of God give him no heed. He has made statements about us, we are
told, which are absolutely false; among others, that we are about to
restore Trolle to his archbishopric,--the man who deprived us of father
and mother and threw our kingdom into ruin. As we have called a diet to
be held in January, to investigate these charges among other things, we
request you at that time or earlier to send representatives from every
parish to judge between us; and we hereby promise the said Sunnanvaeder
safe-conduct to and from Stockholm for this investigation. You may make
this proclamation to him; and if he will not come, you may know that he
is false.... Further, since we are informed that you are suffering from
great lack of salt, we have just despatched to you between ten and
twenty cargoes of salt to relieve your want."[99]

While Gustavus was thus dickering with the Dalesmen, a far more weighty
matter kept him continually on an anxious seat at home. This was the
Reformation of the Romish Church. It has been already noted that the
Swedish Reformation was a political revolt, and at its outset had but
little connection with theological dispute. The conflagration that had
raged in Germany since 1519 produced no immediate effect in Sweden, and
it was not till the spring of 1523 that the Swedish prelates felt real
dread of Martin Luther. The father of the Swedish Reformation was Olaus
Petri, a blacksmith's son, of Oerebro. From his earliest years this
champion of Luther had been educated by a pious father for the Romish
Church. His childhood had been passed amid the religious influence of a
monastery in his native town. There, with his younger brother
Laurentius, he had shared the daily routine of a monk. When a mere boy
his father, little knowing the temptation to which his son would be
exposed, had placed him in the University of Wittenberg, where he sat
for some years at the feet of Luther. On his return to Sweden in 1519,
he was appointed to give instructions in the Bible to the youth of
Strengnaes. Though only twenty-two, he already showed such promise that
within a year he was chosen deacon of Strengnaes, and placed at the head
of the school belonging to the Chapter. The opportunity thus given him
was great. The bishopric being vacant, the charge of things in Strengnaes
fell upon Laurentius Andreae, at the time archdeacon. Andreae, though
fifteen years his senior, was of a kindred spirit, and by a contemporary
is described as a w