History of Sweden (1523–1611)
He found that the Riksdag of the Estates had already dethroned him and replaced him by Gustav Vasa's youngest son, his uncle, Charles IX.
By 1521, Gustav Eriksson, a nobleman and relative of Sten Sture the Elder, managed to gather troops from Dalarna in north-west Sweden and help from Lübeck, with the purpose of defeating the Danes.
His regency was marked by Sweden's entrance into the Livonian War and the Northern Seven Years' War, and the mutual relation between his developing mental disorder and the opposition with the aristocracy, leading to the Sture Murders (1567) and the imprisonment of his brother John (III), who was married to Catherine Jagiellonica, the sister of Sigismund II Augustus of Poland.
Meanwhile, Gustav suppressed all Catholic printing-presses in 1526 and took two-thirds of the Church's tithes for the payment of the national debt (owed to the German soldiers who helped him to the throne).
In all these rebellions the religious issue figured largely, though the increasing fiscal burdens were undoubtedly grievous, and the peasants had their particular grievances besides.
[4] Under Eric XIV the Reformation in Sweden proceeded on the same lines as during the reign of his father, retaining all the old Catholic customs not considered contrary to Scripture.
After 1544, when the Council of Trent had formally declared the Bible and tradition to be equally authoritative sources of all Christian doctrine, the contrast between the old and the new teaching became more obvious; and in many countries a middle party arose which aimed at a compromise by going back to the Church of the Fathers.
King John III of Sweden, the most learned of the Vasas, and somewhat of a theological expert, was largely influenced by these middle views.
They greatly encouraged the Catholic party in Europe, and John III was ultimately persuaded to send an embassy to Rome to open negotiations for the reunion of the Swedish Church with the Holy See.
Nevertheless, immediately after King John's death, the Uppsala Synod, summoned by Duke Charles, rejected the new liturgy and drew up an anti-Catholic confession of faith, March 5, 1593.
Holy Scripture and the three primitive creeds were declared to be the true foundations of Christian faith, and the Augsburg confession was adopted.
On his arrival in Sweden he initially tried to gain time by confirming what had been done; but the aggressiveness of the Protestant faction and the persistence of Duke Charles made civil war inevitable.
[5] Sweden had little independent foreign interaction while it was committed to the Kalmar Union, and Gustav’s earliest reign aimed at little more than self-preservation.
Also offensive was the attitude of Sweden's eastern neighbor Russia, with whom the Swedish king was nervously anxious to stand on good terms.
Gustav attributed to Ivan IV of Russia, whose resources he unduly magnified, the design of establishing a universal monarchy round the Baltic Sea, and waged an inconclusive war against him in 1554–1557.
From the moment, Sweden was forced to continue on a policy of combat and aggrandisement, because a retreat would have meant the ruin of its Baltic trade.
[5] Erik XIV also obstructed Danish plans to conquer Estonia, and added the insignia of Norway and Denmark to his own coat of arms.
Six months after his humiliating peace with the Polish monarch, Ivan IV was glad to conclude a truce with Sweden also on a uti possidetis basis at Plussa, on August 5, 1582.
During Sigismund's absence from Sweden that realm was to be ruled by seven Swedes, six elected by the king and one by his uncle Duke Charles of Södermanland, the leader of the Swedish Protestants.
Any necessary alterations in these articles were only to be made with the common consent of the king, Duke Charles, the Estates and the gentry of Sweden.
