoulders of the masses, and the short, bearded leader, cupping his hands around his mouth, demonstrated what people meant when they spoke about his booming voice. He called upon the locals to follow him, then ordered the representatives of the nobility to show themselves and submit to the power of the people; otherwise, he threatened, they would be relieved of their property and their lives. A series of increasingly tall walls. The gates within were slowly opened from behind. Frightened, bowing deeply—while Jösse Eriksson stole off through a hatch in the distance—the deputy bailiff Melchior Görtz stepped forward and handed Engelbrekt the keys to the city, whereupon Engelbrekt, apparently acting upon a prior agreement, named the knight Gustafsson Båt lord of the castle in Västerås. Thus, barely a week after departing Dalarna, the appearance of the revolution had already begun to transform, with the aristocrats rushing across to join the militant rural masses. We mustn’t seem to be conveying a history lesson, said Brecht, we only had to highlight a number of key moments that enabled a reading of the violent historical transformations. There was a whole host of evidence of the upheaval, which was consummated within a month and which brought Dalarna, Västmanland, and Uppland, the center of the realm, into the hands of the people’s army, which had now swollen to fifty thousand men. Even though many of their privileges had been taken away by Eric, the nobles had opposed a confrontation with the Danish supremacy for as long as possible. The signs of an independent movement among the populace unsettled them more than the acts of violence of the regent of the Union. Despite all the warnings, they had done nothing to assuage the hardship of the people and had instead carried out internal negotiations with the Danish court aimed at striking a deal to regain the rights they had conceded in Kalmar. Since Engelbrekt’s second visit to Eric in thirteen thirty-three had also been fruitless—the ignominy heaped upon the people having increased, if anything—he had marched to Västerås, a horde of fighters already at his back, in order to oust the bailiff. The knights and prelates had barred his way, had vowed to bring about improvements in the country immediately, and, to avoid a scuffle, Engelbrekt had withdrawn. This did not mean that he stood with the elite; rather, his caution seemed to prove that he had already come up with a revolutionary plan and did not want to jeopardize it, was still waiting for the moment to strike. He didn’t want to risk a clash that could lead to a break with the aristocrats but wanted instead to draw them to the side of the people. He knew that it would be impossible to secure victory without them; from the first moment to the last, he was focused on establishing unity, was willing to make any compromise for the sake of preventing their struggle for freedom from turning into a civil war. He had to win over the knights with cunning, with persuasion, and the most convincing factor now was the size of the army standing behind him. The rallying cries to band together, to take up arms and form regiments, had been passed along from village to village. The excitement building among the people was unstoppable. The day of the harvest festival was chosen to launch the campaign. As the throngs of farmworkers and miners streamed together, the first nobles began to see the advantages of joining forces with this army. Perhaps, with the protection of the masses, they would be able to regain the estates and castles of theirs that had been occupied by foreign counts. While the workers were fighting for their survival, the focus of the nobles was on filling their coffers. Though generations had suffered the abuse of foreign rulers, it had never made much difference to the lowly whether it was Germans or Danes at the top; the lowly knew only oppressors. They had always been without a fatherland, even when local princes had reigned. The idea of a nation, a national ethos, was only implanted in them later, from above. That Engelbrekt was of German extraction didn’t concern them, for them he was autochthonous to their landscape. Given the hatred toward the Germans from Albert’s time, his origins actually managed to reinforce his reputation as a man of integrity. While Engelbrekt made use of the people, extracting their violent intervention from the revolutionary conditions, this well-traveled and experienced mine owner was likewise of use to the people, who were the source of the initiative to rebel. What was undeniable, though, was that the workers cast aside their submissiveness and rose up, and that Engelbrekt grew with his mission. It was also possible that he saw himself as a man of the people. The gulf between him as a mine owner and the pitmen may