The burghers and mountaineers gave their answer in a similar vein. They begged Gustavus to remain their king, and promised to defend him with their blood. They would express no opinion concerning Dalarne till the Dalesmen who were going thither should bring back their report. Since the monks were clearly at the bottom of the trouble, no monk should be permitted to leave his monastery more than twice a year. Gustavus should be given the right of billeting whenever it were necessary. Before deciding about the new beliefs they wished to hear a disputation on the subject. As the rents of the nobility and crown had been diminished by the Church, the Church ought certainly to restore them; and the mode of restoration should be determined by Gustavus and his Cabinet. The royal castles having been demolished, the prelates should surrender theirs until the castles belonging to the crown could be rebuilt. Finally, from that day forth no bishop ought to send to Rome for confirmation.[163]
The answer of the common people began with a promise that they would go to Dalarne and inflict punishment upon the traitors; and since many monks were in the habit of inciting the people to rebel, it seemed desirable that they be permitted to leave their monasteries only twice each year. Gustavus might quarter his soldiers in the monasteries whenever it was necessary. The churches and monasteries near Stockholm, having in times past given shelter to the enemy, should be torn down and their materials used to repair the city walls. All matters of creed they were willing to leave to the bishops and prelates, but asked that a disputation on these subjects might be had in presence of representatives of the people. The king should have authority to increase his revenue in the way that seemed to him most fitting. The king might take the bishops' castles till his own could be rebuilt. The proper disposition of the Church incomes they were content to leave to the king and his Cabinet.[164]
One cannot but be startled by the revolutionary tendency of these replies. Never before had such a thing been dreamt of as the surrender of all the bishops' castles to the crown. Gustavus must have been bewildered by his own audacity. Within four days the diet that had come together puffed up by a consciousness of its own magnificence, had sunk into a position of absolute servility. Things had been granted by the delegates which, when the diet opened, Gustavus had not even dared to ask. The very mode in which the votes were taken and the acts were passed, shows how completely everybody answered to the monarch's nod. Instead of the answers being submitted to a general vote, they were laid before the Cabinet to be passed upon by them. In defiance of every precedent, the Cabinet usurped the right to clothe the diet's sentiment in language of their own. The result was a decree promulgated in the diet's name and celebrated in Swedish history as the Vesterås Recess. By this decree the delegates asserted, every one of them, that they would do their utmost to punish all conspiracies against the king. They declared, moreover, that as the royal incomes were but meagre, the monasteries and churches must come to the relief, and, to prevent all danger, no bishop should keep up a larger retinue than the king allowed. All bishops and cathedrals, with their chapters, must hand over to the king all income not absolutely necessary for their support. Since many monasteries were dilapidated and their lands were lying waste, an officer must be appointed by the crown to keep them up and hand over all their rents not needed for that purpose to the crown. The nobility were declared entitled to all property that had passed from their ancestors to the Church since 1454. Finally, Gustavus was ordered to summon the two factions in the Church to hold a disputation in presence of the diet, and the members promised to quell the outcry that had arisen against Gustavus and to punish the offenders.[165]