476 



GUSTAVUS VASA 



GUSTAVUS III. 



guard,' as they designated Gustavus and his small 

 army. The King now advanced into Franconia, 

 and, after allowing hL; army to recruit their strength 

 in the rich bishoprics of Wiirzburg and Bamberg, 

 took the Palatinate and Mainz, where he held a 

 splendid court, surrounded by numerous princes and 

 ambassadors. In the April of 1632 the Swedes, in 

 the face of Tilly's army, crossed the Lech and 

 gained a decisive victory, whence Tilly was carried 

 to Ingolstadt to die. From thence the march to 

 Munich was one continued triumph, and wherever 

 Gustavus appeared he was received by the populace 

 as their guardian angel. The road to Vienna was 

 now open to him, and the fate of the emperor would 

 have been sealed had the latter not recalled his 

 haughty general, Wallenstein, who, having accepted 

 office on his own terms, gathered together a large 

 and heterogeneous army of 60,000 men, and ad- 

 vanced on Nuremberg, where he entrenched himself 

 strongly. After withstanding a desperate assault of 

 the Swedes lie was obliged to retire into Thuringia. 

 The unfavourable season, the bad roads, and the 

 cautious dispositions of Wallenstein hindered 

 Gustavus from attacking the imperialists as soon 

 as he intended, but on November 6, 1632, the 

 two armies came finally face to face at Liitzen, 

 ten miles to the south-west of Leipzig. A thick 

 fog lay close upon the ground. The Swedes 

 gathered to morning prayer to the music of 

 Luther's noble hymn, ' Eine feste Burg ist unser 

 Gott. ' About eleven the mist cleared off, and 

 Gustavus gave his last orders to his generals. 

 Waving his sword above his head he cried ' For- 

 wards,' and rode to meet the enemy at the head 

 of the cavalry on the right wing. His eager troops 

 soon broke the imperial lines, but Wallenstein 

 bringing up his reserves drove back the Swedish 

 infantry in the centre. Gustavus hastened too 

 eagerly to the rescue, and, in the thick fog which 

 had again descended, was separated from the 

 cavalry he had ordered to follow him, and rode 

 almost alone into a squadron of Croats. A shot 

 passed through his horse's neck, another shattered 

 his left arm, a third struck him in the back, and 

 he fell heavily to the ground. A cuirassier riding 

 up asked who was there. ' I was the king of 

 Sweden,' murmured the dying king, whereupon 

 the soldier shot him through the head. Bernhard 

 of Weimar took up the command, while on the 

 enemy's side Pappenheim's cavalry came up to 

 take their part in the battle. The Swedes burned 

 to revenge their king and fought with a fury 

 that was irresistible. Hour after hour the battle 

 swayed uncertainly, till at length, when Pappen- 

 heim had fallen and his artillery had been taken, 

 Wallenstein drew his men off the field and left 

 their hard-won victory to the Swedes. The body 

 of Gustavus was recovered and laid to rest in the 

 Riddarholm church at Stockholm. 



So fell the great hero of the Thirty Years' War, and 

 with him perished all hope of a speedy ending to 

 the fatal struggle, and the establishment of a durable 

 peace in Germany. His Corpus Evangelicorum was 

 a noble imagination, and would have built up a 

 Protestant power around the shores of the Baltic so 

 strong as to defy all attack. But it is more than 

 probable that a foreigner even so disinterested as 

 himself might have failed to overcome the in- 

 stinctive cohesiveness of even a divided Germany, 

 and if so, he was happy in the accident of death on 

 the field of victory, leaving behind him a deathless 

 glory undimmed by failure. 



See books on Gustavus Adolphus by J. L. Stevens 

 (1885), Trench (new ed. 1886), C. R. L. Fletcher (1890), 

 Colonel R. A. Dodge ( New York, 1896 ), and other works 

 cited at THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 



Gustavus Vasa (Gustavus I.), king of Sweden 

 from 1523 to 1560, was born in 1496, of a noble 



house closely allied to the Sturo family, his own 

 family name being Ericson. Still a boy, he 

 became involved in the patriotic struggle with 

 Christian of Denmark, and was treacherously 

 carried off to Denmark, there to be kept in con- 

 finement with other nobles as hostages. After 

 a year he escaped in disguise to Liibeck, thence 

 to Sweden, where he went about from place to 

 place striving, with great danger to himself, and 

 with but little success, to rouse up a spirit of resist- 

 ance against the Danes. At length he had to 

 retreat to Dalecarlia, where he wandered for 

 several months, in poverty and disguise, with a 

 price set on his head, working with his hands on 

 the farms and in the mines. At last the in- 

 famous 'Blood-bath' of Stockholm (1520) roused 

 the slumbering fury of the Swedes, and gave 

 Gustavus the opportunity he longed for. The 

 hardy miners of Dalecarlia mustered round him, 

 and ere long he had an army large enough to attack 

 the enemy. One by one the strong places fell into 

 his hands, and the capture of Stockholm in 1523 

 finally drove the Danes from the soil of Sweden. 

 Thus fell the great Scandinavian union which had 

 survived the treaty of Calmar (1397) for 126 years. 

 At the diet of Strengnas that same year Gustavus 

 was elected king. Thenceforward he strove with 

 unceasing zeal to heal the wounds of his unhappy 

 country. He found the peasantry restless and 

 disaffected, the Romish clergy wealthy, corrupt, 

 and unpatriotic, the Lutheran party too eager to 



Sush their dogmas by force, and the whole country 

 emoralised without respect to law or religion. 

 Yet after forty years' rule he left Sweden a peaceful 

 and civilised realm, with a full exchequer, and with 

 a well-organised army of 15,000 men and a good 

 fleet both his own creations. He promoted trade 

 at home and abroad, fostered schools and colleges, 

 made commercial treaties with foreign nations, 

 and established fairs for foreign traders, while he 

 opened up roads, bridges, and canals throughout 

 the country. In his relations with his subjects 

 Gustavus was firm, and sometimes severe, but 

 seldom unjust, except in his dealings towards the 

 Romish clergy, whom he despoiled with something 

 like rapacity of all their lands and funds. On the 

 other hand he did much to promote the cause 

 of Lutheranism ; although he took care that the 

 reformed clergy should be dependent on the crown, 

 and enjoy only very moderate emoluments. To 

 him the Lapps were indebted for the diffusion of 

 Christianity among them by Lutheran mission- 

 aries ; the Finns for the first works of instruction 

 parts of the Bible and hymn-books printed in their 

 own language. Gustavus was methodical, just, 

 moral, and abstemious in his mode of life his 

 character altogether admirable but for a touch of 

 avarice. He was three times married, had ten 

 children, and died 29th September 1560, his eldest 

 son, Eric, being his successor according to the 

 treaty of Westerns (1544), which made the crown 

 hereditary. The best memoir is that by Fryxell 

 Ger. trans. Leben und Thaten Gustavs I, Wasa 

 (1831). See also Alberg's Gustavus Vasa and his 

 Stirring Times (Lond. 1882), and Paul Barren 

 Watson's book, The Swedish Revolution under 

 Gustavus Vasa (1889). 



Gustavus III., king of Sweden, was born in 

 1746, and succeeded his father, Adolph Frederick, 

 in 1771. At that time Sweden was ruled by an 

 oligarchy of the nobles. The first task Gustavus 

 set himself after his accession was to break their 

 power and bring the supreme authority into his 

 own hands ; and this task he accomplished by 

 means of a feigned revolt. Being of an energetic 

 temperament and possessing a considerable share 

 of political sagacity, Gustavus now laboured hard, 

 and laboured successfully, for the progress of his 



