Warrior Kings of Sweden

by Gary Dean Peterson

  The youthful prince’s impulsive phase seems to have been short lived. His interest in parties, cards and girls began to include, then center on, hunting and soldiering. More and more he turned to military affairs and even to politics.

  At his father’s coronation in 1607, Gustav was named duke of Finland, Estonia and Livonia. Young Karl Filip, his brother, received Södermanland and Johan (Johan III’s son with Gunilla Bielke, his second wife) was invested with Östergötland. Though the heir apparent to the throne did not receive any administrative rights to go along with his titles, at the beginning of his Russian campaign in 1609 de la Gardie was commissioned Duke Gustav Adolf’s lieutenant-general for all Finland. Shortly after, Gustav was also given Västermanland and parts of Dalarna. With these titles, he received administrative privileges and royal revenues derived from the lands.

  As Karl IX’s health declined Gustav assumed more and more of the royal burden. At the Stockholm Riksdag of 1609 he addressed the Estates for the first time in place of his father. During Karl’s last Riksdag, that of Örebro in 1610, the old king, still recovering from his stroke of the previous year, could only welcome the Estates. The rest of the oral communication was handled by Gustav. The young prince was called upon to counter the rising influence of the nobility. Led by their new champion, Alex Oxenstierna, the aristocracy was taking full advantage of the king’s weakened condition to appropriate the power of Karl’s secretaries.

  It was at this meeting of the Estates that Gustav was declared to have “so far arrived at man’s estate as to be able to bear armor and weapons.”8 This was surely a moment the royal prince had been waiting for with much anticipation. He had begged his father to be allowed to participate in the Russian campaign, requests that were continually denied. But now the realities of war were much closer to home with Danish forces invading the homeland.

  Once again a Danish king was entertaining visions of the old Kalmar Union though this time Christian IV seems to have had more limited immediate objectives. Primarily, he was incensed by Karl’s aggressive program in the far north threatening Danish-Norwegian arctic holdings and possibly her free and open maritime access to Russia via Archangel. His other concern was Sweden’s possible threat to Danish dominance of the Baltic. This naval superiority, won at great cost from the Hanseatic League, had been successfully challenged by Karl’s older brother Erik and Sweden still possessed the larger force, though the country’s 24,000 tons of warships had been allowed to deteriorate since King Erik and Commander Horn’s heady days of naval victories over the Danish. Most of the ships were in home ports in disrepair. The active warships were in the Gulf of Finland or being used in Karl’s blockade of Riga.

  Christian considered this blockade an infringement on Danish dominium Maris Baltici (rule over the Baltic Sea). Though his navy totaled only 15,000 tons in warships, he had kept it in good repair and fitted with up to date armament. In 1610 he dispatched a fleet to the eastern Baltic and broke the Riga blockade. The next year he finally convinced the Danish Council to agree to war with his northern antagonist and immediately built an army of mercenaries, this time mostly Scottish.

  In a swift move Christian led his army and fleet in an attack on Öland, the long narrow island beside Småland. With his ships blockading Borgholm, the main fortress on the island, he landed his expeditionary force. Surrounded and cut off, the stronghold surrendered.

  Now fully alarmed, Karl sent Gustav to Östergotland to raise troops while he set about scraping together such conscripts and foreign mercenaries as he could find around Stockholm. With most of the Swedish army in Russia occupying Novgorod and the rest in Estonia-Livonia, the king was left with few resources.

  Leaving a garrison on Öland, Christian next turned his attention to Kalmar, blockading the port and leading his army in an attack on the town. Old reports say the town was taken after three tries and the loss of 1,500 men. The fortress was now isolated by land and by sea. Karl IX finally arrived, but with a small force and his mostly conscript army was no match for Christian’s professionals. Kalmar Castle fell to the Danes and over 7,000 tons of Swedish warships in the harbor had to be scuttled to prevent Danish seizure.

  Christian’s contemplated campaign north to capture Stockholm was abandoned for lack of sufficient resources. The Danish king boarded most of his army and sailed home, leaving a substantial garrison at Kalmar.

  Karl could do little more than harass stragglers. So, after pummeling an enemy detachment caught in the open, he left for Nyköping and the Estates meeting. Gustav, however, was not about to pass up his first chance at some heroism.

  In Östergotland the young warrior was able to put together a couple of companies of cavalry. In midsummer 1611 he led these troops on a raid across Småland into Blekinge where he surprised and captured the town of Kristianopel. Stories are told about this first military exploit of the future Swedish monarch.

  One tale relates how Gustav intercepted a letter from a town official asking King Christian for soldiers to stop the border raids devastating the county. The warrior prince then disguised his troops as partisan militia and was able to enter the fortified town and take it. Modern historians cast doubt on the authenticity of this story, but seem to agree on the validity of a second anecdote from this campaign. According to this account Gustav did capture the town in a surprise attack and as he was surveying the marketplace with one of his companies—the other was busy looting the town—he was approached by the town pastor begging for safe passage out of the village for himself and his family. The sixteen year old royal commander grabbed the priest and held him fast for some time berating him for all the rumors and falsehoods being circulated by the Danes against his father. The cleric must surely have thought his time had come, but in the end Gustav freed him and allowed his family to escape before he burned the town. Such were the cruelties of the border wars.

