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ESSAYS IN SWEDISH HISTORY

ideał of mixed monarchy.⁵¹ But in every mixed monarchy, as the political theorists were wont to point out, one element tended to predominate; and friends of the Vasa dynasty had an uneasy feeling that that element would prove to be the council and the high aristocracy. The automatically-functioning machinery of council and colleges seemed indeed to make a king superfluous, a mere Venetian Doge: the contrast between a mortal rex and an immortal regnum was pointed too plainly to be mis-taken.⁵² Royalists such as Karl Karlsson Gyllenhielm saw the imminent threat of an aristocratic republic, to be run by Oxenstierna and his relatives in their own interest.⁵³ At no time during the regency were there less than three members of the Oxenstierna family in the council; towards the end of it there were four; and in the face of this situation it was no great comfort to be assured: }statum manere monarchicum, sed aristocratice administrań'.⁵⁴

In reality, far from announcing the triumph of council-constitutionalism, the Form of Government was the herald of its decline. In the-courserof Gustay Adolf ⁵s reign the council had gradually but decisively changed its character. Under the eąrly Vasas it had been a loosely constituted group of great magnates, meeting irreguląrly at the king’s summons, normally residęnt on their estates in the country, entrusted with no regular or defined functions. By 1634^ it had become a standing executiye compar-able with the Tudor council, sitting in almost continuous session in Stockholm, developing its own specialisms, ‘slaying away’ (to use Skytte’s expression)⁵⁵ at routine business, the supreme policy-making body.⁵⁶ The change was due, of course, mainly to Gustav Adolf’s prolonged absences abroad, and later to Chris-tina’s long minority. The unforeseen effect was to compromise the counciTs traditional position as regulator of the constitu-tional machinę. It had become a part of the government, if not the government itself; and its members developed very elear insights into the yalue of prerogative action. As always, a major concern of the council-constitutionalists was good government: when the conduct of the State passed into their hands, they were not slow to find that good government might imply strong government. And if this was true of the council-members in generał, it was still truer of those of them who were also regents. NotUie least remarkable feature of the regency for Ghristina is

the conscientious care of the regents to safeguard the preroga-tives and interests of the crown: it was no part of the duty of an ephorate, they considered, to allow the monarchy to be robbed of its just rights, or permit the balance of the State to be tilted towards a democracy.⁵⁷ As de facto head of the government Oxenstierna adopted some of the techniąues and mental atti-tudes of his royal predecessors - even to silencing opposition by a threat of abdication.⁶⁸ It was significant that on one crucial issue - the ąuestion whether the counciTs approval was neces-sary for appointments to senior posts - he now took the side of the monarchy.⁶⁹ He may for a time have had some notion of making his son Prince Consort: what he quite obviously was not contemplating was a republic.

In another way, too, the constitutional situation had under-gone alteration in the years sińce 1600: I mean, in the steady growth of the powers and pretensions of the riksdag. Where the Land Law had spoken of the need for the assent of the common-alty, the tendency now was to eąuate this vague term with the Estates. The attitude of the council to this development had varied with political circumstances; but there had been signs in 1611 that they would have been glad to reduce the ireąuency of meetings of the riksdag,⁶⁰ and the Form of Government of 1634 obviously contemplated fewer and morę formal sessions, with the diversion of much business to smaller ‘committee-meetings’⁶¹ - a development which might well have been as fatal to the cause of parliamentarism in Sweden as it was to prove in Germany. But when Oxenstiema at last came home for good in 1636 he was not long in realizing that the time for any such idea had gone by.⁶² The riksdag in the 1630S and 1640S was vigorous, alert, jealous of its supposed rights, on the aggressive to extend them. Great bishops such as Rudbeckius and Lenaeus appeared as spokesmen for what at times re-sembled a constitutional opposition to government measures.

It could no longer be assumed, moreover, that the interests and attitudes of the Estate of Nobility coincided broadly with those of the council. It had been true when Erik Sparre produced the Postulata Nobilium in 1594,* it had been true when Oxenstierna drew up the Nobility’s demand for privileges in 1611; but it was now true only with qualifications. Since the acceptance of the Riddarhusordning of 1626 the members of the council no

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