Lasting from 1598 to 1599, it is also called the War of Deposition against Sigismund, since the focus of the conflict was the attempt to depose the latter from the throne of Sweden.

Duke Charles, the only living son of Gustav Vasa, did not approve the accession of Sigismund, his nephew and a Catholic, to the government of a realm that could just as well be his.

Roughly at the same time, a letter arrived from Sigismund's headquarters in Poland stating that he would not accept Charles as regent.

The reason was that Charles's goal of deposing Sigismund had now been revealed, and the men understood that a serious revolt was brewing.

But after psychological warfare, Charles and his followers managed to take the castle in Turku (Swedish: Åbo).

Then Fleming's widow Ebba Stenbock is said to have approached the Duke and responded: "If my late husband had been alive, Your Grace would never have entered herein."

[3] A larger army had been proposed, but had been dismissed since Sigismund expected Swedish forces to join him, and also did not want to come into conflict with them.

The advisers and the King expected military support from Finland and Estonia (homes of the Swedish gentry formerly commanded by baron Klaus Fleming).

The army gathered in Marienburg (Malbork), where the Livonian Baltic German Jürgen Farensbach was appointed commander.

Meanwhile, three Protestant leaders, Nicolaus Olai Bothniensis, Laurentius Paulinus Gothus, and Ericus Jacobi Skinnerus [sv], attempted to stop the Finnish Sigismund loyalists.

The Polish Crown army attracted Swedish followers and Stockholm, lacking military defence, was easily taken with the help of the nobility and officers of Götaland.

A group of envoys from Brandenburg, Prussia, and Mecklenburg shuttled back and forth between Duke Charles's and Sigismund's camps for three weeks, trying to rescue the peace.

The only bright spots were the escapement of Göran Nilsson Gyllenstierna [sv], the ex-commander of Stockholm, from the city, and the Swedish navy's refusal to join forces with the Poles.

[3] However, Sigismund and his fleet sailed into a violent storm: hundreds of men were thrown overboard and perished.

On August 22 he landed at Stegeborg with merely 100 men, a position worsened by the presence of Charles's rested army nearby.

In the area around Stegeborg, Duke Charles had withdrawn to Linköping, from where he could block the troop supply to Sigismund.

The Duke requested clear-cut answers from Sigismund, which the King interpreted as indicating that an assault was impending.

The strain grew so big that the normally stubborn Charles wanted to abdicate and escape the country with his family.

The King was in charge of the situation until the Swedish navy, commanded by Joachim Scheel, anchored outside Stegeborg.

[3] Duke Charles won a decisive victory which forced Sigismund to agree to harsh terms.

Charles demanded that the King send home his entire army, but that he himself was to stay and await a Parliament.

The King, who was under pressure, fearing for his life without his army and having realised that he had lost the political battle, fled during the coming days to Poland in late 1598.

Näf was executed, and the Dalecarlians set out on the so-called Neaf Campaign (1598), burning and killing down to Brunnbäck ferry.

In Västergötland, Carl Carlsson Gyllenhielm, illegitimate son of Duke Charles, defeated the rebellion.

Then Swedish forces, led by Carl Carlsson Gyllenhielm, marched towards Kalmar to lay siege to the city.

Johan Larsson Sparre defended the walls and the castle in the hope that the King would return to Sweden.

With the help of the navy, he crushed the last remnants, and by September all of Sigismund's followers were gone, detained, or executed, e.g., in the Åbo bloodbath.

Sigismund was officially deposed from the throne of Sweden by a Parliament, Riksdag, held in Stockholm on July 24, 1599.

[3] He was given six months to say whether he wanted to send his son, Prince Ladislaus of Poland, to Sweden as his successor, under the condition that the boy would be brought up in the Evangelical faith.

During the winter and spring of 1600, Charles also occupied the Swedish part of Estonia, as the castle commanders had shown sympathies towards Sigismund.