9, 10.

    And at whose feet, when Heaven his toils repaid,
    His brightest wreaths the grateful Hero laid.

Many have attributed the efforts which Gustavus made use of to deliver his country, to ambition, and a desire of reigning.  Yet, since his elevation produced much good to Sweden, and no evil, it is surely allowable, if not just, to attribute them to a purer motive:  at any rate, a poet is at liberty to set his hero’s character in the fairest light he can, consistently with history.

14.

    By Treachery’s axe her slaughter’d senate bled.

Alluding to the celebrated massacre of Stockholm.  For an account of it, see notes on the Third Book.

15.

    And her brave chief was numbered with the dead.

Steen Sture, Poetice Stenon, was the son of Suante Sture, administrator of Sweden, who reduced John the Second of Denmark to conclude a treaty with him, and who is greatly extolled by historians for the extraordinary spirit, skill, and moderation, with which he governed a turbulent kingdom for many years.  Sture, though a young man, was admitted his successor, being duly elected on the 21st of July, 1513, after a violent struggle with his competitor, Eric Trolle, the senator, which laid the foundation of the enmity between him and Gustavus Trolle, the famous Primate of Sweden.  On that prelate’s arrival from Rome, however, he welcomed him to his see, and behaved to him in the most courteous manner.  This behaviour was repaid by Trolle with almost open hostility; but the young administrator had spirit enough to resist his encroachments.  Arcemboldi, the Pope’s Legate, and merchant of indulgences, when passing through Sweden, in execution of his gainful office, was well received by Sture, who encouraged him in his exactions, from a political motive, and even exempted him from the duty which former venders of indulgences had been accustomed to pay to the Kings and Governors of Sweden.  In the war commenced by Christiern the Second against Sweden, he signalized his courage and military talents on many occasions, and was killed in an engagement with Otho Crumpein’s army, near Bogesund in East Gothland.

Inferior to his father as an Administrator, he appears to have equalled him only in courage and the art of war.  He was one of those men who are born to adorn, though not defend, a declining state:  and, in the words of the French writer, was “fitter to command a party, than govern an empire.”  His death happened in the beginning of 1519.

18.

    ——­ ruthless Christiern ——­