After four days of pandemonium and deadlock, the representatives decided to give in and ask forgiveness of the king, who long disregarded the appeals made for his return. When re-entering he was greeted by commotion and the humblest demonstrations of respect and repentance. The next day, Midsummer day, votes were taken upon his propositions, each Estate of representatives sending up their vote with a written construction of the propositions. These were then revised by the state councillors in their final form, called “Westeros Recess,” with amendments called “Westeros Ordinantia.” The startling revolutionary stipulations of the “Recess” were chiefly these: Authority for the king (1) to take in possession the castles and forts of the bishops, whose retinues he was to fix as to numbers; (2) to dispose of the superfluous income of the clergy and to superintend the administration of the monasteries; authority for the nobility to resume title to all their property which had come in the possession of the Church since 1454; authority to have the Gospel preached all over the country in undefiled purity. Among the “Ordinantia” the most important were: (1) Vacancies in the parish churches were to be filled by the bishop under the supervision and right of suspension of the king; (2) the king was to fix the amount of revenue due the bishops, chapters and clerks, and be entitled to use the surplus for the crown; (3) the priests were in secular suits to be responsible to secular courts; (4) the Gospel should be read in the schools. The king asked the bishops in person to surrender their castles, to which demand they all agreed.
We may feel inclined to smile upon the drastic manner in which Gustavus enacted this important drama of Revolution, but must bear in mind his solitary position. He had no statesmen of ability at his side, nor men of great intellect and power to sustain him. He stood alone, and few knew as yet his superior qualities as a statesman and an organizer. The tame opposition, soon yielding to the appeals of the burghers and peasants, can only be explained through lack of leaders. Ture Jœnsson (Tre Rosor), the aristocratic chief of the opposition, was a vain and cowardly man. Bishop Brask, the head of the clergy, was old and more of a diplomatist than a man of action. The latest stanch Romanist, he gave up his cause, finding a pretext to leave the country and dying in his self-imposed exile. The ecclesiastical reforms were definitively arranged at a church meeting at Œrebro in the following year.
