Robert Nisbet Bain

“ From the very beginning of his reign Eric’s morbid fear of the upper classes drove him to give his absolute confidence to a man of base origin and bad character, though, it must be admitted, of superior ability. ”

“ The death penalty was commuted into a punishment worse because more shameful than death. On the 15th of June 1566 the unfortunate youth, bruised and bleeding from shocking ill-treatment, was placed upon a wretched hack, with a crown of straw on his head, and led in derision through the streets of Stockholm. The following night he was sent a prisoner to the fortress of Örbyhus. A few days later he was appointed ambassador extraordinary, and despatched to Lorraine to resume the negotiations for Eric’s marriage with the princess Renata. ”

“ He hastened back to Stockholm, after burying his father, summoned a Riksdag, which met at Arboga on the 15th of April 1561, and adopted the royal propositions known as the Arboga articles, considerably curtailing the authority of the royal dukes, John and Charles, in their respective provinces. Two months later Eric was crowned at Upsala, on which occasion he first introduced the titles of baron and count into Sweden, by way of attaching to the crown the higher nobility, these new counts and barons receiving lucrative fiefs adequate to the maintenance of their new dignities. ”