ABSTRACT
We have now to consider the form taken by the Reformation in certain States of which hitherto we have said nothing. We begin with Scandinavia, where the reform represents the only victory obtained by Lutheranism outside Germany. In 1520 the three kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were held in an ill-defined union under Christian II. Their unity was broken as the result of the massacre known as the ‘Stockholm blood-bath'. Christian had had to fight for his position in Sweden, and had been assisted by an excommunication pronounced against his enemies under the authority of Pope Leo X. When he had gained the victory and was actually being crowned, he broke the terms of an amnesty and imprisoned the leaders who had opposed him. At their trial they were asked the simple question whether men who had fought against the Pope and the Holy Roman Church were not heretics, and when they assented they were ruthlessly butchered to the number of about a hundred, including both ecclesiastics and laymen. The natural result was a revolt, which ended by placing its leader, Gustavus Vasa, on the throne of Sweden. Gustavus’s need of money for the organisation of his kingdom led him to make repeated inroads on the wealth of the Church, which was the greatest landowner in the country. Matters came to a crisis in 1527 when the Diet of Westeras refused to permit this spoliation to continue. ‘Then', said Gustavus, ‘pay me back what I have expended in your service and I will never return to this ungrateful country of mine', and he suited his action to the words by striding out of the assembly. The Diet knew that they could not do without him and capitulated, leaving him a free hand.
