These summary proceedings of Gustavus made Mehlen more ready to accept proposals from the other side; and he was further impelled in that direction by recent plots among the Dalesmen. The insurrection under Sunnanväder, which the monarch had fancied he could extinguish by a generous supply of salt, had not yet yielded to the treatment. Indeed, according to the best reports, the malady had spread. How serious the insurrection was, appears from the frequency of the monarch's exhortations. All through the winter he was writing to the people, condoling with them for the exorbitant price of food, and attributing all their evils to the continuance of wars in Europe. The Cabinet also addressed the Dalesmen, urging them not to ally themselves with Sunnanväder, who was disgruntled, so they heard, because he had not been given the bishopric of Vesterås. In one of his appeals Gustavus warned the rebels to be still, lest Christiern might be encouraged to return. The spectre of their gory tyrant seems not, however, to have haunted them, and in February we find that Knut, the deposed dean of Vesterås, had joined their ranks. To him Gustavus wrote a note, assuring him that the archbishopric would have been conferred upon him had he but done his duty. Knut, apparently, did no great benefit to his brother's cause. Only a few days after he arrived, his leader wrote archly to a person who had loaned him funds, that he could stay no longer in the land, for certain peasants were already on his track, intending to capture him and take him to the king. If these suspicions were correct, it was probably as well for him that he escaped. Some two weeks later these two scoundrels were both in Norway, waiting for a more auspicious moment to return.[112]
Whether their movements were in any way inspired by Norby, is not clear. One thing, however, is very sure. Whomever Norby thought could be of service, he did not hesitate to use. In the previous summer, even while truckling with Fredrik, he had been in steady communication with Christiern, who was Fredrik's bitter foe. And now, though every one believed him to have broken with Fredrik, there was a story afloat that Fredrik's hand was really behind the pirate's opposition to Gustavus. No one could place the slightest confidence in what he said. In January he started a rumor that he was ready to give up Gotland, provided the king would grant him a like domain in Finland; but soon it turned out that the whole project was a ruse. In February he had so far befogged the intellect of Fredrik as to induce that monarch to request of Gustavus a full pardon for all of Norby's doings. It need scarce be added, this ridiculous proposal met with no success; and Fredrik, almost as soon as it was sent, had cause to rue it, for Norby toward the close of winter sent an army into Bleking,--a province ceded to Fredrik by the Congress of Malmö,--and there spread ruin far and wide.[113]
