Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  Johan acquiesced and gained the Råd’s support. In 1586 Ture Bielke was appointed royal treasurer and the Råd gained some control over the country’s finances, carrying out some economic reforms.

  For its part, the Råd published, in 1586, a treatise vigorously supporting the crown’s rights in its contest with the duchy. The Pro Lege Rege et Grege, written by one of its members, Erik Sparre, was based on the Magnus Eriksson Land Law, but also drew on Roman law and English common law. Above all it was designed for 16th century Swedish conditions and was remarkable in its evenhandedness in handling class interests. Sparre attempted to take into consideration the common welfare of all Sweden. He has become known as the father of Swedish constitutional law. He would remain at the center of the political stage for the next fourteen years.

  Sparre argued that the dukes could exercise independent rights only insofar as those rights did not contradict, interfere with or curtail crown rule. A duke did not have sovereign authority, but was subject to the king—great for Johan. Sparre, however, went on to say that the law was supreme even over the crown, that it was Swedish tradition (common law) that kings were created by vote of the Estates (the people) and could be removed by the same. The Succession Pact of 1544 was itself a law passed by the Riksdag in no way superior to other statutes and, in fact, subservient to common law. Laws, he went on to say, were enacted by the Estates and all were subject to those laws whether represented or not, born or unborn. The Riksdag was, in effect, a national legislature and the supreme law of the land. These were pronouncements ahead of their time.

  With the Råd on his side Johan now forced Karl to negotiate by threatening to bring him before the Riksdag. On February 13, 1587, an agreement between the brothers was concluded. Karl capitulated on nearly every point, with lagmän to be appointed by the king, and duchy court decisions could be appealed to the crown court. Taxation and customs dues were to be in line with the rest of the kingdom and he could no longer negotiate special favors with nobility or peasants. Karl could not mint coinage and all troops in the duchy were obliged to swear an oath to the king. Only in the matters of the liturgy and his family inheritance was Karl able to hold his own. And so the triangular struggle for domination subsided for the moment only to be kicked up again by a completely different catalyst.

  9. A Swedish Prince on the Polish Throne and the Second Northern War

  Once again Sweden’s internal matters were about to be affected by events outside the country, this time by the death of eastern rulers. In Russia the long reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible) finally came to an end in March 1584. In terms of territorial expansion, his rule (1547–1584) had been very successful.

  In 1552 Ivan had led 100,000 Russian troops against the khanate of Kazan. At the junction of the two rivers, the Kama and the Volga, he laid siege to the fortress of Kazan, garrisoned by 30,000 Tartars, the remnants of the once powerful Mongol Empire in Russia. Employing 150 cannon and German engineers, he took the stronghold after a long and bloody siege. Its fall gave the tsar all the territory east to the Urals and access to western Siberia, an area even the Mongols hadn’t conquered. The next year the Astrakhan Tartars submitted and by 1566 this territory was fully annexed extending Russian jurisdiction to the Caspian Sea. With the subjugation of these Tartars, many of the Cossacks west of the Don River switched their allegiance from Lithuania to the tsar securing Southern Russia. He had broken the back of Tartar domination that had plagued Muscovy for so long and acquired large areas extending Russian territory far to the east and south.

  With Ivan’s death begins what is known in Russian history as the “Time of Troubles.” After several strong rulers and constant territorial expansion, the Muscovite state would see a series of power struggles. The constant expansion temporarily subsided and at times there was chaos in the country itself. Foreign nations intervened in Russia’s internal affairs, Sweden among them.

  Like Russia, Poland was going through the aftermath of the death of a strong ruler and the end of a long, expansionist dynasty. Sigismund II Augustus died in 1573, the last of the Jagiellonica kings, the dynasty that had ruled the country for 200 years. His reign had seen the final incorporation of Lithuania into the Polish Empire. Lithuania, which had had its own great empire during the Middle Ages, was now much reduced and caught between an aggressive Poland and an expanding Russia. From time to time Poland and Lithuania had had kings who were relatives and sometimes even the same king, but had remained separate countries in part because of religious differences, Poland being Roman Catholic and Lithuania Orthodox Catholic. The Reformation, with a substantial conversion to Protestantism particularly among the nobility, helped to break down this barrier. With Russian pressure increasing, the two states united under the Union of Lublin in 1569. Thus Sigismund II Augustus greatly expanded his realm, but much of the power was transferred to a united parliament (the Sejm) representing the nobles of both countries.

