DSCF0042

ESSAYS IN SWEDISH HISTORY

and elective monarchy was quite simply thc difference belwcen uncon-ditional or conditional handing over of castles - that is, of the country’s miJitary and financial resources - to the new king’: Erik Lónnroth, ‘Ar Sveriges historia ofóranderlig ?*, Historisk Tidskrift, 1950, p. 386. When the riksdag in 1693 declared Charles xi to be absolute, they explicitly based absolu tism upon the hereditary character of the monarchy: Lennart Than-ner, ‘Su veranitetsfórklaring ar 1693’, Karolińska forbundets drsbok, 1954.

¹⁶    Printed in Soenska riksdagsakter, I Senes, i, 675—700: the check referred to is on p. 687. And see Birgitta Odeń, ‘Gustav Vasa och testamentets tillkomst’, Scandia, xxix (1963), pp. 114, 136.

¹⁷    By the Articles of Arboga, 1561: they are printed in Soenska riksdagsakter, I Senes, ii, 9-19.

^uIbid., p. 33.

¹⁹    See Ingvar Andersson, ‘Erik xiv och Machiavelli’, Scandia, iv (1931), pp. 1 ff., but aiso the criticism of this point of view in Gunnar Annell, Erik XIV:s etiska firestallningar och deras injlytande pa hans politik, Uppsala, *945* PP-59-64-

²⁰    Erik’s modves, and his State of mind at the time of the killing, are matters of controversy: see Ingvar Andersson, Eńk XIV (and edn, Stock-holm, 1948), pp. 191-248 (a classic biography); Viktor Wigert, Erik XIV: historisk-psykiatrisk studie, Stockholm, 1920; Rudolf Elander, Sturemordens gaia, Stockholm, 1928; Jerker Rosen, Studier kring Erik XIV:s hoga namnd, Lund, 1955, pp. 65-84; Gunnar Annell, op. cit.; and the collection of docu-ments in Handlingar rórande Skandinaoiens historia, v, Stockholm, 1817.

²¹    For example of the counciTs protests and remonstrances on this account, see Soenska riksdagsakter, I Series, ii, 510-14, 571, 668, 670-7, 811-16,827.

²²    In 1593 the nobility asked the council (‘sińce there are very few of us who have any knowledge of our ancient liberties’), to give them information about them, ‘for we gather that our forefathers were a very free people, beyond all others, which now (God amend it) is much altered’: ibid., iii, 177-8; and see the revealing letter from Hogenskild Bielke to his brother Turę, 11 June, 1593, where he writes: ‘King Gustav degraded the Estate of Nobility, which was the foremost in the realm . . . After that there were not many left who dared to say a word against it [sc. the Vasa rigime] and so liberty declined the one year after the other, so that it came to be clean forgot what the old freedom had been, and no one cared to look into it and consult old documents, and such as were found in cathedrals and monas-teries were all confiscated and kept hidden from others, so that they might not come to the eyes of those whom they most concerned’: Handlingar rorande Skandinaoiens historia, viii, 56.

²² On Sparre’s political theories, K. Strómberg-Back, Lagen, ratten, taran, now supersedes all others; but see also Lagerroth, Frihetstidens fórfattning, pp. 80-105.

²⁴ Soenska riksdagsakter, I Series, iii, 394.

²⁴ Ibid., iii, 385-6.

²⁴ Ibid., ii, 845.

²⁷ This, it seems to me, weakens the force of the distinction which Dr

Strómberg-Back (op. cii., p. 19) draws between Sparre’s views and those of his fifteenth-century predecessors. The attempt to present alteration as reatoration is a feature common to Swedish and English constitutional history: the revolutions of 1680, 1719, and 1772 all represented themselves to be returns to a previously-existing constitutional norm.

²⁸    Strómberg-Back, pp. 64-6.

²⁹    Erik Sparre, Pro Lege Rege et Grege, ed. J. E. Almquist: Historiska Handlingar, 26: 1 Stockholm, 1924, pp. 30-3, 54; Strómberg-Back, pp. 121, 147-9*

⁸⁰ In the Postulata Nobilium: Soenska riksdagsakter, I Series, iii, 393-405; and cf. ibid., pp. 377-91. Sparre was not alone in fearing royal influence on the riksdag. In a remarkable constitutional project, drawn up (probably early in 1593) by Axel Leijonhufvud - which among other things asserted the right of rebellion - it was suggested that this danger could be averted by restricting the numbers summoned to a riksdag, presumably at the expense of the two lower Estates. Such a riksdag, thus rendered immune to royal influence, was by Leijonhufvud given control over taxation and foreign policy: he would also have madę it the supreme court of appeal. It would have been summoned automatically once every three years. But the real power would have lain with the seven great officers of State, who were to be drawn from the highest nobility, and were to be irremovable. The project remained without influence, perhaps because Leijonhufvud’s political record was not such as to inspire much confidence in his judgment. For an account of it, see Birger Lóvgren, ‘Ett fórfattningsprojekt frkn 1590-talet’, Historisk Tidskrift, 1913, pp. 104-16.

⁸¹A term which seems to have come into current use in politics with Gustav Vasa’s Testament.

⁸² As Sigismund always contended: see, e.g., Soenska riksdagsakter, I Series, iii, 265, where he writes, ‘under the cloak of religion much was demanded of us which touched our royal majesty too nearly’; and cf ibid., iii, 887, 981. A curious confirmation of this view came half a cen tury later in a council-debate of 21 Feb. 1649, when, in a discussion of the troubles in England, the following dialogue took place:

Christina: Religio is a praetextus ... a sort of raincoat.

De la Gardie: Not to be put on save in case of necessity - as the late King

Charles did against Sigismund.

Christina: Hoc non propter amorem religionis, sed propter statum.

S[venska] R[iks~] R[ddets] P[rotokoll], Stockholm, 1878-, xiii, 17.

⁸⁸ Petrus Petrejus took this linę in 1609: Ake Hermansson, Karl IX och standerna, p. 254. The riksdag, after all, had deposed Erik xiv in 1568. Or, alternatively, Charles could contend that he was himself the chief ephor, and so entitled to cali the tune: Nils Runeby, Monarchia Mixta, p. 98.

³⁴ C. G. Styffe, Konung Gustaf II Adolfs skrifter, Stockholm, 1861, pp. 78,

88. The idea had a basis in reality. The statute of Kalmar (1587), which embodied a plan for the govemment of Sweden when Sigismund (already King of Poland) should succeed his father on the Swedish throne, had proyided for a regency 'ab aliguot personis primatibus, consiliariis et extra consiliariis, oidelicet septem numer o* (the ‘leading personages’ once again).

47