170 VENGEANCE ON THE DEAD. 



beside himself. He commanded the body of the deceased 

 Regent, Sten Sture the younger, and that of his child, who 

 had perished during the siege of Stockholm, to be exhumed. 

 It is said, indeed, that in his fury, he actually tore a piece 

 of flesh with his teeth from the mouldering remains of his 

 former enemy. He even permitted Archbishop Trolle to 

 disinter the corpse of the venerable Marten Jonsson, who, 

 when secretary to the Regent, had mortally offended him. 

 The worthy couple having thus glutted their vengeance, the 

 three bodies were consigned to the flames along with the rest 

 of the so-called heretics ! 



Poor Kristina, the relic of the Regent, whose fate had been 

 suspended for a time, was now summoned to the presence, 

 and told she was to die; the choice being given her, either 

 to be drowned, burnt, or buried alive ! On hearing her 

 dreadful doom, the broken-hearted woman swooned away, 

 and dropped senseless on the floor. But the prayers of the 

 spectators, her own tears, or what is far more probable, her 

 great riches, at length mollified the Tyrant, and her life was 

 spared. 



Her mother, however, Sigrid Baner, who by a previous 

 marriage was grandmother to Gustavus Vasa, was thrust 

 into a sack and cast into the river ; but some of the by- 

 standers undertaking to secure her wealth to Christian, he 

 caused her to be rescued from a watery grave. 



Though thus saved from drowning, she and her two 

 daughters the above-named Kristina, and Cecilia, the mo- 

 ther of Gustavus together with two of Gustavus' sisters, 

 noble and distinguished ladies, were carried as hostages into 

 Denmark, and confined in that horrible prison, the Blue 

 Tower, where the greater part, including the mother and 