  According to the agreement there was to be a sharing of all things between the two countries. In fact Poland quickly came to dominate. Polish settlers rapidly moved into Lithuanian territory. Government offices were filled by Poles and the Lithuanian gentry became thoroughly Polandized. Orthodox Lithuanians were severely persecuted and many either fled to Russia or converted. Ancient Lithuania disappeared as a nation. At the same time, the aristocracy became all powerful. Through the parliament, or Sejm, the nobles ground the peasants into serfdom and controlled the crown by holding the purse strings and the ability to determine the monarch.

  With the death of Sigismund II Augustus the united Sejm was responsible for electing a new king. Henry of Anjou was selected after much delay. The newly elected king found the parliamentary-monarchy untenable and after only three years escaped back to Anjou. Later he would become king of France as Henry III. The Polish nobles next chose Stephen Bathory of Transylvania, a capable general. He personally took the field against the tsar and expanded Polish territory at Russian expense.

  Bathory died in 1586 and once again the Sejm was looking for a king. Candidates included Tsar Feodor I of Russia (supported by Lithuanian Orthodox nobles), Cardinal Andreas Bathory, Maximilian (archbishop of Austria), Johan himself, and Johan’s son Sigismund, heir to the Swedish throne and a descendant of the Jagiellonica line through his mother.

  The Roman Catholic majority of the Sejm rejected Feodor on grounds of religion and fear of a Russian takeover. The good cardinal had too many enemies among the anti–Bathory faction. The contest came down to Maximilian, supported by the old Bathory opposition, and Sigismund. The Swedish prince had the support of the Polish chancellor Zamoyski, leader of the Bathory party, and the imperialists who wanted to continue the conquest of Russia to create a great Slavic state. Sweden would give them additional troops, ports in the Gulf of Finland and most importantly the most powerful navy in the Baltic. Sigismund was also backed by Bathory’s widow, Queen Ann, his mother’s older sister who had already made him heir to her estates. Plus he was Roman Catholic and spoke Polish.

  It seemed a perfect selection, but Johan had reservations. He had a genuine fondness for his son and did not want to have him move away, nor did he trust the Polish aristocratic parliament. Three delegations from Poland came to Stockholm to plead for Sigismund’s candidacy. In the end, however, the advantages in stymieing Russia won Johan over. He could not afford even the chance of a united Poland and Russia, and his son on the Polish throne would give him a powerful ally in his Livonian war.

  On August 19, 1587, a majority of the Sejm elected Sigismund king, but three days later a minority selected Maximilian and backed his military operation to gain the throne. Chancellor Zamayski moved quickly to attack this insurrection and within four months had defeated the minority forces and taken Maximilian prisoner. Sigismund’s Polish throne was secure.

  No sooner had Sigismund departed for Warsaw than Johan began to regret his decision. He loved his son and wanted nothing so much as to have him back in Sweden. Sigismund, for his part was finding,
as Henry of Anjou had discovered, that ruling Poland with the Sejm treating the crown with such contempt, was impossible and he began to look for an exit strategy.

  Johan came up with a plan to solve several problems with one move. He called for a summit of the two nations at Reval. He would take a large army and meet Sigismund there with his large Polish army. The combined Swedish-Polish force would be enough to convince Boris Godunov, the Russian ruler, to establish a long term peace with Sweden. At the conference, outside Polish control, Sigismund would abdicate and go home with his father. It was a grand plan, but fraught with complications.