have still been fluid: he participated personally in the work in the pits, worked side by side with tradespeople and smiths, intervened with the bailiffs on behalf of his wage laborers. Yet the closest members of his entourage came from the nobility. There were various reasons for this. The knights possessed armor and warhorses, were skillful in handling weapons. He needed the cavalry to be able to advance quickly and seize the enemy’s estates by surprise. Denmark was still strong, as was now being revealed on the approach to Stockholm, with the main fortresses still housing heavily armed garrisons. The rural folk, who had risen up spontaneously, had to be shaped into disciplined battle formations. So he brought in professional soldiers, even if they came from different social ranks than those of the groups that had constituted the initial incarnation of the revolution. And behind this, time and again, his vision of all social levels and classes working together, his hope for the reestablishment of the judiciary, the foundation of a council representing all classes of society. In this transitional phase in which consensus was essential, he courted the nobles, offered them high-level positions, appealed to their ambition, but also threatened them when they showed reluctance, always anticipating that the successes in their advance would compel them to loyalty. And yet this would also be his undoing. For while he presumed that the dignitaries were interested in liberating their country, they were merely feigning their support in order to prepare themselves to resist popular rule. Aligning himself with the people, he still failed to consult them for the most important decisions; availing himself of the nobility, he also allowed them to retain their influence; promoting the bourgeoisie, he secured them an elevated position. Though there was always talk of rural folk from all provinces joining his agitation, stepping in to defend him when the nobles attacked him and attempted to rob him of his status, with the expansion of the struggle, the commoners began to take a back seat, and the elite scored one win after the other. In many aspects, the strategy that Engelbrekt developed resembled a campaign of guerrilla warfare, with brutal, unexpected attacks, hasty retreats, and flanking maneuvers, but the victories could never be consolidated among the populace. Though he did convoke assemblies in the villages, he had always already set his sights on the next castle still occupied by the enemy, and the minute it fell, it had a highborn Swedish administrator sitting in it. The people just wanted to burn down the castles, those symbols of power strewn across the entire country. Engelbrekt’s assertion—that with the arrival of knights loyal to him, they had won bases from which to continue the struggle—was deceptive. He too was still unable to countenance the idea that the castles and fortified estates could be handed over to the workers. He might have been audacious enough to prepare the aristocrats for the prospect of expropriation, but in his eyes the only suitable successors were those of noble standing. The structure of feudalism had impressed itself so deeply in the consciousness that even the first signs of its collapse were not yet able to provoke the will to discard it entirely. The rebellion was of an elementary nature, had initially been aimed at casting off a mass of unbearable pressure. The lashing out and the forward rush engendered relief. Those revolting had never intended to take the estates or even government affairs into their own hands; the figh
ters demanded no more than a small piece of arable land, the abolition of forced labor, and the lowering of taxes. When their captain promised them that their wishes were to be fulfilled, they instantly saw in him a new Saint Eric, under whose regency in the early times of legend a realm of freedom and fraternity was said to have existed. Perhaps Engelbrekt wanted to become such a king. But for all his aptitude as a commander, his visions of a new form of politics, for all the energy he exuded, as attested to by his contemporaries, he was not equal to the plotting against him by the elites. In the face of these conspirators, for whom no betrayal was too great, no murder too treacherous, his honesty was deformed into a weakness. Today, in the course of our research, the things that he realized too late moved into the foreground for us. By the time he reached the outskirts of Stockholm in July, his enemies’ plots were already flourishing widely. Messengers had rushed news of the insurrection to the members of the Council of the Realm, who were in Vordingborg to participate in the peace negotiations with the representatives of the Hanseatic League. The threat of a plebeian seizure of power accelerated the