  Gathering more troops the warrior prince crossed over to Öland in October and captured the stronghold of Borgholm, repatriating the island. He granted clemency to the Danish garrison, an act uncharacteristically lenient for the time. This was his last exploit before he received word of his father’s critical illness. The warrior prince was about to become a warrior king.

  13. Gustav Builds His Army

  Karl IX was dead, leaving his nation and the Råd with an army overseas and an enemy deep inside the country. The council gathered to meet with Queen Kristina (Karl’s widow), Gustav and Johan, duke of Östergötland. Oxenstierna, though maintaining a low profile, pulled the strings in the negotiations leading up to the Assembly of the Estates scheduled for December. His overriding purpose was the preservation of the nation though secondarily he wanted to see a constitutional monarchy in place of the unrestrained kingship of Karl IX. The Råd wanted to reinstate control of the government by the aristocracy and eliminate the hated secretariat. Both appeared to have the upper hand in dealing with an heir apparent of only seventeen, but this advantage was tempered by outside conditions.

  There was Sigismund, Gustav’s first cousin, who still maintained his title of king of Sweden and refused to open any correspondence not so addressed. Furthermore, his claim was recognized by the Catholic powers of Europe, particularly the Hapsburgs of Austria and Spain. Throughout his reign Gustav would be referred to in these courts as the duke of Södermanland or duke of Finland. With a large share of the old Swedish nobility still at the Polish court there was always the danger that some coalition might try to reconquer the upstart monarchy.

  This rivalry extended into Eastern Europe with the struggle for Livonia-Estonia still smoldering between Sweden and Poland. In Russia, deep in its Time of Troubles, a faction in Moscow advocated the Polish prince Wladyslav as the new tsar. This claim was backed up by a Polish force of occupation in the Russian capital. While in Novgorod, recently conquered by Jakob de la Gardie, the king of Sweden was proclaimed the Russian protector. According to the treaty of capitulation this province would support a Swedish prince as tsar (Gustav or Karl
Filip his brother). Finally, there was Christian IV’s invasion of Småland and his capture of Kalmar Castle. The Danish king hoped to expand his territory at the least and perhaps conquer the whole country.

  Oxenstierna and the Råd had on their hands an heir who, according to the Succession Agreement of 1604, could not even share the government with the regents for another year (at eighteen) and could not be king outright until he was twenty-four. Still they recognized that in Gustav they had a youth of unusual abilities and when Queen Kristina and Duke Johan refused to accept the position of regents, the council moved to press for recognition of Gustav as head of state.

  The Riksdag of Nyköping met in December and by year’s end had voted to entrust the government to Gustav under certain provisions. He would be bound by the rule of law and the First Estate (the nobility) was to be granted considerable extension of its rights in the government. Duke Johan of Östergötland would share in any decisions in changes of the law and questions of foreign policy. The Råd and Kristina as regent for Karl Filip were also to be consulted. The charter Gustav was forced to sign to gain power recognized these conditions. There was also a clause dictating that all council members, and important civil and military offices were reserved for noblemen of Swedish birth. The rule of the secretaries would be ended.

  One of Gustav’s first acts as the new king was to appoint Axel Oxenstierna chancellor. Thus began one of the truly remarkable symbiotic relationships in governmental history. It was a partnership that would last all of Gustav’s life. The young king’s dynamic, sometimes impetuous, exuberance was almost perfectly balanced by the chancellor’s imperturbability, tireless and calming control of affairs. His grasp of situations and administrative abilities provided the means for turning Gustav’s ideas into practical reality. A letter written by the king in 1630 illustrates the interdependency and affection the two men had for each other: “I know that I may rely upon you to take care of my memory, and to look after the welfare of my family as you would that God should look after you and yours.”1 Gustav expresses his trust in his chancellor and friend. He continues, “Natural affection forces these lines from my pen in order to prepare you as an instrument sent to me from God to light me through many a dark place.”2 Gustav seems resigned to an early death: “My life and soul and everything that God has given me, I commend into His keeping; hoping always the best in this world, and after this life peace, and joy, and felicity. And the same I wish for you when your hour shall come.”3 Then he closes with, “I remain, for as long as I live, ever your gracious and affectionate Gustav Adolf.”4

  But Gustav was not above tweaking his chancellor’s beard occasionally just to keep things in balance. In 1617 the king had Johan Skytte, his old tutor and the son of a commoner who was also associated with the repugnant (to the nobility) reign of Karl IX, admitted to the Råd. Though Oxenstierna and Skytte kept their mutual hostility cloaked by stiff courtesy as long as Gustav was alive, after his death the two would open a breach in Swedish politics that would last for years.

  In assuming the reins of government, Gustav took the title “Elected King and Hereditary Prince of the Swedes, Goths and Wends.” Noticeably absent was the title, “King of the Lapps of Northland,” insisted upon by his father. It was this label and the aggressive policy that went with it that Christian had used to finally get his council’s approval to attack Sweden. With this obvious gesture to defuse the tension between the two Scandinavian nations, Gustav turned his attention to prosecuting the war.

