When it was seen that the Danes were not invincible, the whole country rose, took the scattered castles, and put their defenders to the sword.  Gustav bore the rising on his shoulders from first to last.  He was everywhere, ordering and leading.  His fiery eloquence won over the timorous; his irresistible advance swept every obstacle aside.  In May he took Upsala; by midsummer he was besieging Stockholm itself.  Most of the other cities were in his hands.  The Hanse towns had found out what this Gustav could do at home.  They sang his praise, but as for backing him with their purse, that was another matter.  They refused to lend Gustav two siege-guns when he lay before Stockholm, though he offered to pledge a castle for each.  He had no money.  Happily his enemy, Christian, was even worse off.  Neither pledges nor promises could get him the money he needed.  His chief men were fighting among themselves and made peace only to turn upon him.  Within a year after the Swedish people had chosen Gustav Vasa to be Regent at the Diet of Vadstena, Christian went into exile and, when he tried to get his kingdom back, into prison, where he languished the rest of his life.  He fully deserved his fate.  Yet he meant well and had done some good things in his day.  Had he been able to rule himself, he might have ruled others with better success.  Schoolboys remember with gratitude that he forbade teachers to “spank their pupils overmuch and without judgment, as was their wont.”

At the Diet of Vadstena the people had offered Gustav the crown, but he put it from him.  Scarce eight months had passed since he hid under the bridge, hunted and starving.  When Stockholm had fallen after a siege of two years and all Sweden was free, the people met (1523) and made him King, whether or no.  He still objected, but gave in at last and was crowned.

Popular favor is fickle.  Hard times came that were not made easier by Gustav’s determination to fill the royal coffers, and the very Dalecarlians who had put him in the high seat rose against him and served notice that if things did not mend they would have none of him.  Gustav made sure that they had no backing elsewhere, then went up and persuaded them to be good by cutting off the heads of their leaders, who both happened to be priests:  one was even a bishop.  He had been taught in a school that always found an axe ready to hand.  Let those who lament the savagery of modern warfare consider what happened then to a Danish fleet that tried to bring relief to hard-pressed Stockholm.  It was beaten in a fight in which six hundred men were taken prisoners.  They were all, say the accounts, “tied hand and foot and flung overboard amid the beating of drums and blowing of trumpets to drown their cries.”  The clergy fared little better than the laymen in that age, but then it was their own fault.  In plotting and scrapping they were abreast of the worst and took the consequences.