  Johan arranged the conference then began raising the troops to accompany him. Since the Swedish army was already in Estonia, he had to appeal to the nobility who were loath to support the project. What’s more, the Råd interfered, insisting Johan take several of their members with him. He landed at Reval on August 5, 1589, with eight nobles including Erik Sparre and a small military escort. Three weeks later Sigismund arrived with several Polish Sejm members and a similarly small Polish military contingent. Father and son’s plans had been thwarted by their respective aristocracies. The Polish and Swedish nobles, staff and military did not get along and at times brawled openly in the streets of Reval.

  However, they did co-operate enough to frustrate their sovereigns’ plans. The Polish nobles had no intention of losing a king and be forced to go through another election so soon, and both parties thought they could still extract some advantage out of the union that would come with Johan’s death. Even local Swedish troops in Estonia and their commanders sided with the Råd believing the Poles would help in the war effort. Finally, at the end of September, Sigismund left to return to Warsaw, pushed by his nobles to organize a defense against a Tartar invasion of Podolia.

  A bitter and vengeful Johan returned to Stockholm never to see his son again. The Råd had defeated his plan to recover his son and this he would never forgive. Upon his return he began forging an alliance with Karl against the Råd. His brother was only too willing to cooperate in the hope of regaining some of his ducal privileges. The two worked to first isolate those eight members who had blocked Johan’s plans in Reval and then cut the power of the Råd itself. They waged a propaganda war and were so successful that the eight offending nobles were purged from the Råd and even spent some time in prison though in the long run they all recovered their positions.

  To deal with the Råd itself, the royal brothers called a meeting of the Estates in the spring of 1590. At the Riksdag Johan and Karl accused the council of bringing about the failure of the Reval meeting to gain a peace treaty with Russia by not supplying the necessary troops as requested by the king. Further, the great magnates, as represented by the Råd, had interfered in the prosecution of the war by offering to cede Estonia to the Poles—this was clear duplicity as it was Johan who had offered Estonia in exchange for Sigismund’s release—and that they had fomented strife between supporters of Johan and Karl.

  The Estates listened to the charges, but were cautious in pronouncing any grand judgments. Minor nobles were able to gain some concessions in getting the same share of fines, levied in their territory, as the counts and barons (the great magnates) received. The royal brothers pushed through a new succession pact recognizing Sigismund’s rights to the throne, but also recognizing Karl and his new son, Johan, by Gunilla Bielke. Johan had won some of his revenge, but he was now spent. In reality, Karl had been running the government for some time as Johan’s health declined. One of Johan’s last actions was to recall Karl Henriksson Horn from Estonia and have him tried.

  Horn, one of Sweden’s most successful and long suffering generals, was accused of treason for the surrender of Ivangorod. He had actually made the concession to save Narva, a much more important prize. Horn was convicted and condemned to die, though he was only to serve a short period in prison. Johan pardoned him just before his death in 1590.

  For all of Johan’s defeats in religious matters, his frustrations in politics, and loss of a beloved son, one area of endeavor was very nearly an unqualified success. That was in his foreign policy and that meant the issue of Estonia. At the beginning of his reign Johan was left with the disastrous outcome of the Northern Seven Years War. In Estonia, Sweden had come away with only Reval and Weissenstein, and even these were to be fiefs retained for and at the pleasure of the holy Roman emperor. All the rest of Erik’s hard won Livionian territory was stripped away and turned over to Denmark.

  The other elements of the Stettin treaty were just as odious to Johan: the ransom of Älvsborg, indemnity and free trade status to Lübeck, and Russian Narva to be a free and open port. Sweden got only Frederick’s recognition of Sweden’s independence, a point seven years of war had already confirmed, and the emperor’s promise to pay for Sweden’s expenses in keeping most of Estonia out of Ivan’s hands.

