he summer of 1539, when Stockholm was ravaged by an epidemic of a
virulent disease known as "the English sweat."

The first scene of the fifth act is laid on New Year's Eve, 1539, when
Olof and Lars Andersson were arrested and charged with high treason for
not having informed the proper authorities of a plot against the King's
life. This plot was an old story, having been exposed and punished
in 1536. Their defence was that they had learned of it through secret
confession, which they as ministers had no right to reveal. The trial
took only two days, and on January 2, 1540, both were sentenced to
death.

The second scene of the final act must be laid in the spring of 1540, as
the ceremony of confirmation has generally taken place about Easter ever
since the Swedish church became Lutheran.

While, in the main, Strindberg made the events of his play accord
with what was accepted as historical fact when he wrote, there are
anachronisms and inaccuracies to be noted, although to none of them
can be attached much importance. When, in the first and second acts, he
represents the Anabaptist leaders, Rink and Knipperdollink, as then
in Stockholm and actually introduces one of them on the stage, he has
merely availed himself of a legend which had been accepted as truth
for centuries, and which has been exploded only by recent historical
research. We know now that Rink and Knipperdollink could never have been
in Sweden, but we know also that a German lay preacher named Melchior
Hofman appeared at Stockholm about the time indicated in the play, and
that, in 1529, another such preacher, named Tilemann, made Olof himself
the object of his fierce invectives. These instances serve, in fact, to
prove how skilfully Strindberg handled his historical material. He is
never rigid as to fact, but as a rule he is accurate in spirit. Another
instance of this kind is found in the references in the first act to the
use of Swedish for purposes of worship. It is recorded--and by himself,
I think--that Olof once asked his mother whether she really understood
the Latin prayers, since she was so very fond of them. She answered:
"No, I don't understand them, but when I hear them I pray devoutly to
God that they may please Him, which I don't doubt they do."

On the other hand, what maybe regarded as rather an awkward slip is
found in the first scene of the fifth act, where Gert cries exultantly
to Olof: "You don't know that Thomas Muenster has establi