The evangelical archbishop was not the only man in Sweden whose life was threatened; the king was threatened also. The Hanse towns, with Lübeck at their head, desirous of regaining the influence which they had so long held in the North, allied themselves for this purpose with Denmark, and opened a correspondence with the Germans who were very numerous at Stockholm. The powerful Hanseatic fleet was thus to find in the very capital of its enemies trusty agents who pledged themselves to deliver up to it the town. But the scheme was detected; and Gustavus, who never hesitated when the business was to strike those who intended to strike himself, ordered the Germans and the Swedes who had taken part in the treacherous designs of the Hanseatics to be put to death. These events created great excitement throughout Sweden, especially at Stockholm. It was given out that the Germans had intended to bring gunpowder into the church and place it under the king’s seat, and then explode it during divine service. It was a _Gunpowder Plot_; but in this case the king was to be attacked, not while discharging his political functions, but at the moment when he was offering to God the worship in spirit and in truth which the Gospel requires. This story, however, might be nothing more than one of those reports which circulate among the public, without any other foundation than the general blind excitement which gives birth to the wildest rumors. These events occurred in the year 1536.[476]
[Sidenote: Infringement Of Religious Freedom.]
Gustavus, having escaped the dangers with which his enemies threatened him, went forward in his work with a firmer step. Endowed with a peremptory and energetic character, he even took some steps of too bold a kind, and seemed to aim at commanding the Church as he would an army. Olaf and the other reformers began to perceive that the king was assuming an authority in matters of religion which infringed on Christian freedom. After the Diet of Westeraas, he had not only taken their castles from the prelates, which was a quite legitimate measure, but he had further taken the Church with the castles, and had confiscated the ecclesiastical foundations for the benefit of the crown; while the reformers had hoped to see their revenues applied to the establishment of schools and other useful institutions. Evangelical Christians were asking one another whether they had cast off the yoke of the pope in order to take up that of the king. It seemed to be the intention of Gustavus to defer indefinitely the complete reformation of Sweden. After the council of Orebro, Olaf had entered upon the prudential course which the king insisted on; but it appeared to him that he must now courageously advance in the paths of truth and freedom. In his judgment, the work of the Reformation would be undone if it were allowed to crystallize in the midst of branches, images, holy water, and tapers. The young preachers supported him, and earnestly called for the suppression of those rites, the plainest effect of which was to keep up superstition among the people. Some of them even uttered complaints from the pulpit that the royal authority obliged them to do or to tolerate acts contrary to their consciences.