Gustav Vasa Elected King — Sweden Leaves the Kalmar Union
Gustav Vasa was elected King of Sweden on 6 June 1523, ending the Kalmar Union and founding a dynasty that ruled for over a century. The union had joined Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch since 1397, and the Danish kings had spent most of that time trying to make it real against Swedish resistance. Christian II of Denmark took Stockholm in 1520 and was crowned. Days later, having promised an amnesty, he had some eighty Swedish nobles, bishops and burghers tried for heresy and beheaded in the main square — the Stockholm Bloodbath. Gustav's father was among them, and his mother and sisters died in Danish captivity. Gustav, who had escaped from hostage-hold in Denmark the previous year, went to Dalarna to raise the province. The story that the miners refused him and then sent skiers after him when news of the massacre arrived is the origin of the Vasaloppet ski race. He fought a three-year war of independence with Dalecarlian peasants and Lübeck's money and ships, and was elected king at Strängnäs. His reign then did two things that lasted. He broke with Rome in 1527, not from conviction but because the crown was heavily in debt to Lübeck and the church owned perhaps a fifth of the land — the confiscation made the monarchy solvent and made Sweden Lutheran. And in 1544 he made the crown hereditary, ending the elective monarchy that had produced a century of instability. He also commissioned the Swedish Bible, which fixed the written language.
- Year: 1523 CE
- Category: Political
