2 Reconquest of Sweden

Meanwhile Christian was preparing for the inevitable war with Sweden, where the patriotic party, headed by the freely elected Viceroy Sten Sture the Younger, stood face to face with the pro-Danish party under Archbishop Gustav Trolle .

Christian, who had already taken measures to isolate Sweden politically, hastened to the relief of the archbishop, who was beleaguered in his fortress of Stake, but was defeated by Sture and his peasant levies at Vedila and forced to return to Denmark. A second attempt to subdue Sweden in 1518 was also frustrated by Sture's victory at Brännkyrka. A third attempt made in 1520 with a large army of French, German and Scottish mercenaries proved successful.

Sture was mortally wounded at the battle of Bogesund , on January 19, and the Danish army, unopposed, was approaching Uppsala, where the members of the Swedish Privy Council, or Riksråd, had already assembled. The councillors consented to render homage to Christian on condition that he gave a full indemnity for the past and a guarantee that Sweden should be ruled according to Swedish laws and custom; and a convention to this effect was confirmed by the king and the Danish Privy Council on March 31.

Sture's widow, Dame Christina Gyllenstierna, still held out stoutly at Stockholm, and the peasantry of central Sweden, roused by her patriotism, flew to arms, defeated the Danish invaders at Balundsås on March 19, and were only with the utmost difficulty finally defeated at the bloody battle of Uppsala , on Good Friday, April 6, 1520.

In May the Danish fleet arrived, and Stockholm was invested by land and sea; but Dame Gyllenstierna, resisted valiantly for four months longer, and took care, when she surrendered on September 7, to exact beforehand an amnesty of the most explicit and absolute character. On November 1 the representatives of the nation swore fealty to Christian as hereditary king of Sweden, though the law of the land distinctly provided that the Swedish crown should be elective.

3 The Stockholm Bloodbath

On November 4, he was anointed by Gustavus Trolle in Stockholm Cathedral , and took the usual oath to rule the Realm through native-born Swedes alone, according to prescription. The next three days were given up to banqueting, but on November 7 "an entertainment of another sort began." On the evening of that day Christian summoned his captains to a private conference at the palace, the result of which was quickly apparent, for at dusk a band of Danish soldiers, with lanterns and torches, broke into the great hall and carried off several carefully selected persons.

By 10 o'clock the same evening the remainder of the king's guests were safely under lock and key. All these persons had previously been marked down on Archbishop Trolle's proscription list. On the following day a council, presided over by Trolle, solemnly pronounced judgment of death on the proscribed, as manifest heretics.

At 12 o'clock that night the patriotic bishops of Skara and Strängnäs were led out into the great square and beheaded. Fourteen noblemen, three burgomasters, fourteen town councillors and about twenty common citizens of Stockholm were then drowned or decapitated. The executions continued throughout the following day; in all, about eighty-two people are said to have been thus murdered.

Moreover, Christian revenged himself upon the dead as well as upon the living, for Sten Sture's body was dug up and burnt, as well as the body of his little child. Dame Christina and many other noble Swedish ladies were sent as prisoners to Denmark. It has well been said that the manner of this atrocious deed, the Stockholm Bloodbath as it is generally referred to, was even more detestable than the deed itself. The massacre and deeds in the Old Town of Stockholm is perhaps the primary reason why Christian is remembered in Sweden, as Christian the Tyrant.

Christian suppressed his political opponents under the pretense of defending an ecclesiastical system which in his heart he despised. Even when it became necessary to make excuses for his crime, we see the same double-standard. Thus, while in a proclamation to the Swedish people he represented the massacre as a measure necessary to avoid a papal interdict, in his apology to the Pope for the decapitation of the innocent bishops he described it as an unauthorized act of vengeance on the part of his own people.

4 Attempting reforms

It was with his brain teeming with great designs that Christian II returned to his native kingdom. That the welfare of his dominions was dear to him there can be no doubt. Inhuman as he could be in his wrath, in principle he was as much a humanist as any of his most enlightened contemporaries. But he would do things his own way; and deeply distrusting the Danish nobles with whom he shared his powers, he sought helpers from among the wealthy and practical middle classes of Flanders.

In June 1521 he paid a sudden visit to the Low Countries, and remained there for some months. He visited most of the large cities, took into his service many Flemish artisans, and made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Dürer, the latter of whom painted his portrait. Christian also entertained Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Reformation, and let fall the characteristic expression: "Mild measures are of no use; the remedies that give the whole body a good shaking are the best and surest."

Never had King Christian seemed so powerful as upon his return to Denmark on September 5, 1521, and, with the confidence of strength, he at once proceeded recklessly to inaugurate the most sweeping reforms. Soon after his return he issued his great Landelove, or Code of Laws. For the most part this is founded on Dutch models, and testifies in a high degree to the king's progressive aims. Provision was made for the better education of the lower, and the restriction of the political influence of the higher clergy; there were stern prohibitions against wreckers and "the evil and unchristian practice of selling peasants as if they were brute beasts"; the old trade guilds were retained, but the rules of admittance thereto made easier, and trade combinations of the richer burghers, to the detriment of the smaller tradesmen, were sternly forbidden.

Unfortunately these reforms, excellent in themselves, suggested the standpoint not of an elected ruler, but of a monarch by right divine. Some of them were even in direct contravention of the charter; and the old Scandinavian spirit of independence was deeply wounded by the preference given to the Dutch.

5 Downfall

Sweden too was now in open revolt; and both Norway and Denmark were taxed to the uttermost to raise an army for the subjection of the sister kingdom. Foreign complications were now added to these domestic troubles. With the laudable objective of releasing Danish trade from lhe grinding yoke of the Hanseatic League, and making Copenhagen the great emporium of the north, Christian had arbitrarily raised the Sound tolls and seized a number of Dutch ships which presumed to evade the tax.

Thus his relations with the Netherlands were strained, while with Lübeck and her allies he was openly at War. Finally Jutland rose against him, renounced its allegiance and offered the Danish crown to Duke Frederick of Holstein, January 20, 1523. So overwhelming did Christian's difficulties appear that he took ship to seek help abroad, and on May 1 landed at Veere in Zealand.

Eight years later, October 24, 1531 he attempted to recover his kingdoms, but a tempest scattered his fleet off the Norwegian coast, and on July 1, 1532, by the convention of Oslo, he surrendered to his rival, King Frederick, and for the next 27 years was kept in solitary confinement, first in the Blue Tower at Copenhagen, and afterwards at the castle of Kalundborg . He died in January 1559.

Preceded by: John	King of Denmark	Succeeded by: Frederick I
	King of Norway
Preceded by: Sten Sture the Younger	King of Sweden	Succeeded by: Gustav I

Christian II of Denmark Christian II of Denmark Christian 02 Christian 2 Christian 2 Christian 2

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