peasantry were soon
blasted. In the next year Engelbrekt was murdered by a Swedish magnate,
and by a general diet Karl Knutsson, another magnate, was chosen to fill
his place. King Erik was now tottering to his fall. He was no longer
king in anything but name. His fall, however, benefited only the
magnates of the realm. By a general diet of 1438, to which all people in
the realm were called, Knutsson was elected regent. But his reign came
in the next year to an untimely end. His fellow-magnates, jealous of his
power, forced him to lay it down; and in 1440 the Cabinet called Erik's
nephew, Christopher of Bavaria, already king of Denmark, to the Swedish
throne. Thus ended the first effort of the Swedish peasantry to throw
off the Danish yoke. It had begun with high promises for the people, but
had ended in the restoration of the Cabinet to all its former power.
From this time forth the Cabinet was again practically the governing
body in the realm. But it was no longer at unity with itself. One party,
led by the great house of Oxenstjerna, was for preserving the Union. The
other consisted of the adherents of Karl Knutsson, who hoped to put the
crown on his own head. In 1448 King Christopher died, and, in the
difference of feeling which reigned, the Cabinet called a general diet
of all the magnates with representatives from the peasantry and
burghers, that the people at large might choose of the two evils that
which pleased them best. The result was that Karl Knutsson was elected
king. From this time till his death, in 1470, he was in perpetual
warfare with the king of Denmark, with the Swedish priesthood, who had
now grown fat under Danish rule and wished to continue so, and with the
hostile party among the magnates. Twice he was forced to lay down the
crown only to take it up again. Throughout his reign, though in some
regards a despot, he was, at all events, the champion of the Swedish
magnates as opposed to those who favored the continuance of foreign
rule. In 1470 he died, after having intrusted Stockholm Castle to his
nephew, Sten Sture. The dissension that now reigned throughout the land
was great. On one side were the powerful Vasa and Oxenstjerna families,
striving to put Christiern I. of Denmark on the throne. On the other
side was Sten Sture, the Tott, Gyllenstjerna, Bonde, Bjelke, and Natt
och Dag families, supported by the burgher element in Stockholm and the
peasantry of Dalarne. With such odds on their side th