Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - II. The Swedish People - 1. Survey of its History. By E. Svensén, Author, Stockholm - Modern Times (from 1523 onwards)
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80
II. TH B SWEDISH PEOPLE.
In carrying out all this the king, by reason of his personality, remained an
object of the undisguised reverence and love of his people. In spite of a certain
hastiness of temperament and an excessive patriarchal omnipotence, »Good old
King Gösta», both to his own contemporaries and to posterity, was the beau ideal
of a Swedish king, and his figure — far less familar to foreigners than those of
his famous successors, Gustavus Adolphus the Great, and Charles XII — has not
at all been overshadowed by theirs in the memory of the Swedish nation.
Gripsholm Castle. At Lake Mälaren.
In 1544, King Gustavus succeeded in making the kingdom of Sweden
hereditary possession of his family, but, in accordance with the ideas of the times,
hereditary power presupposed the right of younger sons to a share in that
kingdom. This caused bloody internal feuds amongst the descendants of Gustavus
Vasa, and the kingdom thus weakened was only restored to order again by his
youngest son Charles IX (1599/1611) — another ruler of the first rank, a
new »Protector» of the old Sture type, and like the Stures preeminently a man
who relied on the people. For several years before his accession to the throne
he was the actual regent of Sweden, and at the Ecclesiastical Synod at Uppsala
(1593) brought about the definite victory of the Reformation over Catholicism.
The division of the kingdom among the royal princes ceased under the reign of
his son, Gustavus Adolphus, in this rcspect as in so many others a pioneer; a
new principle, based upon the Renaissance and (indirectly) upon antiquity, was
now enunciated, whereby the indivisibility of the state was secured, and by this
means one more great incentive to disunion removed.
Immediately after the middle of the 16th century, our country had again
embarked upon the acquisition of land on the other side of the Baltic. As a
consequence of the Reformation the Livonian Federal States, which had been
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