  Johan did pay the first installment for Älvsborg on time—he needed Sweden’s only western port—and eventually handed over the rest of the money, though always tardy, and he was driven to sell some of his warships and debase the country’s currency to do it. Lübeck on the other hand was another matter. The once powerful city no longer had the military strength to coerce the new Baltic power and Johan simply ignored the city council’s entreaties for the money. The special trade privileges were granted, but became ineffective when Johan extended the same privileges to Stralsund, the German port city in western Pomerania, which had stuck by Sweden the entire war. What’s more, Johan made no attempt to rein in Swedish privateers that savaged Lübeck’s shipping throughout the Baltic. Repeated complaints lodged by the city were ignored by Johan. Though Sweden had gained little from the war, Lübeck was the combatant that lost the most. The impotency of the once powerful Hanseatic League was exposed and Lübeck’s position as a second rate power confirmed. Maritime nation-states and land empires were coming to dominate the region.

  As for Narva, Johan ignored the terms of the Stettin peace treaty. Within months of the accord, Johan had his navy back in the Gulf of Finland harassing merchantmen trading with the Russian port. The Dutch and the Danes complained and in the interest of trying to keep the peace with Frederick, Johan would, from time to time, exempt Danish ships, but Swedish privateers made no such concessions. Occasionally, Frederick would even acquiesce to Johan’s demands to suspend trade with Narva. So there was some give and take between the two former enemies.

  With Lübeck, however, it was all take. The city’s captured crews were treated severely. Ships and cargoes were impounded. In 1574 an entire fleet of sixteen merchantmen was captured and taken to a Swedish port. Profits from these ships and the booty helped pay for the war in Livonia which Johan was prosecuting as best he could with his limited resources.

  Maximilian II was never able to pay Sweden the promised reimbursement for the wars with Russia so the emperor became a non-player in the struggle for the Baltic region and Sweden kept her hard won territory in Estonia. Again the contest for the northern part of Livonia settled into a four way struggle between Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Poland. The stage was set for the Second Northern War. With Johan’s connections to the Polish court, there should have been a Swedish-Polish alliance, a formidable partnership with Poland’s resources in manpower complimenting Sweden’s navy. Although both countries tried to negotiate from time to time no formal treaty was ever established; competing interests in Livonia-Estonia were the main reason.

  Ivan, however, greatly feared such an alliance. He had his hands full trying to handle a power struggle in Moscow with the clergy and boyars (the Russian great magnates). Though preoccupied, he did his best to look out for Russian interests in the Baltics. He declared the Danish Magnus king of Livonia, giving him Oberpahlen as a capital and sending him what Russian troops as he could spare. Magnus, now acting as Ivan’s surrogate, laid siege to Reval in August 1570. The city burghers sponsored a stout defense and Johan gave what assistance he could, supplying the city by sea. The siege dragged on for eight months
ending in failure, but as usual in these Baltic conflicts, the surrounding countryside was pillaged and burned.

  So Magnus and his Muscovite troops abandoned the siege in 1571, the same year Johan and Sigismund II Augustus made a real try at developing some kind of alliance. Johan sent a permanent legate to Krakow and discussions were opened in a search for points of agreement. Unfortunately, Sigismund died the next year, in July 1572, before real progress could be made.

  For several years Ivan had been preoccupied with internal matters. In his struggle with the clergy and the boyars, he had experimented with alternative forms of administration, creating chaos in the country until the weakened state of affairs was exposed through a raid carried out by the Tartars of Crimea that reached all the way to Moscow where they looted and burned the city. As many as 800,000 Russians may have died and 130,000 taken captive to be sold as slaves. This 1571 disaster galvanized Ivan into action. He dumped his political maneuvers, centralized political control in the Kremlin again and sent the army out to push back the borders on all fronts.

  In Finland Muscovite troops raided all the way to Helsingfors, but no permanent border changes occurred. In 1575 a two year truce quieted this frontier. In September 1572 the Russians pushed into Estonia and marched on Weissenstein, taking it in January 1573. After capturing the city they proceeded to roast alive the Swedish commander and some of his staff, another indication of the barbarous nature of this war. Sweden retaliated by besieging Wesenburg, but failed to take it. Faced with this new Russian aggression, Johan had to find new ways to fight this war. Thus begins the tragic story of a company of soldiers who left their highland homes to die on foreign soil in a war a continent away.