Charles IX of Sweden

While King Sigismund resided in Poland, Charles and the Swedish privy council ruled in Sigismund's name. After various preliminaries, the Riksdag of the Estates forced Sigismund to abdicate the throne to Charles IX in 1595.^{[citation needed]} This eventually kicked off nearly seven decades of sporadic warfare as the two lines of the divided House of Vasa both continued to attempt to remake the union between the Polish and Swedish thrones with opposing counter-claims and dynastic wars.

Quite likely,^{[original research?]} the dynastic outcome between the Swedish and Polish representatives of the House of Vasa exacerbated and radicalized the later actions of Europe's Catholic princes in the German states such as the Edict of Restitution of 1629. In fact, it worsened European politics to the abandonment or prevention of settling events by diplomacy and compromise during the vast bloodletting of the Thirty Years' War.^{[citation needed]}

In 1568, he was the real leader of the rebellion against Eric XIV. However, he took no part in the designs of his brother

It was due entirely to him that Sigismund as king-elect was forced to confirm the resolutions at the Uppsala Synod in 1593, thereby recognizing the fact that Sweden was essentially a Lutheran Protestant state. Under the agreement, Charles and the Swedish Privy Council shared power and ruled in Sigismund's place since he resided in Poland. In the ensuing years 1593–1595, Charles's task was extraordinarily difficult. He had steadily to oppose Sigismund's reactionary tendencies and directives; he had also to curb the nobility which sought to increase their power at the expense of the absent king, which he did with cruel rigor.^[2]

Necessity compelled him to work with the clergy and people rather than the gentry; hence it was that the Riksdag of the Estates assumed under his regency government a power and an importance which it had never possessed before. In 1595, the Riksdag of Söderköping elected Charles regent, and his attempt to force Klas Fleming, governor of Finland, to submit to his authority, rather than to that of the king, provoked a civil war.^[2] Charles sought to increase his power and the king attempted to manage the situation by diplomacy over several years, until fed up, Sigismund got permission from the Commonwealth's legislature to pursue the matters dividing his Swedish subjects, and invaded with a mercenary army.

In April 1597, after having subdued the Cudgel War and preparing to resist the expected invasion of Charles, Fleming died and was succeeded as governor by Arvid Stålarm the Younger. In August 1597, Charles and his army invaded Österland, took Åland, which was the fief of her sister Queen Dowager Catherine, and besieged Turku Castle. Fleming was still not buried, and, according to legend, Charles had the coffin opened to reassure himself that Fleming was indeed dead. After having identified the face of Fleming, he was to have pulled Fleming's beard with the words, "If you had been alive, your head would not have been safe", upon which Fleming's wife Ebba Stenbock replied, "If my late husband was alive, Your Grace would never have been here."^[3]

In the events that followed, despite some initial successes, Sigismund lost the crucial