ABSTRACT
On 17 August 1621, the young Gustav Adolf disembarked from his warfleet at Pernau, which had been in Swedish hands for a mere four years. It was nearly a decade since his accession, a difficult decade which gave little indication of what was to follow. Gustav Adolf, it is true, had stabilised the turbulent political situation he inherited from his irascible father, but the price of appeasing the aristocratic families Charles had so alienated was the acceptance of an accession charter which extended the nobility's social and economic privileges and secured the Council's position at the heart of government. Sweden, still fighting in Muscovy, now faced a challenge from Denmark. Although Christian IV made little progress in the War of Kalmar (1611-13), he seized Alvsborg, for whose return Sweden was forced to pay one million riksda1ers. Despite the capture of Novgorod by Jakob de 1a Gardie in 1611, the Swedish war effort in Muscovy faltered: the 1615 siege of Pskov was abandoned, and the Swedish gains at Stolbovo (1617) were due more to Muscovite exhaustion than Swedish strength.
