It was one of the evils which beset the reign of Gustavus that revolts constantly occurred in various provinces and for various reasons. Dalecarlia took the lead. The inhabitants were not able to bear the distinction won by their great patriotic services in the times of Engelbrekt, the Stures, and Gustavus. Their complaints were mostly unreasonable, sometimes ridiculous, as when they tried to prescribe the kind of cloth and colors to be used at court, and so forth. There was no fable, however stupid, which was not readily believed by them and the responsibility placed on the king. Particularly was everything eagerly swallowed which spoke of injustice committed against the descendants of the Stures. A daring pretender took advantage of this fact. He was born of the lowest peasant class, serving on an estate in Westmanland, where he had stolen a sum of money from his master. Appearing in Dalecarlia, where he claimed that he was a son of Lord Sten and Christine Gyllenstierna, he gained a great deal of support among the yeomen, who cried with him like children when he spoke of his noble father and asked them to pray for his soul. The false pretender had his instructions from Peder Sunnanvæder; he married in Norway a woman of noble birth, and, upon his return to Dalecarlia, surrounded himself with a regular court. An end was put to his career by a letter from Christine Gyllenstierna, written at the request of the king, in which she told the Dalecarlians that her son Nils, whom the pretender impersonated, had recently died, and that an impostor was misleading them. The false Nils Sture answered by claiming that he was born before marriage, the would-be-reason why his mother did not acknowledge him. This even the Dalecarlians found was a stretching of truth. The pretender, who had been stamping coins with his image and held the demeanor of a ruling prince, fled to Norway and thence to Rostock, where he was captured and beheaded. No blood was shed during this period of revolt; but the king, who was crowned at Upsala in 1528, proceeded from his coronation to Dalecarlia with an army of 14,000 men. He commanded the Dalecarlians to meet him, and forgave them after a severe sermon of reproach, making them surrender the chief supporters of the “Daljunker,” who were executed on the spot.
Islands Journal
Sweden — Part 85
2026-11-15 13:30:05 · The Daily Ledger
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