Catholics from the succession to the throne, and prohibiting them from holding any office or dignity in Sweden. Henceforth, every Roman Catholic recusant was to be deprived of his estates and banished from the realm. It was in the reign of Charles IX that Sweden became not only a predominantly Protestant, but also a predominantly military monarchy. This change, which was to give a martial colouring to the whole policy of Sweden for the next hundred and twenty years, dates from a decree of the Riksdag of Linköping establishing, at the urgent suggestion of Charles, a regular army; each Province in the country being henceforth liable to provide and maintain a fixed number of infantry and cavalry for the service of the state. Their immediate enemy was Poland, now dynastically as well as territorially linked to Sweden.[4]
The struggle took the shape of a contest for the possession of the northern
Grand Hetman of Lithuania, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz. In 1608 hostilities were transferred to Russian territory. At the beginning of that year Charles had concluded an alliance with Tsar Vasili IV of Russia against their common foe, the Polish king; but when, in 1610, Vasili was deposed by his own subjects and the whole tsardom seemed to be on the verge of dissolution, Sweden's policy towards Russia changed its character.[5]
Hitherto Charles had aimed at supporting the weaker Slavonic power against the stronger; but now that Russia seemed about to disappear from among the nations of Europe, Swedish statesmen naturally sought some compensation for the expenses of the war before Poland had had time to absorb everything. A beginning was made by the siege and capture of
Novgorod was occupied and a convention concluded with the magistrates of that wealthy city whereby Charles IX's second son Philip was to be recognized as tsar, unless in the meantime, relief came to Great Novgorod from Moscow. But now, when everything depended on a concentration of forces, Charles's imprudent assumption of the title of "King of the Lapps of Nordland" which people properly belonged to the Danish Crown, involved him in another war with Denmark, a war known in Scandinavian history as the Kalmar War because the Swedish fortress of Kalmar was the chief theatre of hostilities. Thus the Swedish forces were diverted from their real objective and transferred to another field where even victory would have been comparatively unprofitable. But it was disaster, not victory, which Charles IX of Sweden reaped from this foolhardy enterprise.[6]
Still worse, the Kalmar War, prudently concluded by Charles' son, Gustavus Adolphus, in the second year of his reign, by the Treaty of Knäred, January 20, 1613 imposed such onerous pecuniary obligations and such intense suffering upon Sweden as to enkindle into a fire of hatred, which was to burn fiercely for the next two centuries, the long smouldering antagonism between the two sister nations of Scandinavia which dated back to the bloody days of Christian Tyrant.[6]
The Russian difficulty was more easily and more honourably adjusted. When
Schlusselburg), the key to Finland. Russia, furthermore, renounced all claims upon Estonia and Livonia and paid a war indemnity of 20,000 roubles. In return for these concessions, Gustavus restored Novgorod and acknowledged Michael Romanov as tsar of Russia.[6]
The same period which saw the extension of the Swedish Empire abroad, saw also the peaceful development of the Swedish Rule of constitution at home. In this, as in every other
Gustavus matter, Gustavus Adolphus himself took the initiative. Nominally the Riksråd still remained the dominant power in the state; but gradually all real authority had been transferred to the crown. The
Constitution of Sweden. The Riksdag Ordinance of 1617 first converted a turbulent and haphazard mob of "riksdagsmen" huddling together like a flock of sheep or drunken boors, into a dignified national assembly, meeting and deliberating according to rule and order. One of the nobility (first called the Landmarskalk, or Marshal of the Diet, in the Riksdag ordinance of 1526) was now regularly appointed by the king as the spokesman of the House of Nobles, or Riddarhus, while the primate generally acted as the talman or president of the three lower estates, the clergy, burgesses and peasants. Eventually, each of the three lower estates elected its own talman, or speaker. At the opening of every session, the king submitted to the estates "royal propositions", or bills, upon which each estate proceeded to deliberate in its own separate chamber. The replies of the estates were delivered to the king at a subsequent session in congress. Whenever the estates differed amongst themselves, the king chose whatever opinion seemed best to him. The rights of the Riksdag were secured by the Konungaförsäkran, or assurance given by every Swedish king on his accession, guaranteeing the collaboration of the estates in the work of legislation, and they were also to be consulted on all questions of foreign policy. The king possessed the initiative; but the estates had the right of objecting to the measures of the government at the close of each session. It is in Gustavus' reign, too that we first hear of "Hemliga Utskottet", or Secret Committee for the transaction of extraordinary affairs, which was elected by the estates themselves. The eleven Riksdags held by Gustavus Adolphus were almost exclusively occupied in finding ways and means for supporting the ever-increasing burdens of the Polish and German wars. Gustavus owed much of his success as an empire-builder to the religious and patriotic zeal of the Swedes, and their willingness to sacrifice.[6]
The Polish War and the Battle of Stralsund
Main articles:
Battle of Stralsund (1628)
The wars with
Ladislaus IV of Poland (1632–1648), the Poles prevented that martial monarch from interfering in the Thirty Years' War on the Catholic side. Gustavus, whose lively imagination was easily excited by religious ardour, enormously magnified clerical influence in Poland and frequently scented dangers where only difficulties existed.[6]
For eight years, (1621–1629), the exhausting and expensive
capsized as soon as she encountered a wind stronger than a breeze. Due to the low salinity of the Baltic Sea, the wreck suffered little damage from shipworms and was salvaged, in surprisingly good condition, in 1961.[8]
Thus Sweden held, for a time, the control of the principal trade routes of the Baltic up to the very confines of the empire; and the increment of revenue resulting from this commanding position was of material assistance during the earlier stages of the war in Germany, whither Gustavus
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