Constable. You must, Your Highness!

Gustaf. What's that?

Constable. First of all: Brask is in correspondence with the Pope
to have the inquisition established here. Luebeck is insisting on her
shameless demands and threatens war. The treasury is empty. There is
rebellion in every nook and corner of the country--

Gustaf. That's enough! But I have the people with me.

Constable. I beg your pardon--you have not. There are the Dalecarlians,
for instance--a spoiled lot, always disputing with those of Luebeck about
the honor of having bestowed a king on Sweden. They are ready to rebel
on the slightest occasion, and they are coming forward with demands like
these: "There shall be no outlandish customs used, with slittered and
motley colored clothes, such as have of late been brought into the
King's court."

Gustaf. 'Sdeath!

Constable. "Whosoever eats meat on Fridays or Saturdays shall be burned
at the stake or otherwise made away with." And furthermore, "There
shall be no new faith or Lutheran teachings foisted upon us." What a
treacherous, impudent people!

Gustaf. And yet there was a time when they showed themselves to be men.

Constable. Well, what wonder if they carried water when their house was
afire? How many times have they broken troth and faith? But they have
so often heard themselves lauded that they have come to give the name of
"old Swedish honesty" to their own brute arrogance.

Gustaf. You belong to the nobility!

Constable. Yes, and it is my conviction that the peasant has played out
his part--the part of a crude force needed to drive away the enemy
by sheer strength of arm. Crush the Church, Your Highness, for it is
keeping the people in fetters. Seize the gold of the Church and pay the
country's debt--and give back to the reduced nobility what the Church
has obtained from it by dupery.

Gustaf. Call in Brask.

Constable. Your Highness!

Gustaf. Call Bishop Brask! [Exit the Constable.]

[Enter Bishop Brask.]

Gustaf. Speak, Your Grace!

Brask. I wish to offer our congratulations on--

Gustaf. I thank Your Grace! And what more?

Brask. There have been complaints from several districts, I am sorry
to say, about unpaid loans of silver exacted from the churches by Your
Highness.

Gustaf. Which you now are trying to recover. Are all the chalices
actually needed for communion?

Brask. They are.

Gustaf Let them use pewter mugs, then.

Brask. Your Highness!

Gustaf. Anything mo