agreement among the elites: the Swedish lords deferred their demands for sovereignty. Needing help from Denmark, they pledged their loyalty to Eric, who for his part needed an alliance with the Hanseatic League to strengthen his rule over Sweden; and the Hanseatic League was provided with the assurance that Stockholm would remain under its flags. While Engelbrekt was camped in Normmalm, looking across onto Stockholm’s fortified Helgeandsholmen, the Swedish and Danish aristocrats agreed to support one another in the battle against the rebels in accordance with the theses of the Union document. The defeat of Spain was still on our minds as we contemplated the courage and enthusiasm of the peasant soldiers in medieval Sweden. From Engelbrekt’s camp north of the city, we turned to his final hour, on the small island in Lake Hjälmaren, asked ourselves where the people had been. We can only inquire, said Brecht, into how it happened that they went from this show of strength to their loss of power and ultimate defeat, and in doing so, provide a contribution to the understanding of the irregularities, fluctuations, ruptures, and jumps involved in the process of world revolution. Engelbrekt had been let in through the northern gate of the Islet of the Holy Spirit. Stood with his entourage, in the forecourt of the church, in anticipation of negotiations with the leader of the city’s armed forces. The walls of the fort rose up behind the narrow arm of the stream. The bridge leading into town ran between two square defense towers. Though the powerful might have been sitting up above, out front, directly before the castle, it was now the commoners who were standing armed and ready. From above, laughter, scornful jeers. The demand to hand over the city to the people’s army sounded foolhardy. Kröpelin, German-born, former courtier to Margaret and now the lord of the castle of Stockholm, showed himself through an arrow slit. He rejected Engelbrekt’s demand, invoking the oath that he had sworn to King Eric and his duties to the inhabitants of the capital as mayor. This sounded honorable, but it was dripping with contempt. Discussions between Engelbrekt and his people. The fort impossible to take, given they had no fleet. A siege pointless, as the city has plenty of provisions. Losing time grave, given the expectation of a Danish invasion in the west. Essential not to interrupt the advance and to immediately continue on to take other forts. Suggestion to leave the city to its own devices until the beginning of winter. It would fall once the country had been liberated, or they’d take it on their way across the ice. Agreement of a ceasefire. Until the eleventh of November, cried Engelbrekt, Saint Martin’s Day. Then, they said below, we’ll eat our roast goose in the castle. This rapid decision altered the relationship between the horde of country folk and the guard details of the patricians. Those standing out front, who had just a moment ago seemed small, insignificant, would gain the upper hand, the armored figures on the walls would be made to yield. Not the sensation of failure, but the intimation of the possible. Puke led an army to Norrland and Finland; on the Bothnian coast, Vaxholm was razed, and Kastelholm on Åland capitulated without a fight; in early August, Puke rejoined Engelbrekt again, to whom Uppsala and Gripsholm had now fallen. Nyköping, too strongly fortified, was bypassed, but as Ringstadaholm came within reach, Engelbrekt learned that the councillors of the realm and the church dignitaries had come from Denmark and were gathered in Vadstena on Lake Vättern. The scene of Engelbrekt’s entrance into the meeting of the noblemen, on which Brecht had focused in the very first sketches for the piece, was now reconceived. The ancestors could happily be depicted in all their exaggerated grandeur to begin with, standing at the podium and sitting around the enormous table; but soon enough, those from below would come marching in to meet them and leave them speechless. The bishops of Strängnäs and Skara could still hold forth in a duet about the evil—just now butchered in the figure of the Hussite leader Prokop, near Lipany, east of Prague—that now sought to rear its head in their own land; they could still gleefully praise the victory of the Bohemian emperor, accompanied by the choir of the knights, but a second later they were set upon by the peasant throng, armed with clubs and flails. What did these peasants think they were doing, yammered the bishop of Linköping, raising his hand to cross himself, admonishing those who had previously been nothing but humble to return to their senses. Engelbrekt stood above him on the chair, lifted him up by the collar of his cassock and yelled that he would throw him to the peasants like all the others who failed to