against what they deemed sacrilege, under the leadership of Mans Nilsson and Anders Persson of Rankhyttan, the very men who had befriended Gustav in his need, and the insurrection spread.  The “War of the Bells” was settled with the sword, and the peasants gave in.  But Gustav came of a stock that “never forgot.”  Two years later, when his hands were free at home, he suddenly invaded Dalecarlia with a powerful army, determined to “pull those weeds up by the roots.”  He summoned the peasants to Thing, made a ring around them of armed men, and gave them their choice: 

“Submit now for good and all,” he said, “or I will spoil the land so that cock shall not crow nor hound bark in it again forever!”

The frightened peasants fell on their knees and begged for mercy.  He made them give up their leaders, including his former friends, and they were all put to the sword.  After that there was peace in Dalecarlia.

Gustav Vasa’s long reign ended in 1560.  Like his enemy, Christian II, he was a strange mixture of contradictions.  He was brave in battle, wise in council, pious, if not a saint, clean, and merciful when mercy fitted into his plans.  His enemies called him a greedy, suspicious despot.  Greedy he was.  More than eleven thousand farms were confiscated by the crown during his reign, and he left four thousand farms and a great fortune to his children as his personal share.  But historians have called him “the great housekeeper” who found waste and loss and left an ordered household.  He gave all for Sweden, and all he had was at her call.  It was share and share alike, in his view.  Despotic he could be, too. L’etat c’est moi might have been said by him.  But he did not exploit the state; he built it.  He fashioned Sweden out of a bunch of quarrelsome provincial governments into a hereditary monarchy, as the best way—­indeed, the only way then—­of giving it strength and stability.  He was suspicious because everybody had betrayed him, or had tried to.  With all that, his steady purpose was to raise and enlighten his people and make them keep the peace, if he had to adopt the Irishman’s plan of keeping it himself with an axe.  He was the father of a line of great warriors.  Gustav Adolf was his grandson.

Bent under the burden of years, he bade his people good-by at the Diet of Stockholm, a few weeks before his death.  His old eloquence rings unimpaired in the farewell.  He thanked God, who had chosen him as His tool to set Sweden free from thralldom.  Almost might he liken himself to King David, whom God from a shepherd had made the leader of his people.  No such hope was in his heart when, forty years before, he hid in the woods from a bloodthirsty enemy.  For what he had done wrong as king, he asked the people’s pardon; it was not done on purpose.  He knew well that many thought him a hard ruler, but the time would come when they would gladly dig him up from his grave if they only could.  And with that he went out, bowing deeply to the Diet, the tears streaming down his face.