iged to restore to the king
certain property which he unjustly held, and he vented his feelings
bitterly against the heretic and tyrant, as he called him. In fact, he
hatched a conspiracy, which spread widely, through his influence, among
the nobles of West Gothland.

In Smaland there was much discontent with the teaching of the Lutheran
doctrines and an outbreak took place, the king's sister and her husband
being taken prisoners by the insurgents. These sent letters to Ture
Joensson in West Gothland, asking him to be their captain, and also wrote
to East Gothland, inciting the people to rise and expel their monarch.

Ture Joensson had three sons, one of them a distinguished soldier in the
king's service, while the second was a man high in the king's favor. The
old rebel had high hopes of aid from these two, and wrote them letters
inciting them to rebellion. But they were not to be drawn from their
allegiance, and took the letters with unbroken seals to the king,
promising to devote their lives to his cause.

The third son, Herr Goeran, dean in Upsala, was of different mold and
sentiment. Opposed to the king on religious grounds, he gathered a body
of peasant runaways, a hundred in number, and, afraid to stay in his
house, he took them to a wood in the neighborhood, felled trees for
barricades, and laid up a supply of provisions in his impromptu fort.

From there he proceeded to Bollnaes, gathering more men and growing
bolder, and fancying in his small soul that he was the destined leader of
a great rebellion. But his valor vanished when a priest of the vicinity,
named Erik, a man faithful to the king, called together a body of his
parishioners and marched against the would-be insurgent.

Dean Goeran was standing at a garret window when he saw these men
approaching. At once, with a most unsoldierlike panic, he rushed in
terror down stairs and fled through a back door into the forest, without
a word to his men of the coming danger. The house was surrounded and the
men made prisoners, the king's steward, whom they held captive, being
released. Erik spoke to them so severely of their disloyalty that they
fell on their knees in prayer and petition, and when he told them that
the best way to gain pardon for their act was to seek and deliver their
fugitive leader, they gladly undertook the task.

[Illustration: NORWEGIAN CARRIAGE CALLED STOLKJAEM.]

The scared leader of rebels meanwhile was wandering in anguish and alar