immediately declare their willingness to join the side of the people; then pulled out a piece of paper and ordered a letter to be written to the king relieving him of all his offices. Then the clerics, Thomas of Strängnäs, Sigge of Skara, Knut of Linköping, the knights Bo Stensson and Bengt Stensson of the House of Natt och Dag, Magnus Birgersson and Guse Nilsson of the House of Båt, Erengisle Nilsson and Nils Erengislesson Hammersta, Karl Magnusson and Greger Magnusson from the House of Eka, Gustav Algotsson from the Sture Dynasty, and all the rest of them bent over the table, scribbling, muttering away, interrupted by cries of Your Grace, Venerable King; no grace, no veneration; we have gathered together; were beaten up, shoved together; would gladly like to resolve in your favor; get rid of the favor; would like of our own free will; forced, seized by weapon-wielding hands; as administrators of the highest offices of the land; in loyalty to Engelbrekt and the peasants, to absolve ourselves herewith of our oath; the Dane broke his oath long ago; but we will not undertake anything against you; will remove you from the Swedish throne; are sending up a prayer from our pit of despair; are polishing our suits of armor, saddling our horses; request compensation; will sweep the land clean of your riff-raff. Wax dripped onto the paper, the seal pressed on top, and thumbs from all sides. Engelbrekt’s behavior after the conference at Vadstena could only be explained by his desire to build a nation; his undertaking seemed to occur as if in a state of blindness but was an expression of an absolute longing for legality. For him, even though they had reached their posts through personal violence, the prelates and knights remained the absolute authorities of the realm; he wanted to establish his state for the good of all, not against them but with them. In Vadstena, a triumphant gesture sufficed the powerful Engelbrekt. In order to demonstrate his trust in the high lords and to make his alliance with them unbreakable, he placed them at the head of his armies. And what followed initially gave the impression that the nobles had been convinced by the supremacy of this minor squire. Engelbrekt had one corps, led by Bo Stensson and Erengisle Nilsson, take on Stäkeholm; a second, under Junker Herman Berman, headed to Småland to conquer Rumlaborg, Trolleborg, and Piksborg. He himself returned with Nils Erengislesson to Castle Ringstadaholm, which he bequeathed to his companion following a rapid victory. Then continued straight on with his troops to Stäkeborg, chasing off Giovanni Franco once again, where he installed Bishop Knut, also born a Natt och Dag, as lord of the castle. Knut also snared himself Rönö, placing it under the supervision of another family member, Erik Stensson. Once the rumor had spread that the nobility could get their hands on castles for cheap, kn
ights rushed over from all counties, among them Magnus Gren, Bo Knutsson Grip, descendants of the powerful treasurer Bo Jonsson Grip, and the young Karl Knutsson Bonde, who would soon become Engelbrekt’s strongest adversary. While Engelbrekt took control of the castle of Örebro, one of the strongest in the land, for a sum of one thousand marks and named his brother the commander there, the nobles had no luck at Stäkeholm; after repeated assaults they continued on toward Kalmar, which also refused to be taken. Berman conquered the forts in Småland, and Engelbrekt set off for Värmland and Västergötland together with Puke, received help from the country folk everywhere he went, smoked out the castles around Lake Vänern, Agneholm, Edsholm, and Dalaborg, ordered Puke to besiege Axvall, conquered Opensten, Öresten, arrived in Halland, won over the citizens of Varberg with promises of trade privileges, left the Danish bailiff in the city’s castle, pushed on to Falkenberg, Halmstad, where his troops united with Berman’s army, secured a separate peace with the capitulating Laholm, wanted to add Skåne to the realm as well and have himself ferried over to Denmark to keep his promise of a final visit, but since there was word that Eric was on the way to Stockholm with his fleet and Saint Martin’s Day was drawing close, he rushed off toward the capital, having liberated the entire country, but for a few castles still holding out, in four months. When he arrived the bay was filled with Danish warships, and the Swedish councillors and the king and his army were meeting in the House of the Holy Spirit, chaired by the mayor Hans Kröpelin. Engelbrekt was not allowed in: crossbows peered out from the loopholes in the walls, the bridges were drawn, the gates barricaded. For a second time the military leader stood before the bulwarks of the island city. There could no longer be any doubt that the nobles had betrayed