ricts. The king's design had been made
manifest before the diet met; for on the previous Sunday, at a banquet
given by him to the delegates already arrived in Vesteras, he had taken
especial pains to show the bishops that their temporal supremacy was at
an end. Despising every venerated custom, he had ranged about himself
the higher members of the nobility, and had consigned the bishops to an
inferior position. The affront thus put upon them galled them to the
quick, and on the following day they held a secret meeting to discuss
their wrongs. All of the bishops present excepting Brask discerned the
hopelessness of their cause, and advocated a humble submission to the
monarch's will. But Brask was boiling over with indignation. He sprang
to his feet and shouted that they must be mad. If the king wanted to
deprive them of their rights by force, he might do so. But they ought
never to consent to such a course, lest they might thereby offend the
Holy See. In times gone by, princes had frequently attempted the same
thing that Gustavus was attempting now, but the thunders of the Vatican
had always overwhelmed them. If the bishops now should fall away from
their allegiance to the pope, their only refuge would be gone. They
would become mere puppets of the king, afraid to speak a word in favor
of their old prerogatives. These sentiments of Brask's were listened to
with favor. The warmth with which he spoke produced its natural effect,
and before the prelates parted they drew up a set of "protests," as they
called them, agreeing never to abandon the pope or accept a single
article of Luther's teaching. To these "protests" the prelates all
attached their seals; and fifteen years afterward the document was
discovered under the floor of Vesteras Cathedral, with all the seals
attached.[155]

Directly following this secret session of the prelates, the general diet
assembled in the grand hall of the monastery. The proceedings opened
with a laborious address from Gustavus,--his secretary, Laurentius
Andreae, acting as spokesman for the king. This address reviewed the
entire history of the monarch's reign. He began by thanking his subjects
for their presence at the diet, and went on to remind them that he had
already more than once expressed his willingness to resign the crown.
Nothing had induced him to retain it except their earnest prayer. He had
therefore striven, night and day, to promote the welfare of his people,
and in return fo