SWEDEN. $5 



able to the national prosperity. The Swedes perished in the dis- 

 sensions between their prelates and lay-barons, or between those and 

 their sovereign ; they were drained of tne little riches they possessed, 

 to support the indolent pomp of a lew magnificent bishops ; and, what 

 was still more fatal, the unlucky situation of their internal affairs ex- 

 posed them to the inroads and oppression of a foreign enemy. These 

 were the Danes, who, by their neighbourhood and power, were always 

 able to avail themselves of the dissensions of Sweden ; and to subject 

 under a foreign yoke a country weakened and exhausted by its domes- 

 tic oroils. In this deplorable situation Sweden remained for more 

 than two centuries; sometimes under a nominal subjection to its own 

 princes, sometimes united to the kingdom of Denmark, and in either 

 case equally oppressed and insulted. 



Magnus Ladislaus, crowned in 1276, seems to have been the first 

 king oi Sweden who pursued a regular system to increase his 

 authority. He was one of the ablest princes who ever sat on the 

 Swedish throne. By his art and address he prevailed upon the con- 

 vention of estates to make very extraordinary grants to him for the 

 support of his royal dignity. The augmentation of the revenues of 

 the crown was naturally followed by a proportionable increase of the 

 regal power : and whilst, by the steady and vigorous exertion of this 

 power, Magnus" humbled the haughty spirit of the nobles, and created 

 in the rest of the nation a respect for the royal dignity, with which 

 they appear before to have been but little acquainted, he at the same 

 time, by employing his authority in many respects for the public good, 

 reconciled nis subjects to acts of power which in former monarchs 

 they would have opposed with the utmost violence. The succes- 

 sors of Magnus did not maintain their authority with equal ability ; 

 and several commotions and revolutions followed, which threw the 

 nation into great confusion. 



In the yfar 1387, Margaret daughter of Valdemar king of Den~ 

 mark, and widow of Huguin, king of Norway, reigned in both these 

 kingdoms. That princess, to the ordinary ambition of her sex, added 

 a penetration and enlargement of mind, which rendered her capable 

 of conducting the greatest and most complicated designs. She has 

 been called the Semiramis of the North, because, like Semiramis, she 

 found means to reduce by arms, or by intrigue, an immense extent 

 of territory ; and became queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 

 being elected to the throne of the latter in 1364. She projected the 

 union of Calmar, so famous in the North ; by which these kingdoms 

 were for the future to remain under one sovereign, elected by- each 

 kingdom in its turn, and who should divide his residence between 

 them all. Several revolutions ensued after the death of Margaret ; 

 and at length Christian II, the last king of Denmark, who, by virtue 

 of the treaty of Calmar, was also king of Sweden, engaged in a 

 scheme to render himself entirely absolute. The barbarous policy 

 by which he attempted to effect this design proved the destruction of 

 himself, and afforded an opportunity for changing the face of affairs 

 in Sweden. In order to establish his authority in that kingdom, he 

 laid a plot for massacreing the principal nobility; and this horrid 

 design was actually carried into execution, Nov. 8, 1520. Of all 

 those who could oppose the despotic purposes of Christian, no one 

 remained in Sweden but Gustavus Vasa, a young prince descended 

 from the ancient kings of that country, and who had already signalis- 

 ed his arms against the king of Denmark. An immense price was 