  Unable to pull reinforcements from either Livonia or Russia for fear of engendering a Polish takeover, the new king tried to import mercenaries to bolster his poorly trained Swedish conscripts. The Norwegian provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen were easily overrun being on the east side of the mountainous peninsula divide and hard to reach from the west. But in 1612 Christian dealt the young monarch and his nation a severe blow. In May the Danish fleet blockaded then attacked Älvsborg, Sweden’s window to the west. The fortress fell and Sweden’s western fleet had to be destroyed to prevent its capture. The loss also blocked Gustav’s avenue for obtaining the mercenaries he was importing from Scotland. An attempt was made to bring troops in through Norway, but the independent minded Norwegians objected.

  Up to this point support in this subjugated nation for Christian’s war had been miniscule. An 8,000 man army of Norwegian peasants called for by the king only partially materialized and then evaporated through desertions before it could be put into action. But the invasion of the homeland by a thousand Scots, even if they were just passing through, could not be tolerated. At Kringen in the Gudbrandsdal Valley a Norwegian peasant army met the invaders, defeated them and drove them back into the sea. The young Swedish king would not get his mercenaries from the west.

  The war had come to a stalemate. Christian had taken two key Swedish fortresses, but had lost two provinces. He dominated the sea, but did not have the resources to build an army big enough to invade the whole country or even take the capital. Gustav could ambush and harass any Danish forces caught outside their fortifications, but could not muster an army capable of driving them out or retake the castles. By the end of 1612 both sides were looking for a way out and this was provided when King James I of England, Christian’s brother-in-law, offered to mediate a peace.

  The Peace of Knäred, signed January 21, 1613, gave both sides much of what they wanted, but had one stipulation particularly favoring Christian. Sweden promised not to levy tolls on shipping to Riga unless actually blockading the port. Denmark won permission to use the three crowns insignia on her coat of arms. Sweden relinquished all rights to the arctic northern coastline and the inhabiting Lapps. Denmark gave up all claim to the Swedish throne and Swedish shipping would be exempt from the Sound toll. All captured territory was returned with the one exception. Älvsborg, Göta and several surrounding counties would be retained by Denmark until a one million riksdaler indemnity was paid.

  The ransom was to be paid in four yearly installments beginning in 1616. Once again the nation was subjected to a crushing debt. Christian felt his northern neighbor was incapable of raising so large a sum. A bankrupt nation with a starving population would be ripe for takeover. He calculated that after a missed payment he could keep the Swedish port, then strangle the country by shutting off shipping through the Sound. He might gain in peace what he had not won by war.

  Besides the ransom, there were the ordinary costs of government to be maintained and all this with the most productive agricultural provinces in the south of Sweden devastated by the war. Gustav had to resort to borrowing money from some of the great magnate families, particularly Jakob de la Gardie and even the queen mother, to keep the state afloat. To pay the indemnity the Riksdag voted to levy a special four year tax, later extended an additional two years. Every adult Swede was to pay according to his ability. Gustav and Duke Johan were assessed 32 percent of all their revenues. Riksdalers, not a Swedish currency, had to be purchased on the open market using Swedish trade goods.

  Given the lead time Sweden was able to pay the first installment in 1616. The second was achieved by borrowing 150,000 riksdalers from the Dutch to augment the meager one year’s receipts from the special tax. A large consignment of copper from the Berkslag sold in Amsterdam was used to meet the third. Much of the fourth installment was again borrowed from the Dutch putting the country in debt to the Netherlands by nearly a quarter of a million riksdalers.

  The nation recovered her window to the west. Christian got his million riksdalers, but lost his best chance of gaining Sweden. Never again would the nation be seriously threatened by a Danish takeover.

  Meanwhile Gustav had to deal with the Polish crisis in Russia. By the time Gustav had secured the throne the tide had turned against Sigismund and his son Wladyslav. True, the Polish prince was still supported by a large faction including much of the aristocracy and a Polish army held Moscow to reinforce his claim, but sentiments were beginning to stir, particularly among the peasants
and Cossacks, for a native prince. Even some of the nobility were tiring of the incessant political instability and general disorder throughout the country. This rising nationalistic spirit was fed by word from Smoleüsk, under siege by Sigismund with the other Polish army on Russian soil, that the Orthodox population there had been persecuted by the invaders.

  The Don Cossacks began a march toward Moscow and peasants from southwest Russia started to assemble and move toward the capital. The patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, Hermogén, issued a proclamation saying, “If the prince [Wladyslav] will not come to Moscow sovereignty, be baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith, and take the Lithuanians [and Poles] out of the Moscow state, then I give my blessing to all who will come to Moscow and die for the Orthodox faith.”5

  The Poles reacted by arresting and imprisoning the patriarch in Moscow and his representatives in Smoleüsk. Then they issued an order that no Russian in the capital could bear arms.

  On March 18, 1611, a large crowd assembled in the middle of Moscow to protest the Polish occupation. German auxiliaries with the Polish garrison charged the mob, slaughtering some 7,000 unarmed people.