him and the people. There was no longer any discernible reason for Engelbrekt’s continued hesitation to declare war on the nobility. He could have begun the siege and stormed the city in the winter once the ships had sailed off, providing they didn’t get frozen in place. He had gathered together an army before the southern gate, another before the fortifications in the north; he himself was camped on the island of Långholmen, where today the Västerbron begins its powerful, upward arc over Lake Mälaren. The peasant ranks heavily outnumbered the few thousand soldiers in the castle. Why, we asked ourselves, did Engelbrekt not respond to the announcement of the agreement between the aristocrats and the regent that all discord was to be brought to an end and that in the autumn of the following year, the treaty would be ratified in a court session. We worked until after Christmas on this scene, which had to convey the end of the first phase of the revolution. What’s with the roast goose, cried one of the soldiers. And it was brought from an abandoned estate in the surrounding area, where the outer baileys had been burned down by the defenders of the city. It was roasted over the fire. Eating now, among the steaming pots of the sutlers, the conversation covered the topics that we ultimately considered were most likely. First, rage, demands for the revocation of the ceasefire. It wasn’t the knights who bore the burdens of the war, it was us. We seized this victory, and we want our reward. We won’t let ourselves be ordered around by those lords in there any longer. Messengers delivered details of the accord sealed on Helgeandsholmen. Eric has surrendered all his previous authority, vowed to withdraw his bailiffs and governors and henceforth hand over the administration of the entire realm to the local noblemen. Sweden’s autonomy has been confirmed. Eric now only wears the crown as the Union’s head of state, in a symbolic role, practically divested of all power. The councillors had declared the agreement a great success, also bestowing praise and thanks upon the leader Engelbrekt, who, with the great sacrifices of the people, had ushered in an epoch of peace. Thus Engelbrekt was supposed to surrender, return to the pits with his miners, send the country folk back to their villages and leave the knights and merchants to manage their hard-earned share. We had to concede that Engelbrekt’s decision was a reflection of his circumstances. He was as revolutionary as he could be for his time, indeed, he was ahead of his time, but was held down, pushed back by the viscous progression of the evolution of society. He had made it infinitely further than Margaret, but it would be almost four hundred years before the kind of progress was made that we would have wished to see, from our contemporary perspective. Had Engelbrekt been an adventurer rather than a revolutionary, he’d have allowed himself to be seized by the hatred that erupted toward the aristocracy, he’d have led the exhausted troops to storm the city, and probably would have taken it too, before unleashing civil war, taking on the Danish cavalry, the Swedish knights, the Hanseatic League, and the Teutonic Order. Nothing could be done any more about the fact that he had been deceived. Of course the upper classes preferred the fickle king of the Union to the unbending leader of the people, for they knew well that they could only retain their privileges under Eric. But there were also a few, like Nils Gustafsson Båt and Thomas of Strängnäs, who had some sympathy for Engelbrekt’s far-sighted aspirations. Puke, Berman, Bengt Gotskalksson and Gotskalk Bengtsson, Johan Karlsson Färla, Claus Plata, and other knights and lords stuck by him; as a progressive movement, the insurgency had also taken root among the elite, and Engelbrekt remained committed to bringing this thirst for renewal to a wide-reaching realization. Engelbrekt resisted the temptation to jeopardize the goal of national unity—as difficult as it would have been to achieve—in the interests of securing a brief, spectacular victory, even though many of his fighters were urging him to do so. Though some might have called it weakness, a lack of daring, we decided that during the brief period of his appearance on the stage of history, he had shown more prudence and determination than any other statesman before him in these parts ever had. He retained a standing army, sent all others in ordered groups back to their homelands for them to resume their work, elect their representatives, form their councils, stay in constant contact with him, ready, if necessary, to mobilize once more. In January, after Twelfth Night, on the Feast of the Three Kings, he would call a conference at which the representatives of all classes would decide upon the fate of the realm.