ing between Sweden and the Hanseatic Towns. When
Christiern fled from Denmark, Gotland was under the control of Norby,
who continued after his master's fall to make depredations along the
coast of Sweden and seize all merchantmen that came within his grasp.
Danish, Swedish, and Hanse vessels were alike his prey, till Gotland
came to be known by all as a "nest of robbers." Fredrik and Lubeck,
unwilling though they were that Gotland should fall to Sweden, welcomed
any movement intended to root out this impediment to the Baltic trade,
and raised no opposition when Gustavus offered, in the winter of 1524,
to attack the island in the coming spring. The attitude of Fredrik to
Gustavus recalls the fable of the monkey and the cat. The Danish king
hoped ultimately to secure the chestnuts for himself, but in the mean
time was not sorry to see an army gathering in Sweden to bear the brunt
of the assault. Which party first proposed an expedition against Gotland
is not clear.[89] At the general diet held in Vadstena in January,
representatives from Fredrik were present, and it was agreed that the
expedition should be made as soon as the harbors opened. The quotas to
be furnished by the different parts of Sweden by the first week after
Easter were also fixed. The Danish envoys, it appears, made no promises
except that a congress of the two realms should be held on the 14th of
February to settle all matters of dispute. The passports for the Danish
envoys to this convention were issued by Gustavus on the spot. They were
never used, however; for just before the appointed day he received
notice from the Danish Cabinet that they wished the congress to be
postponed. This action caused Brask to suspect that Fredrik's sole
object was to use up time. Whatever Fredrik's object, the congress could
not be held without him. Gustavus therefore postponed it till the end of
April, and set about raising an army for himself.[90]

The first person to whom the monarch turned was Bishop Brask. It appears
that there had been some dispute between the bishop and one of the
hospitals in his diocese as to the tithes from certain lands. The shrewd
monarch conceived the notion that the simplest mode of settling the
dispute was to hand the disputed property over to the crown. He wrote,
therefore, to both parties to send him at once the original documents on
which they based their claims. "And meantime," he said, "we forbid you
positively to collect the disputed t