The war between Sweden and the coalition …
Years: 1567 - 1567
The war between Sweden and the coalition of Denmark and Lubeck has dragged on since 1563.
Eric XIV, the thirty-four-year-old Swedish king, has successfully repelled most Danish attempts of conquest, but has not not able to keep his own conquests.
The war, which is particularly bloody, has gone well for Sweden at sea but very badly on land, and becomes increasingly unpopular as Swedish towns are damaged and destroyed, and casualties mount.
As the aristocracy’s frustration with Eric’s reign become increasingly apparent, the King and his most trusted advisor, Jöran Persson, head of the King's network of spies, fear a new rebellion.
Eric, who at this stage is beginning to show signs of mental illness, decides to take action to prevent a rebellion and he invites those he suspects of plotting against him to Svartsjö Castle in May 1567.
Those suspected of being a threat to the King are arrested upon their arrival at the castle and they are tried in Uppsala with Persson leading the prosecutions.
All those tried are, unsurprisingly, found guilty and sentenced to death.
The last nobleman to arrive at Svartsjö is Nils Sture, a descendent of Christian II, who has only just returned from a diplomatic mission to Lorraine.
The King has long regarded Sture as the most dangerous nobleman in Sweden; in 1566, he had ordered Sture’s execution but ultimately decided against this and publicly humiliated him instead.
Sture is arrested on May 22; the following day, Eric murders him in his cell.
Following the murder, Persson manages to persuade a council of the nobility, who are unaware of Sture’s murder, that those who have been arrested are traitors and that the death penalty is therefore justified; the assent of the nobility means that the murder and the executions are legal.
The murder of Nils Sture, however, has a huge effect on Eric’s health.
Within weeks he is removed from the throne on grounds of insanity.
The regents elect to rule in place of Eric, decide to release Erik’s brother John from prison, and decide to arrest Persson for ordering the deaths of the prisoners in Uppsala; it has become apparent by this stage that those executed had been not traitors but victims of the King's increasing paranoia.
